Many hear and it affects them not and are human. A sheep, goat frog and cat can hear it, and not "feel it (smile) xoxo I know what you mean though. Youre meaning A person who is supposed to be one born with a soul. but then again you and I are on the same page I got you boo
@@robokill387 did you not read my comment? I said they (animals} can hear it but not understand the meaning to the song. Furthermore, I was agreeing with catcave29, nor was I even speaking to you.
Song written by a Jewish man named Abel Meeropol who quit the Communist party. It was based on the image taken by Lawrence Beitler who took a photo of a mob who lynched J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith for the robbing and murdering of a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his girlfriend, Mary Ball. The 16 year old James Cameron was saved by 2 people a women and a sports hero. James Cameron later confessed that J. Thomas Smith and Abraham Smith committed the crimes robbery and murder. Mary Ball's testimony dropped the charges of rape against James Cameron and confirmed the 2 who murdered Claude Deeter and raped her.
Polo doing the jazz greats now?!?! Man, I'm a jazz musician who enjoys your hip hop reactions, so I'm down for this. Billie Holliday is often considered to be the greatest jazz singer, not for her technique or range, but because she sang every lyric with her whole being like she lived it. She had a very hard life. This song is probably the first socio-political jazz song in a genre not really known for this at that time. Appreciate your sober reaction. Music mostly brings joy, but sometimes can express the pain, loss, and bitterness of life as well.
Very, very well put. I would only add that her technique is vital to the package. She was the first, as far as I know, to imitate her fellow musicians when she sang her music. I’ve read interviews where she says she wanted to sing like her sax player or hit the beats and notes of Teddy Wilson’s piano. That has to do with her technique. I agree that she didn’t have much of a range, but what she did with that range was sensational.
Thank you Polo. I truly think this is probably the most important song ever written in the 20th century. And I can't think of anybody other than Billie Holiday that can sing it. If this doesn't touch everyone who sees this video then something is wrong.
Billy holiday has been one of my favorite artists since I was little.. Being raised with with New Orleans jazz And the old time blues I saw her, Bessie Smith, Lewis Armstrong, Cab Callaway, and jelly roll Morton As just a few of my favorites from that era.. Billy holiday had a very rough life and I feel that the government did not like her because of the message and the power that she had With people through her songs. When she was traveling the chitlin circuit as it was called back then, It was not uncommon to see lynchings that had happened Still hanging from trees along the roads that folks were forced to take back then. They did not have the highways And freeways we have now. That song has always been very difficult to hear to hear because It makes you think of how far we have come have come but still have not changed. Just because bodies aren't hung people in public squares and in trees along the roads, we use guns to "lynch" our own.
not only slavery This song is sheding light on the lynchings of the in the 20's 30's 40 50 60 and in many instancances it is still going on ... She saw this going on and from her own account she reveals the horror of what was don in the dark and in many times what was done as a recreationional pastime to catch and murder photograph and have a picnic afterward , without any remorse. This song pulled the rose-coloured glasses from the eyes many had of America where they saw the ugliness that lurked in the hearts of many in regards to how they felt about their black fellow man. And, many in power were angered that Ms Holiday had the audacity to call them out on it. and sought in private to shut her up, being workers of iniquity. But this is PUBLIC knowledge, right? anyone who has ears and the desire to know the truth can look it up and they say try GOOGLE, its free. Thank you for your content.
Mary Turner's Lynching should be public knowledge, so we can know exactly what they were actually capable of and willing to do, and honor her, her husband and baby.
She was utterly unique as an interpreter of meaningful lyrics. You feel everything she does. I believe the author, Jewish-American Alan Meeropol, wrote this after seeing a lynching (or it might have been a photo of a lynching) frpm the early '30s. Miss Holiday would only sing it at the conclusion of her set, alone, with no encores. It's hugely powerful. Thank you for sharing your deep appreciation of this; I can tell how moved you were. (It would take a cold heart not to be moved. Frankly, I'd be frightened of anyone who wasn't.)
Abel Meeropol, and it was a photograph. He was a fascinating person - he and his wife ended up adopting the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg when they they were killed.
Billie Holiday is the greatest jazz singer to date. Her ability to deliver the songs whit such emotion and conviction is a huge part of that. Shebis deservedly a legend.
