Abstract
This paper outlines the impacts that Jeff Buckley’s performance of Strange Fruit had during the early 1990s, through which a more balanced account of the song’s existence within American civil rights activism can be told.
Until now, contemporary scholarship has failed to acknowledge certain, underrepresented adoptions of the song throughout history; the most glaring oversight being Jeff Buckley’s 1993 adoption. Through musical analysis and contextual investigation of Buckley’s performance, the continued relevance of Strange Fruit is uncovered in an environment previously untouched by an academic eye. This particular performance uncovers discussions pertaining to the gendered and racialised account of the piece, as well as Buckley’s aesthetic directions, all of which until now have been omitted from scholarship.
By maintaining a critical and complete understanding of the life Strange Fruit continues to live, filling this gap is essential in supporting ideas of its multifaceted textual and cultural transience, as well as its inextricable link to Buckley’s musical legacy.
The Story of Strange Fruit (as told by scholarship)
Originally written by Jewish poet Abel Meeropol in the late 1930s, Strange Fruit was first established in a musical setting by Billie Holiday in 1939.[1] The consensus that contemporary scholarship has reached, offers the idea that the cultural weight Strange Fruit holds was only transported into the public consciousness through music. The story of the life Strange Fruit has led, ultimately starts with recognising that the scholarly state of play was one structured around the musical and political divides which its emergence through Billie Holiday had initially construed. This fledgling starting point of discourse has since been extended over time, in order to focus on the significance which, the specific performer, holds in its musical realisation. In conjunction, theorists have also used Strange Fruit as a bookmark in conceptualising music as a tool for cultural projection and civil power, as well as being submerged within contemporary pedagogy.
David Margolick’s book Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society and an early cry for Civil Rights (2000) was one of the first foundational texts in tracing the life Strange Fruit has led as a product of musical protest. First performed as a concert close, Billie Holiday generated a spark not only in racial discourse, but also that surrounding her public character. Sources have outlined Holiday’s reservations about performing the song, painting her intellect in a dim light, going so far as to argue that she didn’t actually understand the text to begin with.[2] Margolick acknowledges that although Strange Fruit was unlike anything she had performed prior [in that she was a blues sweetheart, almost ditzy in her performances of romantic lyricism], the text’s racial hold is blatantly undeniable.[3] Initially linking the contextual significance of Billie Holiday’s portrayal of Meeropol’s conceptual outrage, to the political and musical divides its musical presentation ensued, Margolick provides a possible conjecture on the route to its positive reception and importance within musicological scholarship. Evidencing his assertions that Strange Fruit’s positive impact and cultural importance was navigated by Holiday’s role as a performer, Margolick refers to the opinions of seminal jazz theorists. In particular, referencing British jazz critic Benny Green, who identified that it was "the exclusive weapons of the jazz artist" which allowed Holiday to immerse Strange Fruit within public discourse, fundamentally initiating the song’s function as an impetus for civil rights, hence initiating a modern conversation which considers the contextual significance of the text in relation to its performance.[4]
Building upon this, author Emily J. Lordi (2013) directed such contextual discussions toward the examination of Strange Fruit within the aesthetic confines of haunting art. In doing so, Lordi reframed the song within the discourse of black feminist culture, in conjunction with its previous political consideration. Through the musical analysis of Holiday’s vocal techniques, Lordi argued that the aforesaid literature serves to re-conceptualise the cultural impacts of Strange Fruit, stating that the strategies used in Gayl Jone’s novel Corregidora (1975) are employed in a similar vein by Holiday’s vocal gymnastics, essentially resulting in a haunting text.[5] In doing so Lordi asserts that it is through the haunting performance of Strange Fruit whereby disruptions of the "illusion of intimate knowledge" challenge listeners to more actively engage with the underlying political outcry that the text presents.[6] Again, navigating the conversation toward the significance of specific experiences of Strange Fruit.
