Billie Holiday – Good Morning Heartache (recorded January 22, 1946)

This classic featured Billie's boyfriend Joe Guy on trumpet and was later performed by Diana Ross in Lady Sings The Blues.

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On January 22, 1946, Billie Holiday was at Decca Studios in New York City recording her classic song “Good Morning Heartache.”

It was only two years after Holiday had been signed to Decca by A&R rep Milt Gabler, who also owned Commodore Records. Her first record for the label “Lover Man” (1945) had hit #5 R&B and crossed over to #16 on the Cash Box Top 100, one of the songs that made her a pop star.

“Good Morning Heartache” was co-written for Holiday by songwriters Irene Higgenbotham and Dan Fisher, who composed the music, and lyricist Ervin Drake. It featured Holiday’s boyfriend Joe Guy on trumpet, who was also a drug dealer and kept her supplied with heroin. She had originally become addicted to opium shortly after marrying trombonist Jimmy Monroe in 1941. But as World War II dragged on, a wartime shortage of opium developed, and heroin began taking its place in cities around the nation.

The backing band who played on the track was Bill Stegmeyer and his Orchestra. Besides Guy on trumpet, other session musicians included Joe Springer on piano, guitarist Tiny Grimes, bassist John Simmons, Sidney Catlett on drums, Chris Griffin on trumpet, Hank Ross, Bernie Kaufman, and Armand Camgros on tenor saxes, and Bill Stegmeyer on alto sax.

Since 78 RPM records could only fit around three minutes of recording, its second chorus had to be cut short due to the song’s slow tempo.

The song was later performed by Diana Ross in her 1972 Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings The Blues, and considered one of the soundtrack’s outstanding cuts.

Further info:

“A short history of … "Good Morning Heartache" (I. Higgenbotham, D. Fisher, E. Drake, 1946),” by Matt Micucci, JazzIz.com, June 6, 2017.

#jazz #R&B #LadyDay #DianaRoss #LadySingsTheBlues #BillieHoliday