This was exactly four months before she died. She was dying of liver cancer, yet she was still so beautiful. This performance (which was in London) however may be the real reason the government unalived her on her deathbed. They allegedly planted heroin on her and handcuffed her to her hospital bed. She died in that condition. They stopped her methadone as she went thru withdrawals . She originally performed and recorded this song in 1939 and Harry J Anslinger and the Fbi/ Fbn harrsssed and stalked her and had her friends plant drugs on her. They didn’t really object to her using drugs but more so her singing this song…which was the 1st ever protest song and literally the start of the civil rights movement. It was a massively successful hit I. 1939 and changed singing forever. It was her phrasing that every singer has borrowed from since. And this song was a multi platinum success - in 1939…And was name Time Magazine’s SONG OF THE CENTURY IN THE 70’s….RIP TO THIS FEARLESS, PIONEERING, BEAUTIFUL GENIUS.
I usually tap in for your Harry Mack content but Billie Holiday is iconic and that’s not me being hyperbolic. Her artistry was beautiful. She had the classic nostalgic voice with the kind of sound we’re used to seeing on old school flicks but listening to her voice transports you back in time to that period if you relax enough. She’ll always be legendary. She wasn’t singing just for nothing. She was speaking her truth and she delivered it beautifully
The most powerful protest song/singer ever. I grew up hearing the Lady, but my mom didn't play this song for me until I was 15. I am now 64 and still burst into tears at the first note. This song influenced my beliefs and behaviors toward Social Justice ever since. POWERFUL
Oh my goodness I feel the same way. I hang my head every time. The way she sings it you can actually see it happening. Hauntingly horrific and beautiful all at the same time.
I always luv it when young folks discover and appreciate the old stuff. Carry on, sir. My Dad was a dancer so he didn't really care for singers. of the very few singers he liked, Billie Holiday was one and Ella was another.
I am always speechless when I hear Billie sing this astonishing song. Perhaps that is the appropriate response, to sit with the feelings. I think her original was from 1939, on Commodore Records. I heard of Billie as a teen in the 70s, when I saw the bio film Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross & and, Richard Pryor. Had to get the REAL BH music after seeing the movie. She had a big influence on all kind of singers, even Frank Sinatra. Thanks for posting this.
This was her last live performance. She was really sick here and although her vocals are a bit slurred and the voice, not a sharp as it once was, this performance was a still profound - solid as a rock. She hadn’t lost her appeal. She first recorded this song in 1939.
@dave_goldcrest 1 second ago The most hard-hitting thing (besides her amazing performance) is that she wasn't just singing about history at the time, she was singing about what was still going on in her day. It wasn't just historical, it was political.
such a horrifying song..kills me that its all true...it happened, still happens, and some would see it continue to happen...this has always been one of my favorite songs..its so hard to listen to it..but we have to acknowledge this was reality...
According to history of Billie holiday, she saw this she lived it she felt it. This was America when lynching and hanging was going on throughout the south. I have been a fan of Billie holiday since very young, her records back in NYC, were played by my mother, when music was an everyday thing. Now a days i played them to my grand baby's, they roll their eyes, laugh, however they still have to listen to this remarkable beautiful voice. I like to tell them a bit about the history who she was, and why her songs come from the deepest part of the soul. In my opinion, Billie holiday is one of the best jazz singers. Thank you for playing this beautiful song.
Like others have said, she had a very hard life. She is older in this video, not at her best. Drugs had taken the best of her. She was an amazing woman.
From wikipedia: "Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings.[40] It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939,[41] with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it. For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone.[42] Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography.[43] When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for 20 years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit.[44] "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record."[45] "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s."
I've been waiting for a reactor to find Billie Holiday and this song. The original recording had great trumpet playing. Song breaks my heart every time.
Andra Day plays Billie in the HULU movie "United States vs. Billie Holiday. The gov't tried to keep Billie from singing Strange Fruit. Andra took the stage name Andra DAY directly from Billie's stage name of Lady Day. The first time I became aware of Billie was in HS in 1972 the entire junior ad senior classes were taken to the theater to see the movie "Lady Sings The Blues" starring the great Diana Ross, Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams, which dealt with the troubled childhood, extreme racism and her eventual turn to heroine to cope. It is all delved into in the movie. You have already listened to one Billie Holiday song about 10 or 11 days ago when Angelina performed "Gloomy Sunday" at 7. You should now listed to the BH original to see how great AJ's performance was. Angelina has said "there would be no Angelina if it weren't for Billie Holiday"who AJ adores. Here is another Angelina performance in the studio at 11 years old performing Billie's "I'M A FOOL TO WANT YOU": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SGx0djXTXQk.html It's like Billie reincarnated! Take care
She was amazing. They tried to censor her, and told her she couldn’t perform unless she promised not to sing Strange Fruit. She refused those conditions. Yes, she was quite a lady.
