Personally one of my favorite artists of all time, Billie Holiday, is known to be a true artist known in American pop and jazz history. She lived an emotional and challenging life, with plenty of stories to tell and enough sorrow to fill a songbook. Holiday sang with incredible profundity, sophistication, and her unique vocals is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices of all time. Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan Gough on April 7th, 1915 was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She was
The Voice of Billie Holiday A woman stands before you, and although she isn't a politician, she expresses her moving thoughts on issues that affect all Americans. Her voice isn't harsh or demanding in tone. Her stature is slender and traced in a shimmer of light that reflects from her dress. A southern magnolia is lying comfortably above her ear. She sings. She sings of incomprehension, of hate, and of a race's pain. She sings low and confused. She sings as "Our Lady of Sorrow"(Davis 1)
Many have the ability to reach and touch people’s souls through their amazing gifts. Although this art of turning notes and lyrics into emotional imagery may somewhat come natural, the audience must wonder where their influence comes from. For Billie Holiday, her career was highly influenced by personal experience, the effects of the Great Depression, and the racial challenges of African Americans during her time. The Great Depression was a major historical event that affected thousands of Americans
Billie Holiday was a famous Harlem Renaissance jazz and blues singer. Her voice took on the emotion of the song, which was a quality not many singers had. Those strong emotions might have come from her cruel and misfortunate past. Holiday recorded many songs, but there was one song that made a huge impact. That song was Strange Fruit, a poem by Abel Meeropol that was set to music. The title came from the analogy that compared the lynched bodies of two men to fruit that hung on trees. Though Holiday
Billie was born to the name, Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915. She was born in Philadelphia but grew up in the Fell's Point section of Baltimore. Her mother, was just 13 at the time of her birth; her father, was 15. Holidays' teenage parents, Sadie Harris (aka Fagan) and probable father, Clarence Holiday, never married, and they did not live together for a long time. Clarence, a banjo and guitar player worked with Fletcher Henderson's band in the early 30s. He remains a shady figure who left his family
Jazz the Sound of the Heart In a blog written by Virginia Hughes she states that “Music moves people of all cultures, Vocal Jazz and collaborations with other sub-genres such as bebop jazz, cool jazz and hard bob didn’t only affected the culture throughout the eras, but created an outlet for many artists to express their repressed feelings during difficult time periods, and allowed a strong rooted foundation for Jazz in whole to continue to develop. “Vocal Jazz” has been able to touch the deepest
Billie Holiday Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but spent most of her poverty stricken childhood in Baltimore. Lady Day, as she was named by Lester Young, had to overcome many tragedies in her lifetime and yet still became one of the most popular jazz-blues vocalists of all time. Billie's Parents, Sally Fagan and Clarence Holiday, were both born in Baltimore. They married as teens and soon Sally gave birth to Eleanora Fagan. Shortly
Strange fruit is and amazing dark poem told by Billie Holiday as very powerful song. Strange Fruit is a terrifying protest against the inhumane acts of racism. Strange Fruit was about the murders and lynching going on in the south at the time from public hangings to burnings. The south has a cruel and terrifying past that haunts the very people who still live down there and remind them that only a short time ago was no one prosecuted for killing someone of dark skin since whole towns were involved
The magnificent stories of Billie Holiday, the great Louis Armstrong, and Adelaide Hall are about how they struggled, conquered, and worked through the Harlem Renaissance. From realizing they all left an impact on the world. They were very successful African American musicians. It takes a lot to write and express different feelings especially to the world, but they all did in song and in action. Billie Holiday was born April 7, 1915, in Pennsylvania. Her birth name was Eleanora Logan Gough; her birth
“Strange Fruit” because black people who were lynched had a higher rate than other race in the History of United States. This proves evidence that white people who are racist only wanted to lynch blacks for no reason. This connection to the part when Billie said, “For the Sun to rot / for the tree to drop / here is a Strange and Bitter Crop”. After time pass by, the hanging bodies would rot on their rope from the sun until eventually the body would fall apart and drop to the grass below. This part is
and the mood of the poem distinctly states the message and you can easily tell how the poem sounds melancholy and ominous. The speaker, either Meeropol or Holiday, uses a strong but saddened tone, the reader or listener can tell the meaning of the poem. The amount of emotion used in the poem helps convey the theme because by the way Holiday sings the gruesome lyrics, anyone can tell how badly some people were affected by the lynching. The poem relates to history because it was written about the lynching
a photograph of a lynching sort of put him over the edge.’" (Npr.org) After reading the poem, I was mortified. The poem gives you a very graphic picture of the “fruit” hanging from the tree after the lynching. After reading the poem, I listened to Billie Holiday’s performance where she sang the poem. Her voice intensified it to a level that I didn’t know was reachable. “Strange Fruit” is overall, a frightening,
“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday conveys the inhumane, gory lynchings of African-Americans in the American South, and how this highly unnatural act had entrenched itself into the society and culture of the South, almost as if it were an agricultural crop. Although the song did not originate from Holiday, her first performance of it in 1939 in New York City and successive recording of the song became highly popular for their emotional power (“Strange fruit,” 2017). The lyrics in the song highlight
Cotton Club where blacks entertained a strictly all white crowd. At that time she was making about $25 a week. It was here that Lena got to meet and observe now famous artists such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Ethal Waters, and Billie Holiday. At the age of nineteen she met and married Louis Jones. Together they had two children Gail and Teddy (who later died in 1970 from kidney failure). While trying to get used to raising a family and having a career, she received a call from
substituting "drinkin' Coca Cola" for "drinkin' wine" in T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" and "Pretty little Susie is the girl for me" instead of "Boys, don't you know what she do to me" in Little Richard's "Tutti Fruitti." During 1956 ABC Radio Network bans Billie Holiday's rendition of Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" from all of its stations because of its prostitution theme. Stations continue to play instrumental versions of the song. .... The Parks Department in San Antonio, Texas, removes all rock and roll
affected many African-Americans lives. Billie Holiday was able to bring out this tragic enslavement of African-Americans and describe how they were treated back in the 20's. Strange Fruit, a poem by Abel Meeropol, which was later picked up by Billie Holiday and formed into a song is one way jazz has incorporated into political discourse. This song describes the lynching of African-Americans in the south and a protest against the inhumanity of racism. Billie Holiday singing this song and introducing this
and, eventually, took part in the lynching of African Americans. “Strange Fruit”, a poem written by Abel Meeropol, and the song being performed by Billie Holiday, is a poem that demonstrates the horror of the author to discover the happenings of a lynching and to see the image of one taking place. The poem was widely known as a song sung by Billie Holiday in 1939 and was written and published by Abel Meeropol in 1937 being the first literary writing to publicly object lynching. Abel Meeropol was a
“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” Strange fruit was written in 1937. For a protest poem, ostensibly intended to give voice to an explicit political agenda, “Strange Fruit” oddly provides no identifiable perspective. Written by Abel Meeropol in 1937 and first published under the title “Bitter Fruit”, the poem was initially intended as a harsh indictment of racial
Billie Holiday was an African-American jazz singer and songwriter.Billie Holiday was the biological child of Sadie Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Sadie was thirteen when she had Billie. At the same time, Clarence was an irresponsible father who did not care about his daughter's Billie. From Billie's early life, she grew up in a broken family. In other word, she had no father to support throughout her childhood and her mother who was struggling financially as a teen mom that often neglect the time to
I think Billie was trying to sound a little dramatic because of the way Abel described the bodies of the hanged people, she was trying to make everyone feel emotional, and have the feeling of what Americans did to the colored their fault. The emotion that the speaker