[9] It was recorded on April 20, 1939. The photo was a shot of two black men hanging from a tree after they had been lynched in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930. Holiday recorded two major sessions of the song at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. Columbia allowed Holiday a one-session release from her contract in order to record it and Frankie Newton’s eight-piece Cafe Society Band was used for the session. A good digitization of one of the most important jazz works and its performance from the 20th century. “Strange fruit” as sung by Billie Holiday, is a protest song about the lynching of black people and uncovers the brutality of racism and violence in South America. Diana Ross recorded the song for her debut film, the Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and it was included on the chart topping soundtrack album. For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop About Strange Fruit lyrics. It was March 1939, a cold night. "Strange Fruit: the first great protest song", Bettye LaVette Unleashes Cover of Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’, "Video: Listen To Edward W. Hardy's Haunting String Quartet Arrangement Of 'Strange Fruit'", "Strange Fruit: The most shocking song of all time", "Music Is Love! The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth “Strange Fruit” is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who first sang and recorded it in 1939. The great Billie Holiday singing the classic Strange Fruit, one of the first great protest songs and certainly one of the earliest examples of a black singer performing on a regular basis a poweful anti-racism song. “Strange Fruit” may have been written by American song-writer and poet Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan, said she always thought of … Billie Holiday first performed “Strange Fruit” in 1939 at Café Society, New York City’s first integrated jazz club, after reportedly being introduced to the song by the club’s founder. Meeropol set it to music and with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York venues, including at Madison Square Garden. The poem was published in the January 1937 issue of a union publication called The New York Teacher. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1999 Paper Sleeve CD release of Strange Fruit on Discogs. August 22, 2019 • Billie Holiday helped shape American popular music with her voice and unique style. 1999, Time magazine called it the song of the century. List of lynching victims in the United States, William "Froggie" James and Henry Salzner, Thomas Moss, Henry Stewart, Calvin McDowell (TN), Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, National Museum of African American History and Culture, "The United States of Lyncherdom" (Twain), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Strange_Fruit&oldid=997228600, United States National Recording Registry recordings, Works originally published in American magazines, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 30 December 2020, at 15:36. Billie Holiday recorded her iconic version of Strange Fruit on 20 April 1939. But there was no in between. [2] The song has been called "a declaration of war" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement". Written by a white, Jewish high school teacher from the Bronx and a member of the Communist Party, Abel Meeropol wrote it as a protest poem, exposing American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. [9] During the musical introduction to the song, Holiday stood with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer. [22], Notable cover versions of this song include Nina Simone (whose version was sampled in Kanye West's "Blood on the Leaves"[23]), René Marie,[23] Jeff Buckley,[23] Siouxsie and the Banshees,[24] Dee Dee Bridgewater,[24] Josh White,[25] UB40,[24] Bettye LaVette[26] and Edward W. Song information for Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday on AllMusic. General Inquiries: [email protected] Southern trees bear strange fruit [23] Journalist Lara Pellegrinelli wrote that Jeff Buckley while singing it "seems to meditate on the meaning of humanity the way Walt Whitman did, considering all of its glorious and horrifying possibilities". 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