This clip was recorded in February 1959 (five months before her passing) during her British tour and is the only footage of her performing her signature piece. She made studio recordings of it in 1939 and 1956, as well as several live recordings.
Hi this is Xavienne. I have never heard this song without crying. Ms Holiday voice is very powerful from the heart. My heart cries for all those that have passed and are living through the same struggles today. Blessings to all.
You should watch Lady sings the blues film about Billy Holliday staring Diana Ross. Billy was touring and stopped the bus to go out in the fields she came across a body hanging. Billy is one of my favourite singers. Haunting song.
Amazing. Angelina Jordan’s favorite artist. She once said, if there was no Billie Holiday, there’d be no Angelina Jordan. Wow. Soul can in fact be passed on.
Angelina will never know what its like to really sing like Billie Holiday..never know the pain,the struggle and amotions that black people feel...i don't think Angelina would say she could either-but if Angelina can help bring back good music then its all good!
I am guessing that she is referring to a mass lynching that when I saw the pictures, it made me sick when I realized what I was seeing. But it happened so much…. It’s brave that she sang those words in the era that she performed it. She is a great talent.
Now this is an artist you can go deep into the rabbit hole with. Often sad, often sexy, often both at once. Just about the hardest life of anyone that you're likely to listen to. For context, the peak of lynchings was after Reconstruction during the Jim Crow era. The song was originally based on a poem reacting to photos of a 1930 lynching, and then turned into a protest song.
I am stunned that this is his first time listening to this magnificent work of art, I first heard it in1960s as a 12 year old kid, it still brings tears rolling down my eyes😭😭💔🌹
Another song from era, and as powerful Nina Simone song God Dam Mississippi watch her powerful performance.....I remember her performance, she was so brave for the times, .. Also Nina's song Sinnerman....been in many movies Enjoying your Channel
Brudda thanks you for listening to this ,it is so powerful. If you notice Angelina Jordan embodys her voice, listen to Angelina's singing gloomy sunday by Billy Holiday when she was 7years old on Norway's got talent. Amazing 🎶🤙.
Specifically her experience on the road touring while trying to bathroom outside (at least that's pine story) . Lynchings were still pretty typical/normal in the mid 20th Century. This song was 1939ish I think first performed in New York...
@@Sensei.shonuffthat it literally insanity and then these people would go on to live normal lives, let’s just hope there is a hell for them to rot and burn in
Here’s the beauty of RU-vid - I was just browsing around and your reaction to Tennessee Whiskey caught my eye, so I clicked and liked it. Then I looked up your videos, found this one, liked it very much and now I’m a subscriber. For a very different but also powerful video, you may want to check out Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart from the Monterrey Jazz Festival, 1969 I think. And if you want to start an entirely different voyage, Hallelujah by Pentatonix. Peace from Ohio … (Sorry to have to correct myself. The Janis Joplin piece is actually Ball and Chain from the Monterrey Pop Festival. It was late at night when I wrote this.)
Maybe the most visceral, moving metaphor in all of songwriting, sung by an all-time great. To hear her voice in its prime you can go back to when she accompanied the Teddy Wilson orchestra in the 30's, but she had far too much talent to ever let the condiiton of her voice prevent her from expressing what she needed to express. Timeless.
Billie Holiday was one of the greats. I'm glad you found her. They tried to keep her from singing this song in particular because of the meaning. She has so many great songs. Very talented.
Billie Holiday was the queen in her day (mid-30's - late 50's). But she was SO MUCH more than that! She was a strong and courageous woman! She was threatened by the US Government for singing this song. She was arrested and pulled off stage for singing this song! She was even arrested and shackled to her bed when she was on her her deathbed. She NEVER stopped singing that song - right down to her death. By the way, not that it matters, but I'm white.
As I understand it from the perspective of a history teacher from Australia. Billie Holiday's performance of this song caused a lot of trouble for her during the McCarthy period, and from federal authorities who pursued her over tax matters. But it was the song that the authorities wanted to silence.
