Research Paper on "Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"

Quoted Instructions for "Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" Assignment:

Please write about Billie Holiday's performance of Strange Fruit. Please write it smoothly so the logic flows and be sure to include 1) as many details of the actual performance as you can find. When writing it please refer to the outline below and follow it carefully.

2) As many primary sources as you can find. Please refer to the attached doc ("outline with primary sources") and be sure to include every primary source mentioned there. Please then list those primary sources in the biblio at the end. Finally, some of those sources don't have the proper citations, please find those and include them in the biblio. Thank you!

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Actual Event: Billie Holiday*****s *****Strange Fruit***** is one of the best examples of an explicitly anti-racist song in which the the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith is not only told, but also comments on the events of his death and that faced a lot of controversies.

A. The lyrics of Strange Fruit was originally from Abel Meeropol*****s poem, Strange Fruit. Using a pseudonym, Lewis Allan, Meeropol, a Jewish school teacher, published his peom in the Marxist journal, New Masses, after seeing a photo of the Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith*****s lynching. (pbs)

1. Meeropol later recalled how the photograph had *****haunted him for days.*****

i. The photograph was taken by Lawrence Beitler

2. *****I wrote *****˜Strange Fruit***** because I hate lynching, and I hate injustice, and I hate the people who perpetuate it.***** ***** Abel Meeropol 1971

3. When Billie Holiday first saw the song

i. At first, she didn*****t feel connected to the song

ii. *****didn*****t know what the hell the song meant***** *****Josephson

*****To be perfectly frank, I didn*****t think she felt very comfortable with the song, because it was so different from the songs to which she was accustomed,***** Meeropol later wrote. She asked him but one question: What did *****pastoral***** mean?

iii. But later they realized that the song had sunk in when tear ran down her cheeks after performing the song

B. The performance

1. *****Strange Fruit***** was first performed at a New York teachers***** union meeting and the performance caught the attention of the manager of the Café Society, a nightclub in Greenwich Village

i. (footnote)*****Café Society was the New York*****s only integrated nightclub outside Harlem

a. The people there were usually open-minded

2. The first time she sang the song at the Café Society is much more significant

i. She was scared to sing and regretted after she sang the first time at the nightclub

a. *****There wasn*****t even a patter of applause when I finished,***** she later said. *****Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping.*****

b. Strange Fruit became a nightly ritual for Billie Holiday

ii. Before she began the performance, all service was to cease. Waiters, cashiers, busboys were all stopped. The room then turned completely dark and had an only light on Holiday*****s face

iii. There were a lot of resistance to the controversial song

a. Sometimes abused physically by the angry nightclub patrons

1. Billie Holiday called them *****crackers*****(New York Times)

a. *****I remember a time a woman followed Billie into the powder room. Billie was wearing a strapless gown and she tried to brush the woman off. The woman became hysterical with tears ***** *****˜Don*****t you sing that song again! Don*****t you dare!***** ***** she screamed and ripped Billie*****s [gown].*****

b. The woman had seen a black man tied by the throat to the back fender of a car, hung up, and burned when she was a child.

b. Columbia, the company that produced Billie Holiday*****s records refused to produce records for Strange Fruit

c. Even progressive radio did not play the song

2. Later response became more positive

a. More and more people started to request the song

b. As the song started to gain popularity, record companies started to gain interest. Instead of Columbia, which refused to produce records for the song, Commodoreagreed to record the song. On April 20th, 1939, Milt Gabler of Commodore Records took a gamble on the highly provocative material. She later recorded it again for Verve. The controversial song sold well.

i. The saxophonist Kenneth Hollon said that in the first week, 10,000 copies have been sold

c. Time magazine described Strange Fruit as *****a prime piece of musical propaganda*****

d. Holiday claims it was a big success: "The version I did for Commodore became my biggest selling record.***** Strange Fruit was the equivalent of a top twenty hit in the 1930s

e. "I open Café Society as an unknown," Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." Holiday demanded her manager Joe Glaser give her a raise shortly after. (Lady Sings the Blues, pp. 104*****105.)

f. There still was controversy

i. It was disliked by the Jazz Purists

ii. The song was banned from the BBC

iii. Billie Holiday told the newspaper that she once was driven out of her car for singing Strange Fruit