Billie Holiday Strange Fruit Commodore 10" LP 1939

$

36

eurekabooksellers Store


Billie Holiday Strange Fruit / Fine and Mellow 10" 1939





View My Other Items For Sale for two other early Billie Holiday records
  Offered without reserve!  

Commodore Classics in Swing 526

A Side: Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra, with a piano interlude by Sonny White. Matrix 24403-B#2 [note: the #2 is scratched into the vinyl, rather than stamped, and is fainter than the other markings]

B Side: Fine and Mellow by Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra, with a trumpet obligato by Frankie Newton. Matrix 24405-A #2 [note: the #2 is scratched into the vinyl, rather than stamped, and is fainter than the other markings]

Recorded on April 20, 1939, Holiday's first record for Commodore.

The address for Commodore Music Shop on the record is 136 East 42nd Street. Wikipedia has a picture of this disc with an address of 46 West 52nd Street, which, I believe, is a later address.

I don't know much about records and don't have a guide to refer to, but this would seem to be an early pressing. Please feel free to ask questions if the pictures aren't clear enough for you.

Record Condition: Visually, I'd say very good, with some scratches. But you can bid with confidence as we have an unconditional return policy, so if you win the auction and find the record doesn't play well, you may return it for a refund of the auction price (not including shipping).

Record Sleeve: Original sleeve not present.

According to Wikipedia:

"Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx....When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records. That was done on April 20, 1939, and "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She later recorded it again for Verve. While the Commodore release did not get airplay, the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit."

In addition to being Holiday's first record for Commodore Records, one of the first independent jazz labels, Holiday's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; the National Endowment for the Arts put it on the list of Songs of the Century. Time magazine called Strange Fruit the song of the century. It is also part of the Library of Congress's National Song Registry.

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