In March of 1964, Nina Simone introduced this new song in a concert at Carnegie Hall. She prefaced it by saying it was a showtune, but "the show hasn't been written for it yet."
The reason for the song - the manifold reasons - however, were playing out all across the county, in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Maryland, etc. In countless places, blacks struggling for equal footing had been assaulted, denegrated, and murdered. It was - and still is, evidently - only the beginning.
This version is from a concert in Holland in 1965.
I could write pages and try to sound impressive, but there's no point and no reason. It wouldn't be adding icing to her cake, but wood shavings, and who needs that?
Nina Simone. Mississippi Goddam. Says it all.
A friend told me this morning that he'd never heard of "Strange Fruit."
I told him "I can fix that."
Click here to see & hear Billie sing "Strange Fruit"
The song was written as a poem in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, a high school teacher in the Bronx. Before anyone says "Aha! But do you know what he was!?" I will say, yes, he was also a member of the Communist Party. But you don't have to be a Communist to be opposed to lynchings.
Seriously. If the Tea Party doesn't mind Klan supporters, then I don't mind that some Communists have also found fault with lynchings.
At any rate, Billie sang and recorded this for the first time in 1939. Because of the nature of the song, she feared retaliation, but continued to sing it because it brought her father to mind each time.
Columbia Records refused to release it on a record, fearing flashback from retailers, especially in the South, so Billie got a one-session release from her contract to record it on an alternate label, Commodore, which produced alternative jazz records.
The 1939 release sold a million copies and eventually became her biggest selling record.
