Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights

Rating:
Summary: Another Book Attempting to Discredit Billie Holiday
Review: After purchasing and reading Margolick's new book, "Strange Fruit," yesterday, I must say that I am disappointed at how many aspects of both Holiday's career and the highly sensitive issue of racially inspired lynching was handled. Once again, it seems that another author has taken the undeserved liberty of discrediting and, worse, slighting Billie Holiday and Black people. The entire book is tainted with colored accounts of all non-White personalities. If one wants to write a book about Holiday, the least he could do is not completely color his words with issues of race such as comments which attribute inferior intelligence and deviant behavior to Blacks and other people of color, including Jews.

Rating:
Summary: Very Powerful
Review: Billie Holiday struck a chord that hasn't really been properly addressed in song since.the Lynchings&Blood still get my full attention.in fact it still happens in some places.this Book needs more exposure.Race is Being tuned out except when their are Beat downs&other things.a Book Like this will keep your full attention.very Powerful.you can never speak enough on the subject or the Impact of Lady Day's Words.

Rating:
Summary: Strange and beautiful fruit.
Review: David Margolick, a well published writer and journalist, has gathered the threads of an amazing story in STRANGE FRUIT. He deftly weaves together a sort biography of Billie Holiday, that gifted and troubled singer, with the story of her most famous song, a disturbing reference to the lynching of African Americans in the early 20th Century South. While many others recorded STRANGE FRUIT (a handy discography is included at book's end), Billie's moving version has remained the standard. The author also goes into the story of Lewis Allan, aka Abel Meeropol, the song's author and political maverick. Margolick draws upon a wide array of documentary sources and interviews to capture the song's and singer's dynamics, including numerous quotes and also a smattering of photos. I was thoroughly informed and impressed, as will be all readers.

Rating:
Summary: Billie Holiday & Cafe Society; Early Cry for Civil Rights
Review: From four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee David Margolick, STRANGE FRUIT explores the story of the memorable civil rights ballad made famous by Billie Holiday in the late 1930s. The song's powerful, evocative lyrics -- written by a Jewish communist schoolteacher who, late in life, adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg -- portray the lynching of a black man in the South. Holiday's performances sparked conflict and controversy wherever she went, and the song has since been covered by Lena Horne, Tori Amos, Sting, and countless others. Margolick's careful reconstruction of the story behind the song, portions of which have appeared in Vanity Fair, includes a discography of "Strange Fruit" recordings as well as newly uncovered photographs that capture Holiday in performance at Greenwich Village's Cafe Society. A must for jazz aficianado.

TIME magazine recently chose "Strange Fruit" as SONG OF THE CENTURY

In addition, Billie Holiday will be inducted into the ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME on her birthday in April 2000.

Rating:
Summary: A Song of Despair that helped end lynching
Review: How was lynching ever respectable? Why did nightclub owners discourage Billie Holiday from singing this protest song against the murder of innocent Blacks? How did this powerful, somber song become Time Magazine's Best Song of the Century?

David Margolick traces the history of Strange Fruit from a forbidden, banned song to a celebrated cry for civil rights in a concise style. Performers, club owners, reviewers, and activists are extensively quoted - and the differing perceptions allowed to exist next to each other without comment.

This facinating book should be carried in all public school libraries, read in courses on American music. It's a fine addition to the scholarship on the civil rights movement too.

I do have, however, one serious criticism. Somehow, even if in just a single sentence, Margolick should have noted the irony of sensitive, gentle progressive defending Stalin's regime. Several key people, great souls, involved in the early civil rights movement - including the songwriter of Strange Fruit - were members of the Communist Party during the Stalin's dictatorship. They were outraged at the lack of freedom for blacks in America, and their criticisms of Jim Crowe laws were totally accurate. I wish, however, that Margolick had at least mentioned - once - their blindness toward the brutal rule of Stalin in the USSR.
The vast, vast majority of these progressive activists recognized their mistake, and their committment to the Bill of Rights and individual freedom only increased.

