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The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. ~John Bush (allmusic.com) |
| The Billie Holiday Story – BBC Documentary (56min) |
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Continue reading April 07: The late Billie Holiday was born in 1915 – 100 years ago
July 17: John Coltrane passed away in 1967 (read more)
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| Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. |  |
| Winford Lindsey Stewart (June 7, 1934 – July 17, 1985), better known as Wynn Stewart, was an American country music performer. He was one of the progenitors of the Bakersfield sound. Although not a huge chart success, he was an inspiration to such greats as Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. |  |
| Spencer David Nelson Davies (born 17 July 1939) is a British musician and multi-instrumentalist, and the founder of the 1960s rock band, the Spencer Davis Group. Davis dropped the E in Davies and became Davis because in England and in the US his last name was pronounced “Daveys” and not Davis as in the Welsh pronunciation. |  |
| Ronald Franklin Asheton (July 17, 1948 – January 6, 2009) was an American guitarist and co-songwriter with Iggy Pop for the rock band The Stooges. He formed the Stooges along with Pop and his brother, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave Alexander. Asheton is ranked as number 29 on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. |  |
Spotify Playlist – July 17 |
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
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 poplar trees.
My two favorite songs by Billie Holiday are Strange Fruit and Speak Low.
Strange Fruit:
Strange Fruit, the haunting song about lynching in America was first recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939.
Strange Fruit is one of the earliest examples of a protest song. It is simple, spare and effective poetry. We must remember that it was written at a time when political protest was not often expressed in music, and still a dangerous thing to do. The three short verses has an unusual and ironic tone and are all the more powerful for it. To take such wonderful scenery and mix it with the brutality of hanging, to speak of lynched men as fruit, to mix up the smell of magnolias with that of burning flesh — this is powerful stuff to this day! We can only imagine the impact of the song when it was released.
Getting the song on record was not easy. Columbia Records, Holiday’s regular label, refused release it. It was Commodore Records, a small outfit run by Milton Gabler that finally released it.
Here is a great documentary about the film that was shown on PBS, it is a must see film:
The film tells a dramatic story of America’s past by using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter. The saga brings us face-to-face with the terror of lynching as it spotlights the courage and heroism of those who fought for racial justice when to do so was to risk ostracism and livelihood if white – and death if black. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor, the Left and popular culture that would give rise to the civil rights movement.
Speak Low:
Speak low when you speak, love
Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon
Speak low when you speak, love
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, we’re swept apart, too soon
Speak low, darling, speak low
Love is a spark, lost in the dark too soon, too soon
“Speak Low” (1943) is a popular song composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Ogden Nash. It was introduced by Mary Martin and Kenny Baker in the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus (1943). The 1944 hit single was by Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, with vocal by Billy Leach. The tune is a jazz standard that has been widely recorded. The opening line is a (slight mis)quotation from William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1600), where it is spoken by Don Pedro.
Other 7 April:
Continue reading Today: Billie Holiday was born in 1915