Billie Holiday: Sweet and Sour

Lady Day. A super spectacular spirit.  Most know of her famous rendition of God Bless the Child. One of my favorites is All of Me. Her voice and the music in this version is playful, raw and fabulous. Her style and vitality, despite the racism and addictions, inspired many in the decades after her death. The city of Baltimore rededicated a statue of her in 2009 more than twenty years after the initial unveiling. In 1939 Billie Holiday recorded Strange Fruit, depicting the brutal Jim Crow ways of life for Blacks in the United States. Billie took a stand and risked her life and career for "telling the truth" during a very dangerous period in the history of this country.

Strange Fruit
Songwriters: Allan, Lewis; Pearl, Maurice; Wiggins, Dwayne P.

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the popular trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluckFor the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter cry

Strange Fruit lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., EMI Music Publishing

Photo Library of Congress