Despite this minor criticism, this is a fantastic book that documents the great change in American cultural norms over the last 50 years.It's hard to imagine a time when Billie Holiday and Strange Fruit would be banned and lynching accepted as a Southern tradition.

Thank God for progress!

Rating:
Summary: The lyrics are enough for me at the moment.
Review: I came to this book from references made to the song in "Without Sanctuary". I also recall references in "The Debt", and "The Unsteady March".

The title of this review only reflects a need to absorb what I have read, and also to take a pause. This subject is so grim it almost defies imagining. Even the song "Strange Fruit" stops everything when it is sung, causes controversy to this day, and has only been attempted by a handful of singers in it's 60 year history.

Mr. Margolick imparts a great deal of information in what is a brief work. It cannot be complete, but it is outstanding for what he does shed light on. Ms. Holliday had a very complex and tragic life, but was certainly loved by virtually all who knew her. She died quite young and the causes are all there for the reader to measure.

There is always some bit of fascinating human irony that comes with a story such as this. The quote that follows is from the book.

"Khallil Abdul Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan's notoriously anti-Semitic disciple and maestro of the "Million Man March", has quoted it (the song) in his speeches assailing American racism-unaware, apparently, that the song was written by a white Jewish school-teacher from New York City".

I mean no offense to anyone by highlighting that quote. For me it is another example of the root causes of the racial problems we face. We fear what we don't know, and we often don't take the time to learn the truth, and prevent our fear.

A great book, should be a part of your Civil Rights library and all libraries for that matter.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful book about a powerful song.
Review: It may seem odd to devote an entire book to a single song, but if ever a song demanded such an exploration, itÕs Billie HolidayÕs recording of Strange Fruit. Almost everyone thinks itÕs brilliant, yet few people listen to it often. Holiday makes this depiction of a lynching so real that the song is physically painful to listen to. To this day, itÕs rarely played on jazz-formatted radio stations. ItÕs too disturbing. IÕve always wondered how Billie Holiday managed to get it recorded in 1939. Did radio stations play it? And where did she sing it? I simply could not imagine Lady Day, with a gardenia in her hair, singing such a horrifying song to people in a nightclub while they sipped martinis. And if she did, how did her audience react? The fascinating thing about this book is that it not only answered my questions, it also raised many issues I hadnÕt thought about. David Margolick has collected comments and anecdotes about Strange Fruit and HolidayÕs performance from a wide variety of sources Ð musicians who worked with her, people who saw her perform the song at different time in her life, and contemporary singers who have recorded the song or performed it. What they say raises a lot of interesting questions about the relationship between art and politics, as well as the relationship between an artist and her art. The most fascinating Ð and shocking Ð thing to me was the number of people who worked with Billie Holiday who insist that her performance was a fluke, that she did not understand what she was singing. She was an uneducated, not terribly intelligent woman, her "friends" say, and didnÕt even know the meaning of the songÕs words. To anyone who has ever heard the song, that suggestion seems insane. The words are powerful, but it is what Billie Holiday does with them that makes this the most disturbing recording ever made. It is clearly a song with a deep, personal meaning for her. In the end, after reading the book, and hearing about how she performed the song throughout her life (sometimes sharing it with an audience she thought would be sympathetic, but just as often using it as a slap in the face to an audience she felt did not respect her), you canÕt help but see that what makes HolidayÕs recording so personal, so deep, is that for her it wasnÕt only a song about lynching, it was a protest against all kinds of racism, including the racism of dismissing a brilliant artist as one more empty-headed "girl singer." Margolick makes a strong case that it was the first cry of the civil rights movement that began more than a decade later.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful book about a powerful song.
Review: It may seem odd to devote an entire book to a single song, but if ever a song demanded such an exploration, itÕs Billie HolidayÕs recording of Strange Fruit. Almost everyone thinks itÕs brilliant, yet few people listen to it often. Holiday makes this depiction of a lynching so real that the song is physically painful to listen to. To this day, itÕs rarely played on jazz-formatted radio stations. ItÕs too disturbing. IÕve always wondered how Billie Holiday managed to get it recorded in 1939. Did radio stations play it? And where did she sing it? I simply could not imagine Lady Day, with a gardenia in her hair, singing such a horrifying song to people in a nightclub while they sipped martinis. And if she did, how did her audience react? The fascinating thing about this book is that it not only answered my questions, it also raised many issues I hadnÕt thought about. David Margolick has collected comments and anecdotes about Strange Fruit and HolidayÕs performance from a wide variety of sources Ð musicians who worked with her, people who saw her perform the song at different time in her life, and contemporary singers who have recorded the song or performed it. What they say raises a lot of interesting questions about the relationship between art and politics, as well as the relationship between an artist and her art. The most fascinating Ð and shocking Ð thing to me was the number of people who worked with Billie Holiday who insist that her performance was a fluke, that she did not understand what she was singing. She was an uneducated, not terribly intelligent woman, her "friends" say, and didnÕt even know the meaning of the songÕs words. To anyone who has ever heard the song, that suggestion seems insane. The words are powerful, but it is what Billie Holiday does with them that makes this the most disturbing recording ever made. It is clearly a song with a deep, personal meaning for her. In the end, after reading the book, and hearing about how she performed the song throughout her life (sometimes sharing it with an audience she thought would be sympathetic, but just as often using it as a slap in the face to an audience she felt did not respect her), you canÕt help but see that what makes HolidayÕs recording so personal, so deep, is that for her it wasnÕt only a song about lynching, it was a protest against all kinds of racism, including the racism of dismissing a brilliant artist as one more empty-headed "girl singer." Margolick makes a strong case that it was the first cry of the civil rights movement that began more than a decade later.

