William Dufty Books

I was born Eleanora Fagan in 1915, in a rundown part of Baltimore where the streets smelled of coal and cheap cooking oil. My father was mostly gone, chasing his own dreams with his guitar, and my mother was barely more than a child trying to get by. We didn’t have much. Luxury wasn’t even a word I ...

From Lady Sings the Blues

You can’t tell my story without talking about color. I was a Black woman in America singing songs for mostly white audiences, and that meant every night was a kind of test. Jim Crow wasn’t just a law down South—it was a shadow that followed us into every club, every hotel, every recording session. I...

From Lady Sings the Blues