[Dixielandjazz] Strange Fruit

[Steve Barbone]

Excerpted from Wikipedia, about why Strange Fruit is so haunting. Those who
have seen the photograph also understand the pain and fear Billie Holiday
must have experienced while performing it.

Interestingly enough, Meeropole also wrote "The House I Live In," which was
performed by Frank Sinatra near the end of WW 2 and has been revived since
September 11, 2001. Interesting how two entirely different political songs
were written by the same man. And that both still resonate today.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

"Strange Fruit" began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by
a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx Abel Meeropol, who used the pen name
Lewis Allan (the names of his two children, who died in infancy). "Strange
Fruit" was written as a poem expressing his horror at the lynchings,and was
first published in 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Though
Meeropol/Allan often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems
to music he set Strange Fruit to music himself and the song gained a certain
success as a protest song in and around New York. Before Holiday was
introduced to the song, it had been performed by Meeropol, by his wife, and
by a black vocalist called Laura Duncan, who performed it at Madison Square
Garden.

Meeropol said later that he had been inspired by seeing Lawrence Beitler's
photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. "Strange Fruit"
was eventually heard by Barney Josefson the founder of Cafe Society, New
York's first integrated nightclub, who introduced it to Billie Holiday.
Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own
admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the
imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this
played a role in her persistence to perform it. The song became a regular
part of Holiday's live performances.

Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about recording the song,
but her producer John Hammond - the man credited with originally discovering
her - did not support her choice, and Columbia refused to record the song.
Holiday arranged to record it with Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz
label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939
and one in 1944. "Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and in time became
Holiday's biggest selling record. Though it became a staple of her live
performances at the time, Holiday's accompanist, Bobby Tucker, later
commented that Holiday would break down after every performance of it.


Meaning

The "strange fruit" referred to in the song are the bodies of African
American men hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of
the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling
that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a
mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone
person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping."


Impact

The club owner immediately recognized the impact of the song on his audience
and insisted that Holiday close all her shows with it. Just as the song was
about to begin, waiters would stop serving, the lights in club would be
turned off, and a single pin spotlight would illuminate Holiday on stage.
During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed,
as if she were evoking a prayer.

The song was ultimately to become the anthem of the anti-lynching movement.
The dark imagery of the lyrics struck a chord, and can be said to have
planted one of the first seeds of what would later become the civil rights
movement. "Strange Fruit" was certainly ahead of its time, since the civil
rights movement began 15 years after its release. . . .snip to

In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of
Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

It is number one on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's list of 100 Songs of
the South.