Rating:
Summary: This book is a gem
Review: It's rare that a nonfiction book can move me to tears the way Strange Fruit has done. But the story is so compelling, and the tragedies it describes--both of Billie Holiday's life and of reaction to the horrific lynchings that were once commonplace in parts of America--are beautifully balanced by the hopefulness of the song's continued popularity. Indeed, it is a kind of miracle that the song exists at all. I found it fascinating to read about the world of Cafe Society, and to learn more about this period of American social history. I believe Strange Fruit is also an important book because of the subject it addresses--albeit in a stylish and entertaining way. Oprah should put this in her book club so it receives the wide audience it deserves. After all, it's not as if racism is a thing of the past in America.

Rating:
Summary: Bitter crop, strange beauty.
Review: Rather than review David Margolick's succinct tour de force of reporting and writing in my words, let me share some excerpts of it in his:

"White's version of "Strange Fruit" is intense, almost febrile, but it is less searing and subtle than Holiday's. "When Josh sings it, you feel you're hearing a great performance," said White's biographer, Elijah Wald. "When Billie sings it, you feel as if you're at the foot of the tree."

"Decades later, the experience of listening to, and watching, Billie Holiday perform "Strange Fruit," her eyes closed and head back, the familiar gardenia over her ear, her ruby lipstick magnifying her mocha complexion, her fingers snapping lightly, her hands holding the microphone stand as if it were a tea cup -- lingered in many memories."

When Billie sang it, "the apartment became a cathedral."

"That was all she sang; nobody asked her to sing anything else. There was a finality about the last note. Even the pianist knew. He just got up and walked away."

The reader will not just get up and walk away from this book. You will find yourself compelled to read and hear echoing every word of this strange and bitter account of a beautiful woman and a terrifying song, and how they combine with the beautiful and terrifying thing that was America and its race relations at mid-century.

David Margolick spent much of his career providing colorful accounts of that grayist of American tribes, the lawyers, for the gray New York Times. In moving to the pastels of plenty at Vanity Fair, he has richer subjects, and none with greater depth than this lady and these blues and the lost world made alive again in this book.