Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

A tragic song sung by a tragic icon.  Billie Holiday had an exceedingly tragic life - dropped out of school at 11, mom was in and out of her life, she and mom moved to Harlem and both began working in a brothel (Billie was 14 by this point).  She then started performing and changed her name to what we know it as today.  People started taking notice of Billie because of unique and unusual delivery, and she made friends in the industry (including a special rapport with sax player Lester Young), started working for and got fired by Count Basie and hired by Artie Shaw.  She struck up a friendship/rivalry with Ella Fitzgerald.  As Holiday's popularity grew, so did her heroin addiction, spending up to $1,000 a week on the drug and was arrested several times for possession.  Along with her the drug addiction was alcoholism and relationships with abusive men and Billie's health and career started to suffer into the 1950s when she wrote her autobiography and recorded new material which she called Lady Sings the Blues.  The album was a big success, but Holiday wasn't able to kick the habit and on July 17th 1959 she died in hospital from complications of cirrhosis of the liver.  She died broke in a hospital room lined with police officers who had arrested her on her deathbed for possession.

The song itself was written in 1937 and adapted from a poem written by schoolteacher Abel Meeropol who saw a photograph of 2 black men being lynched and a group of white onlookers.  It was seen as a comment and protest to the ongoing horrific racism and lynchings in America's deep south.  The song was introduced to Holiday and she soon made it one of her signature pieces.   When she performed it live it was always her last song with no encore.  While at the Café Society, she would make sure the crowd was silent and still and as she began to sing, there was only a small spotlight on her face.  On the final note, the spotlight went out, leaving the room dark and when the lights came back on, Holiday was gone.   Recording the song for Holiday was a bit of a trial, as many of the record companies thought it was too touchy a subject, radio stations backed away and concert promoters tried to stop her from singing it.  The song ended up being long-reaching as Bob Dylan is quoted to have said the song influenced him, and in 1999 Time Magazine called it the song of the century.

Holly:

Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday): 5/5 I remember vividly the first time I heard this song, and it has kept all its power over the years since. This song started as a poem written by a high school teacher after seeing a picture of a lynching. The lyrics are powerful, and haunting, Billie Holiday’s singing is dark, and slow-moving, and full of power  – it’s like watching a stream slowly trickle by. It seems so unlikely that this song would be performed in the 1930s in the US, and I think that gives it even more significance. Many people have tried to sing a comparably moving rendition of Strange Fruit over the years (Nina Simone, Common), but Billie Holiday’s interpretation is on its’ own level.

Kelly:

Because I am not as well versed in the jazz music, I only really heard this song a few years ago and it is soooo haunting.  There are a couple things in life that my brain won't let me deal with/handle, and the lynching in the deep south is one of them.  You can tell that this song was really important to Holiday, as it should be.  It's like a slow dirge, not really a discernible melody, the piano just grimly following along.  The song has stirred up some controversy as of late, as divine Scottish chanteuse Annie Lennox included it on her 2014 album, and many people remarked that she shouldn't sing it as she is white.  Personally, I think it should be sung by anyone who was horrified by the subject matter.  I listened to a few other versions, including Jeff Buckley, but Billie's is best.  5/5

Strange Fruit