SONG OF THE DAY
“Strange Fruit” by Nina Simone (Pastel Blues, Philips Records, 1965). Written by Abel Meeropol.
WHERE I HEARD IT
As seen in an episode of CBS’ Cold Case that involved a lynching case.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Strange Fruit” is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday.
– It condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans that had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all other regions of the United States.
– Holiday’s version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978.
– It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
– “Strange Fruit” began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, about the lynching of two black men. He published under the pen name Lewis Allan.
– Meeropol and his wife later adopted Robert and Michael, sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage and executed by the United States.
– Meeropol wrote “Strange Fruit” to express his horror at lynchings, possibly after seeing Lawrence Beitler’s photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.
– He published the poem in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine.
– Though Meeropol/Allan had often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music, he set “Strange Fruit” to music himself.
– The song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York.
– Meeropol, his wife, and black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at Madison Square Garden.
– Barney Josephson, the founder of Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, New York’s first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday.
– Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that because the imagery in “Strange Fruit” reminded her of her father, she persisted in singing it.
– The song became a regular part of Holiday’s live performances.
– Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about recording the song. Columbia, fearing a backlash by record retailers in the South as well as possible negative reaction from affiliates of Columbia’s co-owned radio network, CBS, refused to record the song. Even her great producer at Columbia, John Hammond, refused.
– In frustration, she turned to her friend Milt Gabler (uncle of comedian Billy Crystal), whose Commodore label produced alternative jazz. Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” for him a cappella, and the song moved Gabler so much that he wept.
– In 1939, Gabler worked out a special arrangement with Vocalion Records to record and distribute the song and Columbia allowed Holiday a one-session release from her contract in order to record it.
– She recorded two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944.
– “Strange Fruit” was highly regarded. In time, it became Holiday’s biggest selling record.
– Though the song became a staple of her live performances, Holiday’s accompanist, Bobby Tucker, recalled that Holiday would break down every time after she sang it.
– In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday suggested that she, together with Lewis Allan, her accompanist Sonny White, and arranger Danny Mendelsohn, put the poem to music. David Margolick and Hilton Als dismissed that claim in their work, Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song. They wrote that hers was “an account that may set a record for most misinformation per column inch”. When challenged, Holiday—whose autobiography had been ghostwritten by William Dufty—claimed, “I ain’t never read that book.”
– Barney Josephson recognized the impact of the song 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.
– In October 1939, Samuel Grafton of The New York Post described “Strange Fruit”: “If the anger of the exploited ever mounts high enough in the South, it now has its Marseillaise.”
– In the 1995 film “Tuskegee Airmen,” the character Lewis Johns (Mekhi Phifer) recites “Strange Fruit” to his fellow cadets in their barracks to describe lynchings of African-Americans, especially in the southern United States.
– In December, 1999, Time magazine called it the song of the century.
– In 2002, the Library of Congress honored the song as one of 50 recordings chosen that year to be added to the National Recording Registry.
– The Atlanta Journal-Constitution listed the song as Number One on 100 Songs of the South.
– Bob Dylan cited “Strange Fruit” as an influence in the 2005 documentary No Direction Home. The movie also had a brief clip of Holiday singing.
– The 1944 novel Strange Fruit by author Lillian Smith, was said to have been inspired by Billie Holiday’s version of the song.
– The short film, Strange Fruit, written and directed by Christopher Browne.
– The opera “Strange Fruit” was inspired by the novel by Lillian Smith (above). A commissioned work, it premiered on June 15, 2007 at the Long Leaf Opera Festival in Chapel Hill. Chandler Carter was the composer and Joan Ross Sorkin was the librettist.
– Nina Simone’s album Pastel Blues released in 1965 includes her own version of the song.
– Reggae group UB40 covered the song on their 1980 album Signing Off.
– In 2007, Mojo magazine praised Siouxsie and the Banshees’s version from their Through the Looking Glass album, by selecting it for a CD called Music Is Love : 15 Tracks That Changed The World
– Tori Amos recorded it as a B-side to her 1994 single “Cornflake Girl”.
– The Cocteau Twins also offered a rendition as a BBC session recording.
РJeff Buckley sang a live version on his album Live at Sin-̩ (Legacy edition).
– Diana Ross covers this song on both the soundtrack of her 1972 film portrayal of Holiday, “Lady Sings the Blues”, & on her 1992 live album, Stolen Moments.
– Cassandra Wilson covered it on her album New Moon Daughter, released in 1995.
– Lou Rawls on the album Black and Blue and Tobacco Road.
– Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem, “Strange Fruit”, which was first published in the Marxist publication The New Masses and subsequently set to music.
– Meeropol was the writer of countless poems and songs, including the Frank Sinatra and Josh White hit “The House I Live In” and the libretto of Robert Kurka’s opera “The Good Soldier Schweik”.
– He taught at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, and on the side was an ardent, but closet, Communist.
– Meeropol chose to write as Lewis Allan in memory of the names of his two stillborn children.
– According to Robert Meeropol, “Strange Fruit”, “The House I Live In” and the Peggy Lee hit “Apples, Peaches and Cherries” provided most of the royalty income of the family. The latter especially after it had been translated into French by Sacha Distel (French folksinger and sometime boyfriend of Brigitte Bardot). The resulting number one hit in France “Scoubidou” still earns Michael and Robert Meeropol royalties; however, these only started coming in after Distel and Abel Meeropol settled a copyright infringement law suit over Distel’s plagiarism.
– Pastel Blues is a studio album by singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone (1933–2003).
– It was recorded in 1964 and 1965 in New York City and released in 1965 by Philips Records.
– The name Pastel Blues is somewhat deceiving because the songs on the album incorporate different musical styles besides the blues, such as jazz, soul and folk music.
– The album also features “Sinnerman,” one of Simone’s most famous songs (and my favorite song by her!).
LYRICS
Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.