Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday

When writing about American jazz, Donald Clarke's prose style is often that of the hip insider: he captures Billie Holiday's world in a way no other biography or study of the singer has managed to do. This is neither a straightforward narrative or a cautionary tale, and readers attempting to breeze through its pages in order to pick off the highlights may well be thrown by Clarke's casual story telling, which is given to warm-hearted floating asides, including descriptions of sessions and performances, and analysis of individual records, all of it interspersed with vivid and often lengthy comments from his interviewees. Clarke cares deeply for this woman, his patience seems inexhaustible, and his anger at the racism and stupidity of the times can make a page tremble without disrupting the cool assurance of his methods, but he also has a sense of humor in all this: you have to love a biography that gives the last word to pianist Jimmy Rowles, whose affectionate two page monologue ends with Billie tucked into bed with Chinese take-out and a bottle of gin for company.

Unlike other books this seems to have many more facts that fiction attached to it (if you take the author's word on that) and I see no reason not to. How great was she after still having a life like hers? It's amazing that she made it to age 44. I wish they would do another movie of her life. "Lady Sings The Blues", although acted very well by Diana Ross, was a fictional account of her life and should not be recognized as a biography of any kind (except that she had a drug problem). The only problem I had with this book was that at times it lacked continuity and was hard to follow. Still recommended though.

"Wishing on the Moon" by Donald Clarke, is an incredibly remarkable book. I was totally in awe how a man can capture every little detail of Billie Holiday's life, as well as those who were around her...those that new her the best and AT her best. He tells the truth in all of it's entirety. The information gathered to produce this book is very well written, for it gives the reader a set time that a certain event has taken place. He(the author) goes into a summary of each period to give the reader background information about people that played a part in her life. This form of writing helps the reader not only learn of the life and times of this great performer, but also helps the reader imagine what is going in her (Billie Holiday's) lifetime as you read. It's like a great movie fit into a little book!

Using interviews with friends/acquaintances and Holiday herself, Clarke has put to paper a methodically-researched and equally smartly distilled portrait of Holiday's life. The anecdotes, relayed in the tellers own speak, steal the show, giving true insight into Holiday's person.

Wishing on the Moon is a real find for Billie Holiday fans who would like to learn more about her. The book gives a lot of detail from interviews with people who knew and worked with her. At various points the author lovingly corrects errors in Billie's own ghost written autobiography "Lady Sings the Blues". Many of the chapters are as much detailed discography as biography. I really liked knowing who the musicians were who recorded with her on various songs. My only criticism is that I can't always find the page that I want to refer back to for song details. Definitely one of the best biographies I have read in the past few years