Education
In Baltimore he attended a boys school with the banjo player Elmer Snowden.
In Baltimore he attended a boys school with the banjo player Elmer Snowden.
Both Snowden and Holiday played banjo with various Baltimore jazz bands, including the band of Eubie Blake. At the age of 17 years, Holiday became the unmarried father of Billie Holiday who was born to 19-year-old Sadie Harris. When he was 21 years old he moved from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
Clarence Holiday, died in 1937.
Suffering from exposure to mustard gas while serving in World War I, he became sick on tour in Texas and was refused treatment at the local hospital. By the time he was able to receive care on the Jim Crow ward of the Veterans Hospital, pneumonia had set in, and he died shortly after.
Two years later Billie Holiday recorded the song “Strange Fruit.”
Holiday also recorded with Benny Carter (1934) and Bob Howard (1935) and worked with Charlie Turner (1935), Louis Metcalf (1935-1936), and the Don Redman Big Band (1936-1937).
Holiday played rhythm guitar and banjo as a member of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (1928-1933).