You really should watch the movie about her life and how the FBI Jager Hoover came after her to destroy her and set up drugs on her and just tormented her for years because she refused to stop singing this very song her life story was an amazing one and Angelina Jordan does a couple of her songs so well so well bless youAnd have a happy Easter
I was a kid when I first heard this tune. I always cried. Billie could emote like no one else in jazz. Performing this song live was brave of her. There were many people in the music industry making money on white singers accompanied by black musicians and wanted to avoid this controversial piece. A short but powerful performance.
Song written by a Jewish man named Abel Meeropol who quit the Communist party. It was based on the image taken by Lawrence Beitler who took a photo of a mob who lynched J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith for the robbing and murdering of a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his girlfriend, Mary Ball. The 16 year old James Cameron was saved by 2 people a women and a sports hero. James Cameron later confessed that J. Thomas Smith and Abraham Smith committed the crimes robbery and murder. Mary Ball's testimony dropped the charges of rape against James Cameron and confirmed the 2 who murdered Claude Deeter and raped her.
Notice that most singers, who had long careers, started out when young ,doing their "grittiest, down-to-earth work, and then as they got older, the music industry "machine", smooths them out to be more mainstream and "pop-ish". (eg., Elvis, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, et al). But with Holiday, its the opposite..... her early work, on the Columbia label, was mainstream, big-band radio-friendly..... and her later work for Decca and Verve, as heard here.... was challenging and provocative. Those who measure success by "sales" would say she's lost it and was in decline..... I'd say this was the real artist in her.
This was a very brave choice. It's impossible not to be moved by this. She paid a terrible price for her belief in this song. Her performance transcends genres and defies description.
After Holiday refused to stop performing the song at Anslinger's request, he had agents from his department sell her heroin to frame her. She was sent to prison for more than a year, and was stripped of her cabaret performer's license by authorities upon her release in 1948, essentially ending her nightclub career
I've never heard this song till today. Sad to say, she was a phenomenal jazz singer in my opinion. I love -Ill be seeing you. But this song gave me Chills. Sad to be able to see the horrific things people this to her people. That still is probably happening today. New generation still won't understand what older black people had to endure in the south in those days. Very Dark song.
Holiday may have popularized "Strange Fruit" and turned it into a work of art, but it was a Jewish communist teacher and civil rights activist from the Bronx, Abel Meeropol, who wrote it, first as a poem, then later as a song. His inspiration? Meeropol came across a 1930 photo that captured the lynching of two Black men in Indiana. The visceral image haunted him for days and prompted him to put pen to paper. After he published "Strange Fruit" in a teachers union publication, Meeropol composed it into a song and passed it onto a nightclub owner, who then introduced it to Holiday. The protest anthem became Holiday's downfall While civil rights activists and Black America embraced "Strange Fruit," the nightclub scene, which was primarily composed of white patrons, had mixed reactions. At witnessing Holiday's performance, audience members would applaud until their hands hurt, while those less sympathetic would bitterly walk out the door. One individual who was determined to silence Holiday was Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Anslinger. A known racist, Anslinger believed that drugs caused Black people to overstep their boundaries in American society and that Black jazz singers - who smoked marijuana - created the devil's music. When Anslinger forbid Holiday to perform "Strange Fruit," she refused, causing him to devise a plan to destroy her. Knowing that Holiday was a drug user, he had some of his men frame her by selling her heroin. When she was caught using the drug, she was thrown into prison for the next year and a half. Upon Holiday's release in 1948, federal authorities refused to reissue her cabaret performer’s license. Her nightclub days, which she loved so much, were over. Still determined to soldier on, she performed to sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall, but still, the demons of her difficult childhood, which involved working at a brothel alongside her prostitute mother, haunted her and she began using heroin again. In 1959, Holiday checked herself into a New York City hospital. Suffering from heart and lung problems and cirrhosis of the liver due to decades of drug and alcohol abuse, the singer was an emaciated version of herself. Her once heartfelt voice now withered and raspy. Still bent on ruining the singer, Anslinger had his men go to the hospital and handcuff her to her bed. Although Holiday had been showing gradual signs of recovery, Anslinger's men forbid doctors to offer her further treatment. She died within days.
@@williamdrake6711 Thanks for posting this information. I believe Abel Meeropol also adopted the Rosenberg brothers after their parents were executed. One can hear the changes in Billie's voice from her early work in the 30s, through the 40s and her records made later in the 50s, when the emotion is there but her voice is a husk. From what I have read Anslinger was a monster.
Powerful, but you need to hear Billie bust loose with lighter song. Her voice is sexy and fun, impossible to duplicate. "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" isn't a bad place to start.
