Billie was written as a homage to one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time. The first time I heard “what a little moonlight can do,” I was hooked. The way she manipulated the phrasing and groove of the song was remarkable. If you listen carefully to Billie Holiday you’ll hear how she was influenced by jazz instrumentalists by the way she so easily slipped into improvisation - doing the song her own way.
Bille won five Grammys awards, she also penned God Bless the Child and Lady Sings the Blues, iconic masterpieces in their own right.
This week’s poem is from my second book, The Quarterly. In these verses I reminisce of Victoria, a young woman who lived in a small village named Willisville near Manitoulin Island where I resided for a year. It traces her last day on Froid lake and what I imagined her final thoughts were. It’s sad, but it keeps the memory of her alive.
Joy Brooks - Vocals
Fredrick Brooks - Acoustic Guitar
Caroline Brooks - Harmonies
Chris Pezzarello - Drums
Steve Zarai - Stand-up Bass
Bryden Baird - Horns
Robbie Grunwald - Keyboards
Recorded and produced by Robbie Grunwald - Raven Tape Music Room and Chris Stringer and Darren McGill - Union Sound
Mastered by Justin Gray - Immersive Mastering
<Click her to listen to Billie>
BILLIE
She’s an April shower this princess of the night
And as day breaks from 52nd Street
She lullaby’s the New York town
Chorus
And where is the love in your heart
It’s amazing what a little moonlight can do
And the white folk come to Harlem
As Billie sings the blues
Now the years have gone
Still I bled my Papa for nickel and song - Oh yea
And every man that I meet - takes me
For the fool that I am
Chorus
Oh I’m tired and I’m lonely And I wrestle this junkie
For a little more - more that sweet life
And they lock me away
Still I sing for Louis - Lester
No child - no child to raise
Chorus
© Fredrick Brooks
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Victoria Rowing
Victoria pulls toward high noon
Passing Morey Swamp - Mating Bay
Over silver clouds of darting minnows
Swift gathering loons
Victoria hears the distant thunder
Eyes a pushed burnt sky
Watches as a curtain of rain sweeps the narrows
Cutting a deep swath
Dividing her journey
Victoria finds shore - holes up
Sheltered she watches the rain tap it’s spotted
rhythmic dance on the lake’s surface
She listens to a troubled song whisper in the trees
Victoria recalls her Father’s bob and line
Black cotton laying on speckled surface
Then peeling away
A union of land and deep water
Victoria sank with that image
Under a patchwork of decades
And fleeting ancestral faces
© Fredrick Brooks 2013
<Click here to listen to Victoria Rowing>