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

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "agp" <agp2176 at verizon.net>
> 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!
>
I have YET to hear ANY 21st-century vocalists who could do ANY
kind of justice to ANY pre-195? tunes; they all work in the "Urban
Dance" genre (rap, hip-hop, usw.), which requires SFA as far as
things like "melody lines" are concerned...?!

Further, I have over past decades heard any number of female vocalists
attempt to "cover" Billie Holiday...in EVERY case I recall they basically
(musically) fell flat upon their fundament!! Even given to-day's ability to
digitally re-construct a musical performance second-by-second...
correcting errors in pitch and such...I doubt that there has EVER
existed...or WILL exist...a female vocalist OR a "sound re-engineer"
who is/was/will be able to master Holiday's art of singing very slightly
"out of time" (she said she learned this from listening to Louis
Armstrong!) without sounding like this was the result of musical
incompetence...?!

I have NO doubt that Ms. Amos could do an acceptable job of
covering Eminem (with WOT is the applicable question...?!)...but
her covering Billie would, to me, seem to redefine the concept
of "musical disaster"...?!

...stevenc