Strange Fruit - by David Margolick (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday in 1939, "Strange Fruit" is considered the first significant song of the civil rights movement and the first musical assault against racial lynchings. The author discusses his revealing account of the song, chronicles the civil rights movement from the 1930s on, and profiles Holiday and songwriter, Abel Meeropol. Photos.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><strong>Learn the story behind the song performed by Andra Day in United States vs. Billie Holiday now on Hulu</strong></p> <p>Recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday in 1939, "Strange Fruit" is considered the first significant song of the Civil Rights movement and the first direct assault against racial lynchings in the South. First sung in New York's Café Society, these revolutionary lyrics have taken up a life of their own, as David Margolick discusses in his revealing account of the song and the struggle it came to personify.</p><p>Voted the "Song of the Century" by Time, "Strange Fruit" is a searing evocation of lynching. And when Billie Holiday sang it, she held audiences in rapt attention, moving some to tears, others to anger, and all to a heightened awareness of the racist violence that was still, nearly a century after the Civil War, taking the lives of African Americans. Now, David Margolick's account cuts away the myths that have grown up around both Holiday and her most famous song, allowing readers to discover the true origins of "Strange Fruit" and the circuitous paths it took to the center of a nation's conscience.</p><p>Margolick establishes the political and cultural context that surrounded "Strange Fruit" in 1939--a year in which there were three recorded lynchings and suspicion of many others, and which saw the publication of Gone with the Wind--and traces the song's journey through the red-baiting 50s and the incipient Civil Rights movement of the 60s, right up to the reverence it still inspires today. Along the way, Margolick includes commentary and reaction to the song from black and white audiences of different eras, and writers and musicians as varied as Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Pauline Kael, Charles Mingus, Cassandra Wilson, Maya Angelou, among others.</p><p>Exploring the intricate nexus between jazz, race, and politics, Strange Fruit opens a window onto an extraordinary song, the woman who sang it, and the role it played in our culture's evolving consciousness of racism.</p></p><p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br><p>Recorded by jazz legend Billie Holiday in 1939, Strange Fruit is considered to be the first significant song of the civil rights movement and the first direct musical assault upon racial lynchings in the South. Originally sung in New York's Cafe Society, these revolutionary lyrics take on a life of their own in this revealing account of the song and the struggle it personified. <em>Strange Fruit</em> not only chronicles the civil rights movement from the '30s on, it examines the lives of the beleaguered Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol, the white Jewish schoolteacher and communist sympathizer who wrote the song that would have an impact on generations of fans, black and white, unknown and famous, including performers Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and Sting.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"Show-stopper. To hear Billie holiday sing 'Strange Fruit' was to be forever haunted. Like Holiday's performance, Margolick's book is understated but intense, suffused with grace, power and dignity. It works on several levels: as tribute, elegy, homage andcultural history."--"New York Times Book Review"Margolick recreates the tense web of bitterness, guilt, denial and anger that surrounds Holiday's charged performances of 'Strange Fruit.' With thorough research and the smooth writing of a journalist, Margolick has produced a superb piece of cultural history."--"Publishers Weekly"["Strange Fruit], written by an outstanding journalist, David Margolick (New York Times; Vanity Fair), is a fast and fascinating read. It is written with great sincerity and dedication. This book will evoke stirring images of Ms. Holiday and the emerging jazz scene. It will also provide another link showing how modern jazz emerged in tandem with the Civil Rights movement, and how music can be a powerful political statement."--"allaboutjazz.com"With reportorial finesse, Margolick also restores 'Strange Fruit' to its deserved stature in the public consciousness as a piece of shocking reportage--a dispatch from battlesfields where the price of racism and ignorance was tallied in blood."--"Boston Globe"Margolick has nonetheless performed a valuable service: by illuminating the importance of this one song, he has captured an era in microcosm."--"The Providence Sunday Journal"For jazz buffs and anyone interested in popular culture, this slender book by Margolick offers several surprises and revelatons within its pages...This is indeed a job well done."--"Book Page"Strange Fruit explores how just 12 lines of lyrics andan unobtrusive score captivated nightclub audiences, terrified promoters and radio stations, and inspired activists in the 1940s...The effect of Margolick's storytelling technique is nearly as powerful as the song itself, employing the veneer of art to convey a very harsh reality."--"Baltimore City Paper"David Margolick's brief account of how 'Strange Fruit' came to be written and first performed is timely and illuminating."--"Ottawa Citizen"David Margolick takes us back to that time and makes a persuasive case for the importance of that performance--not just musically but socially as well. Small though it is, "Strange Fruit is an outsized piece of reporting and a satisfying work of history."--"Legal Times"The biography of a song is an intriguing project, and David Margolick carries it off, fitting great masses of musical and social history into a tiny volume."--"City Paper"Margolick presents a quick, fluent survey of the times and characters that formed 'Strange Fruit'--a song that inspired and enraged many listeners int hsoe days before the Civil Rights movement and changed Holiday as a performer."--"Library Journal"Margolick does an admirable job of disentagling the myths Holiday wove about herself."--"National Review"Strange Fruit sets the record straight with some fascinating background to go along with it...it is a quick read of a story that has to be told.--"Billboard"David Margolick offers an absorbing history and analysis of the song."--"Sunday Sun, Toronto"David Margolick's exceptional book, "Strange Fruit, is a biography of an extraordinary work, the singer who made it famous and its sustaining impact as one of the great protest songs of the 20th Century."--"MiamiHerald"Margolick has actually created a snapshot of a particular moment in time when jazz, social discontent, and fashionable liberalism came memorably together."--"Sunday Record<br>
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