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

[Bill McClung]

David Margolick wrote a book about the song and it's times (Strange Fruit,
Running Press, 2000).

Not everyone was a fan of the song.  John Hammond didn't like the song
musically or the effect it had on Holiday.

Pretty interesting book.


> [Original Message]
> From: agp <agp2176 at verizon.net>
> To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Date: 7/18/2009 10:53:48 AM
> 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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