Lady demands the bluesLady demands the blues

Pop star insists on ‘Strange Fruit’ for Trump inauguration

Singer Rebecca Ferguson says she will only perform at President-elect Donald Trump’s gala if she can sing the anti-lynching Billie Holiday standard

Deputy Editor Amanda Borschel-Dan is the host of The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing and What Matters Now podcasts and heads up The Times of Israel's Jewish World and Archaeology coverage.

Rebecca Ferguson performs in Milan, Italy, on January 1, 2012. (CC-BY, Andrea Tarella - Flickr, via wikipedia)
Rebecca Ferguson performs in Milan, Italy, on January 1, 2012. (CC-BY, Andrea Tarella - Flickr, via wikipedia)

Top ten British singer Rebecca Ferguson has “graciously” accepted an invitation from US President-elect Donald Trump to sing at his inauguration — on one condition. Ferguson, who rose to stardom through her appearances on UK reality TV series “The X Factor,” has countered “The Apprentice” star Trump with an offer he just may refuse.

In the spirit of Ferguson’s 2015 album “Lady Sings the Blues,” the performer told the Twittersphere that she would only perform at the gala if she can sing the Billie Holiday standard “Strange Fruit.”

Penned by Jewish Communist songwriter Abel Meeropol, “Strange Fruit” was first written as a poem titled “Bitter Fruit” in 1937. The poem was inspired by a gruesome photograph of two black men’s corpses hanging from a tree taken by Lawrence Beitler that captured the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.

After Meeropol set his words to music, he and his wife Anne, alongside African-American vocalist Laura Duncan, performed it in 1938 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Circuitously, this performance brought the song to the notice of blues singer Billie Holiday, who had already achieved mainstream success by the 1930s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Holiday’s 1939 recording brought the anti-lynching song international acclaim. But it was not easy for the singer to find a recording label willing to publish the controversial song. Its graphic lyrics include:

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

Eventually Holiday secured a one-record release from her label; it became her highest-selling record and the song most identified with the singer to this day. “Strange Fruit,” which the singer said reminded her of her father, was a regular feature of her live performances. Due to her personal connection with the song, she would save it for her final number and sing after its long instrumental introduction with closed eyes.

Michael Meeropol and brother Robert Meeropol outside the White House at a December 1, 2016, Washington, DC, rally aimed at clearing their mother's name. (Alan Heath/Rosenberg Fund for Children)
Michael Meeropol and brother Robert Meeropol outside the White House at a December 1, 2016, Washington, DC, rally aimed at clearing their mother’s name. (Alan Heath/Rosenberg Fund for Children)

Meeropol’s other hits included songs written for Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee. Born in the Bronx in 1903, he wrote under the name “Lewis Allan,” it is said, in honor of his two stillborn sons. One-time Communists, Anne and Abel were a childless couple and adopted the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Michael and Robert, who took their adopted family’s last name as their own.

Although she made it a prerequisite for her Trump performance, interestingly, in singer Ferguson’s 2015 album of Billie Holiday covers, she did not record “Strange Fruit.”

On her Twitter feed, Ferguson stated: “I’ve been asked and this is my answer. If you allow me to sing Strange Fruit, a song that has huge historical importance, a song that was blacklisted in the United States for being too controversial. A song that speaks to all the disregarded and downtrodden black people in the United States. A song that is a reminder of how love is the only thing that will conquer all the hatred in this world, then I will graciously accept your invitation and see you in Washington. Best Rebecca X”

The president-elect’s staff has reportedly found difficulty in booking performers for the January 20 event. According to The Guardian, “Elton John, Gene Simmons and Garth Brooks have all turned down invites, with many major artists aligning themselves with the Hillary Clinton campaign or not wishing to be associated with a Trump presidency.”

There has been no statement issued by the Trump team — or tweet from the president-elect himself — on whether Ferguson’s offer was accepted.

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