AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Billie Holiday

Artist:Billie Holiday

Song:Strange Fruit

Album:Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years

This is another in my series of jazz classics for beginners complete with a performance video clip. Billie Holiday was one of the greatest singers of all time. And her recording of Strange Fruit was her greatest accomplishment. She was born Eleanora Fagan Apr. 7, 1915 in Philadelphia. Her father was musician Clarence Haliday. Her mother Sadie was Irish. Both were teenagers when they married. And Sadie's mom kicked them out of their Baltimore house once she got pregnant. Haliday abandoned the family to go on the road. Billie and her mom moved back to Baltimore to live with Sadie's sister. Sadie worked on passenger trains. So she wasn't home much. Truancy led to reform school. After Sadie opened a restaurant, Billie left school at age 11. Sadie came home one night to find a neighbor attempting to rape Billie. After he was thrown in jail, Billie worked in a brothel where she heard Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. After Billie moved to New York, she started singing in nightclubs. The name Billie is from Billie Dove and Holiday is a variant of her father's name. Benny Goodman first heard Billie in 1931. And she made her recording debut with Goodman in 1933. Billie was 18 years old. John Hammond was the producer. He signed Billie to Brunswick Records in 1935 and she recorded with Goodman's pianist Teddy Wilson. This is also when she met tenor saxophonist Lester Young. They had a great rapport. Brunswick couldn't afford to promote Billie. She left and sang briefly with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Things went poorly at both. Billie first performed Strange Fruit in 1939. It was written by poet Abel Meeropol under the pseudonym Lewis Allen. It's a protest about lynchings of blacks. So obviously the song is very controversial. When Billie wanted to record it, Hammond told her she should record happy songs like Ella Fitzgerald. She took it to Commodore Records owner Milt Gabler and he produced a recording of Strange Fruit in 1939 and 1944 with pianist Sonny White. It's probably Billie's signature song. She recorded it for Verve Records in the 50s. And that's the version that is on this 2CD budget comp of Billie's Verve recordings. It's from the 1956 album Lady Sings the Blues with Paul Quinchette on tenor sax, Charlie Shavers on trumpet, Tony Scott on clarinet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Aaron Bell on bass and Lenny McBrowne on drums. As you have probably heard, Billie had drug problems and spent time in prison. Her health deteriorated in the 50s and she died on July 15, 1959 at age 44. Here's Billie Holiday performing Strange Fruit 1959.