I didnt know this about Billie Holidays father, one of my female role models. Below, her experience singing Strange Fruit, a song lamenting the profoundly sad acts of violence committed against brown people is described. She said the song reminded her of the anger and discrimination displayed against her father, who was denied treatment for his lungs due to the color of his skin while in the hospital, resulting in his premature death... Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to Strange Fruit, a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym Lewis Allan for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers union meetings.[34] It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in Strange Fruit reminded her of her fathers death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.[35] When Holidays producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records. That was done on April 20, 1939, and Strange Fruit remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She later recorded it again for Verve. While the Commodore release did not get any airplay, the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the records other side, Fine and Mellow, which was a jukebox hit.[36] The version I did for Commodore, Holiday said of Strange Fruit, became my biggest selling record.[citation needed] Strange Fruit was the equivalent of a top twenty hit in the 1930s. For her performance of Strange Fruit at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the songs long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out and when they came back on, Holiday was gone.[37] Holiday said her father Clarence Holiday was denied treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of prejudice and that singing Strange Fruit reminded her of the incident. It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South, she said in her autobiography.[38] https://youtube/watch?v=eWI6VSs4Onw
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 21:42:54 +0000
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