Billie Holiday
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Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop singing. He
Holiday with her dog, Mister, c. 1947
Holiday, aged two, in 1917
Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, c. 1946
Mug shot of Holiday after being arrested in 1947
Strange Fruit
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"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol, published in 1937.
Billie Holiday
…according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954. Holiday was in the middle of recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song by Abel Meeropol based on his poem about lynching. Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the…
Strange Fruit Commodore 1939
Meeropol cited this photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930, as inspiring his poem.