Listen: Woodlawn, Griffin, Esther discussed on KQED Radio Show
"Who wrote a book about holiday at the people assume that she's in Woodlawn because that's where everything everyone else is right so people assume that unless you know you go looking Griffin and queen Esther are huge Billie Holiday fans but this was their first time visiting her grave holiday right here there it is okay so why he is one of the most influential singers in the world buried in a place that is so inaccessible probably because it was cheap Donald Clark wrote a biography of Billie Holiday Inn the story goes that when she died her life savings of seven hundred and fifty dollars were found strapped to her leg decisions around her death were left to her estranged husband Louis McKay who by most accounts was a louse McKay was a wannabe gangster who didn't even pay for Billie holiday's funeral a wealthy jazz fan named Michael grace reportedly paid for it and offered to have her buried next to Babe Ruth in an upscale New York cemetery but McCain wouldn't have it okay took over because you want to do because you could he decided holiday should be buried alongside her mother Sadie Fagan at St Raymond's biographer Donald Clark believes that's probably what she would have wanted but then it was discovered that a year after her death lady day still had no tombstone the plot wasn't even marked one visitor to St Raymond's described it as a small square of gray mean looking ground as the news spread so did the outrage down beat magazine a Bible for jazz fans wrote that it was a situation that would have appealed to Billie holiday's sharp sense of the ironic where it."