It is said that Holiday matured listening to recordings of Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. The instrumentalists she seemed to admire most were definite influences--Louis  Armstrong and Lester Young, the main influences being simplicity and economy. To these wonderful models she added her own feelings, her own life-style, and the results were truly most intimate and personal.
  
Holiday did not record as many blues tunes as many fans think. Her style and her conceptions often led listeners to feel that she was singing blues when the song was some fairly banal pop tune. Most successful female singers, knowingly or unknowingly, have been influenced by the jazz singing of Billie Holiday