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Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society And An Early Cry For Civil Rights
The story of the song that foretold a movement and the Lady who dared sing it.
Billie Holiday's signature tune, 'Strange Fruit', with its graphic and heart-wrenching portrayal of a lynching in the South, brought home the evils of racism as well as being an inspiring mark of resistance.
The song's powerful, evocative lyrics - written by a Jewish communist schoolteacher - portray the lynching of a black man in the South. In 1939, its performance sparked controversy (and sometimes violence) wherever Billie Holiday went. Not until sixteen years later did Rosa Parks refuse to yield her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Yet 'Strange Fruit' lived on, and Margolick chronicles its effect on those who experienced it first-hand: musicians, artists, journalists, intellectuals, students, budding activists, even the waitresses and bartenders who worked the clubs.
Billie Holiday's signature tune, 'Strange Fruit', with its graphic and heart-wrenching portrayal of a lynching in the South, brought home the evils of racism as well as being an inspiring mark of resistance.
The song's powerful, evocative lyrics - written by a Jewish communist schoolteacher - portray the lynching of a black man in the South. In 1939, its performance sparked controversy (and sometimes violence) wherever Billie Holiday went. Not until sixteen years later did Rosa Parks refuse to yield her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Yet 'Strange Fruit' lived on, and Margolick chronicles its effect on those who experienced it first-hand: musicians, artists, journalists, intellectuals, students, budding activists, even the waitresses and bartenders who worked the clubs.
111 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2013
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February 25, 2016
"The story of a song?", I thought. I wasn't even sure if there would be enough material to write a book about a song, but the song happens to be 'Strange Fruit', and there was a lot to learn about it.
This book was written in an easy, non-academic style and its content covers quite a bit of how the song, "Strange Fruit", formed a part of Billie Holiday's legendary career, how audiences, the press, radio and TV reacted to it, and what part it played in the civil rights movement, as far as awareness was concerned.
It was a good read --though a short one.
This book was written in an easy, non-academic style and its content covers quite a bit of how the song, "Strange Fruit", formed a part of Billie Holiday's legendary career, how audiences, the press, radio and TV reacted to it, and what part it played in the civil rights movement, as far as awareness was concerned.
It was a good read --though a short one.
Displaying 1 of 1 review