It was always the last song of the evening. Waiters stopped serving and the room went completely dark.
It was always the last song of the evening. Waiters stopped serving and the room went completely dark.
A single spotlight found her face, and she began to sing, “Southern trees bear a 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…” When the song ended, a weighty silence smothered the room. The spotlight vanished. When it came back on, the stage was empty. For twenty years, Billie Holiday performed Strange Fruit just this way.
It became a signature ballad for her. And she sang this haunting scene into the hearts and minds of her audiences, troubling them and making them uncomfortable. In an era fraught with lynching, her artistry changed hearts.
Born Eleanor Fagan, April 7, 1915, she grew up in Baltimore but eventually made her way to Harlem. Hers was a troubled childhood, and music became her escape. She began singing in local clubs as a teenager and went on to sing with such jazz greats as Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Artie Shaw, using the stage name, Billie Holiday. Her tenure with Shaw made her the first female African American vocalist to sing with a white orchestra. Lady Day struggled with addiction all her life.
Eventually, Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Aslinger, a known racist, decided to target Holiday because he wanted her silenced. His relentless pursuit, along with cumulative damage to her heart and liver from years of drug abuse, conspired to take her life when she was only forty-four.
Her music still challenges us to face what we once did to one another and to choose a better path forward. Hear the song in its entirety here. (Be aware, the lyrics are quite graphic.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGAMjwr_j8
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