Apparently Harlems’ Billie Holiday used to break down every time after singing ‘Strange Fruit’. Seeing her perform it here (five months before her death), with that agonising, cracked voice of hers, you understand why.
She invests so much in it. Based on a poem about the lynching of two black men in the American South (’strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees…’) the song, which she originally recorded in 1939, went on to become her biggest hit.
From the Guardian.com with Open Culture and www.youtube.com
