[78-L] Strange Fruit (was: Billie)

[Cary Ginell]

Other than the aforementioned version by Josh White, there have been a few other renditions of "Strange Fruit" over the years. These are ones that I have:

 

Sidney Bechet (Bluebird)

Ranee Lee (contemporary jazz singer) (Justin Time)

Josh White, Jr. (Silverwolf)

Jimmy Scott (Milestone)

Lou Rawls (Capitol)

 

None hold up to the Holiday and White recordings, but, in at the same token, none was embarrassing.

 

Cary Ginell
 
> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:53:33 +0000
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> From: agp2176 at verizon.net
> Subject: [78-L] Strange Fruit (was: Billie)
> 
> As I was digging out my copy of Strange Fruit just now, I got to 
> wondering about some facts about it.
> 
> Is it safe to say that it probably didn't get much if any radio play 
> or exposure then, and probably still doesn't.
> 
> I know that it has seen re-releases, I have a 45 of it on Atlantic. 
> Plus, it was reissued on CD via GRP via Universal/ Verve. Don't 
> really know of any re-releases as single though apart from the one on Atlantic.
> 
> Did it see release outside the USA back in the 30s? I wonder if 
> anyone like Decca in the UK or HMV was brave enough to pick it up -- 
> or if it wasn't even offered to them!
> 
> Finally -- on the subject of covers of it, I see that Tori Amos did 
> it as the b-side to her single Cornflake Girl. This is exactly what I 
> mean by saying that no one should even attempt to cover this song. 
> What the foo does Tori Amos, who I'll term as a rich white neurotic 
> from Baltimore, know about the emotions that are in this song. 
> Academics say that -quote- Amos, by prolonging the emotional climax 
> of the song to "linger in her outcry," recasts the event as an act of 
> remembering and retelling, freed from the emotional constraints of 
> the act of witnessing. -unquote- (quote from Lori Burns, and Alyssa 
> Woods, in "Authenticity, Appropriation, Signification: Tori Amos on 
> Gender, Race, and Violence in Covers of Billie Holiday and Eminem".). 
> Sounds like hogwash to me -- I think that someone out to put their 
> head in a bucket of water!
> 
> T
> 
> 
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