http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
“Strange Fruit” is a staggering protest song most famously sung by Billie Holiday. She first performed it publicly in 1939. Afterwards, she insisted on ending all of her live performances with it. Almost inevitably, she would break down during her vocal delivery.
It was first a poem by a Jewish high-school teacher from the Bronx, about the lynching of two black men. He published under the pen name Lewis Allan.
Her record label, Columbia, refused to record it, out of fear of harsh back-lash from the South. Arrangements thus had to be made with an alternate label, Commodore.
Just as the song was about to commence in her live performances, waiters would stop serving, the club lights would be turned off, and a single pin spotlight would illuminate Holiday. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with eyes closed, as if to evoke 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 December, 1999, Time magazine labelled it the song of the century.
Let this post be a reminder of the history of race-relations in the United States.
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