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Lady Sings the Blues, by Billie HolidayRead about the other entries on the list.
I read this at the same time as I discovered her music. It’s very shocking, full of sexual abuse, drug addiction, violence, and racism, and opened my eyes to a lot of things I hadn’t known about or understood. It made me realize where songs like “Strange Fruit” had come from. The rawness of those songs had their roots in a devastating history of life experience.
--Marshal Zeringue