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Get to know the story behind Billie Holiday's controversial "Strange Fruit," now the subject of Hulu biopic "The United States vs. Billie Holiday."
"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937.
Andra Day was just 11 years old when she first heard Billie Holiday’s iconic anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit.” She recalls “prostrating before the speaker, just listening. It was scary ...
In 1939, Columbia Records refused to let Billie Holiday record the anti-lynching protest song "Strange Fruit". Milt Gabler invited her to record it for his small specialty label Commodore Records, and Columbia granted her a one-time exemption from her contract to do so, in which she recorded four songs (material for two 78rpm records).
Its working title was Jordan is so Chilly, but Smith retitled it Strange Fruit prior to publication. [2] In her 1956 autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith named the book after her 1939 song "Strange Fruit", which was about lynching and racism against African Americans. Smith maintained the book's title referred to the "damaged ...
'Strange Fruit,' Billie Holiday “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/ Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/ Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze/ Strange fruit hangin’ from the ...
Meeropol wrote the anti-lynching poem "Strange Fruit" (1937), first published as "Bitter Fruit" in a teacher union publication. He later set it to music. The song was recorded and performed by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. [6] Holiday notes in the book Lady Sings the Blues that she co-wrote the music to the song with Meeropol and Sonny White.
“Strange Fruit” is the Holiday classic at the center of “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday,” the biopic from director Lee Daniels (“Precious,” “Empire”) that will debut on Hulu ...