The story of Strange Fruit however extends Billie Holiday’s impact on its reception. Ruth Feldstein moved away from the analysis of Holiday’s contribution to American civil rights, and toward the more global impact Nina Simone erected through her reintroduction of Strange Fruit within the 1960s.[7] Feldstein’s I Don’t Trust You Anymore (2005) was the first scholarly intervention made in the song’s story, which highlighted Strange Fruit’s ability to transcend both musical and temporal confines, dependant on its performer. Feldstein draws on the work of African American literature speciality Farah Griffin in directing the conversation toward Simone’s ability to alter the performance of Strange Fruit in such a way that it became an "introduction to civil rights" on a global scale.[8] The significance of this contribution has in turn strengthened the idea that Strange Fruit is a specific paradigm for understanding the inherent links between performer and performance, and the resulting cultural impacts different adoptions dictate.
Mobilising the track’s ability to transcend temporal barriers has lead the conversation to the technological ramifications upon Strange Fruit’s reemergence within developing musical genres. Salamishah Tillet (2014) echoes Feldstein’s inference that Nina Simone plated a "critical role within and beyond the civil rights movement", resulting in examining the subversion of Simone’s performance within modern hip hop, through sampling.[9] In particular, this text focuses on the sampling of Nina Simone’s Strange Fruit within works composed by household names; Cassidy (2007), Common and John Legend (2009), and most prolifically, Kanye West (2013).[10] This text although strengthens an underlying state of play which focuses on the relationship between performer and performance, in examining the role Strange Fruit has in invoking "black radical politics in a new generation of listeners", Tillet has further emphasised the intricate effects Strange Fruit continues to present.[11][12] In this investigation into the musical boundaries Strange Fruit has suspended, the story thus includes how sampling has opened a dialogue between people past and present, specifically rendering the text more accessible to contemporary audiences.[13]
The conversation at this point, has taken on a sociological, political and musical account of the life of Strange Fruit. What was yet to be included was a more scientific approach in understanding the reach of its emotional reception. José-Maria Esteve-Faubel et al.’s article Cross-Curricular Teaching Going Forward: A View from Strange Fruit (2018) nuances the tone of discourse to reflect the possibility of Strange Fruit as a pedagogical tool. The authors took a more quantitative approach in understand why Strange Fruit is "considered the most renowned protest song" in contemporary scholarship.[14] The results showed that although the majority of students aged 18-25 hadn’t noted any familiarity with Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit, the same amount were able to connect its textual content not only with themes of racism, civil rights and American social justice, but also to a historical context.[15] In doing so, this study has not only strengthened the academic consensus that Strange Fruit continues to maintain social relevance, but directs the conversation towards a new methodological approach in understanding the possible applications for such an effective text.
[1] Margolick, David., Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society And An Early Cry For Civil Rights (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2013). 11. [2] Margolick, Strange Fruit, 7. [3] Margolick, Strange Fruit, 9. [4] Margolick, Strange Fruit, 66. [5] Lordi, Emily J., "Haunting: Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit,” in Black Resonance : Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2013.) 161. [6] Lordi, "Haunting," 140. [7] Feldstein, R. “‘I Don’t Trust You Anymore’: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s.” Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1372. [8] Feldstein, "I Don’t Trust You Anymore," 1372. [9] Tillet, "Strange Sampling," 121. [10] Tillet, "Strange Sampling," 124. [11] Tillet, S. “Strange Sampling: Nina Simone and Her Hip-Hop Children.” American Quarterly 66, no. 1 (2014): 119. [12] Tillet, "Strange Sampling," 134. [13] Tillet, "Strange Sampling," 125. [14] Esteve-Faubel, José-María, Martin, Tania Josephine, and Junda, Mary Ellen. “Cross-Curricular Teaching Going Forward: A View from ‘Strange Fruit.’” International Journal of Education & the Arts 19, no. 4 (2018): 3. [15] Esteve-Faubel et al., "Cross-Curricular Teaching Going Forward," 11.
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