Impressed by the honest, bluesy quality she brought to her repertoire of jazz standards and show tunes, Hammond was convinced that Holiday represented a new and exciting style of jazz singing. Working her way around the Harlem jazz clubs, she was just 18 when she was discovered at a club called Monette's by John Hammond, the legendary talent scout who also discovered Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson. More promisingly, she auditioned as a dancer at a local club, but instead landed a job as a singer, taking the stage name 'Billie Holiday.' A few years later she moved her to Harlem, where according to her own account, she was soon working in a brothel and at some point was briefly imprisoned for soliciting. At the age of 10, she reported that she had been raped. Born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia in 1915, she was raised in extreme poverty in Baltimore.
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