By Vic Schermer

The following interview by Vic Schermer of All About Jazz was conducted with author David Margolick via email during February 26- March 6, 2000. (We recommend that, if you haven't already done so, you read the book review before the interview, since several of the questions derive from the review.)

VLS: Obviously, David, this is an unusual subject- the history of a single song. Do you know of any other books about a single tune? I'm sure there must be books, for example, about "La Marselleise" and "The Star Spangled Banner." Do you know of books about the history of a song?

DM: The only other ones I know are of "Amazing Grace" and, oddly enough, "Louie, Louie."

VLS: "Louie, Louie????!!!" Do you know what the books on "Amazing Grace" and "Louie Louie" are about?

DM: I don't have that information. I know the book about "Louie, Louie" came out in the last few years.

VLS: How did you get interested in the song "Strange Fruit" and decide to write first an article, then a book, about it? What are the personal roots of this book for you?

DM: It was really sort of accidental. While working at the New York Times, I wrote a piece about Robert Meeropol, the younger of the two sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who was adopted as a young boy by Abel and Ann Meeropol. I'm pretty sure I'd known about Meeropol's connection to "Strange Fruit" before that, so it was one of the things we discussed. I'd long been intrigued with "Strange Fruit" -- at first by its title and then, like many people, by the sensation of hearing it for the first time and suddenly realizing what it was about. No one had prepared me for it.

VLS: Do you have a jazz background or interest and/or a background or long-standing interest in politics and race relations? I suppose what I'm really asking is whether you were personally immersed in any way in any of these subcultures?

DM: I don't have a background in jazz, race relations, or politics, specifically. As a journalist and more generally as a human being, though, I've always been interested in lots of things, including those three topics.

VLS: Are you yourself an ardent Billie Holiday fan?

DM: I am an ardent fan of hers, but by no means a scholar, neither of her work nor of jazz in general.

VLS: Do you collect her recordings? Had you ever heard her sing in person?

DM: I have many of her recordings, though I don't collect them. I never did hear her in person; I was only seven years old when she died.

VLS: Running Press is a very selective publishing house, not your average "trade book" venue. What made you choose them, and/or vice-versa, what made them interested in your book?

DM: The basis of this book is an article I did on "Strange Fruit" in Vanity Fair in the Fall of 1998. An executive at Running Press, Carlo DeVito, saw the piece and asked me if I'd like to turn it into a book. I was intrigued by the idea, as any writer would be; it's a chance to work without the space constraints of a magazine piece, and to restore all of the passages that had to be left out of the original!

VLS: My memory doesn't serve me whether Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan), the composer of "Strange Fruit," ever heard Billie sing or had a chance to speak with her. Is that discussed in the book? Do you know if they had contact with each other?

DM: From what I can gather, they met only once: the time that Meeropol -- seeking, essentially, to sell her on the song -- came into Cafe Society and played it for Holiday. He was at the club when she first performed it and was thrilled with what he heard.

VLS: Just to be clear, did Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan) write both the melody and the lyrics of "Strange Fruit"?

DM: Meeropol wrote both the words and the music, though there is a debate about the extent to which Holiday and an arranger, Danny Mendelsohn, re-shaped the music to suit her ends. Whatever they did to the song, Meeropol approved of it heartily, and still maintained that the composition was his alone.

VLS: It also isn't clear to me to what extent Billie herself was interested in left wing politics. Did she sing at Cafe Society simply because it was a cool gig, or also because she was somehow involved with the same philosophy? And was she affected by McCarthyism and/or the archaic and discriminatory cabaret laws that prevailed in NYC in the forties and fifties?

DM: I don't think of Holiday as explicitly political in the sense that habitues of Cafe Society were -- she'd not have been up to date on the latest schisms and passions in left wing circles -- but intensely political in her fervor over racial injustice. So she'd have come to Cafe Society because it seemed like a congenial place, one in which she'd not have to put up with the indignities of segregation or second-class citizenship, and could perform for an integrated audience.

One source told me that Holiday had been hauled before some Congressional anti-Communist panel but I could not confirm this; the FBI clearly followed her, though, recording all of her drug busts. Because of her drug problems, she lost her cabaret license in New York and could not perform in its clubs for many years, something that clearly hastened her physical and emotional decline.

VLS: Many jazz musicians, mostly but not exclusively African American, were profoundly discriminated against and their lives disrupted by these archaic laws. To turn to another subject, you document and correct in your book some of the mythology and faux history that has grown up around Billie, and especially the errors contained within her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues." To your mind, is there a good, reasonably accurate biography of Billie Holiday? Are there other songs she claimed to have written which were actually composed by others?

DM: The best biography is Donald Clarke's "Wishing on the Moon," which came out a few years ago. My impression is that Holiday didn't exactly invent authorship of songs so much as exaggerate her contributions to those songs attributed to her -- that is, she'd suggest a fragment or phrase or kernel of an idea for a song, and then claim that she'd written it. The songs I'm thinking of are "God Bless the Child," "Don't Explain," and "Fine and Mellow."

VLS: I honestly always thought she wrote "God Bless the Child." No?

DM: If I'm not mistaken, it's attributed to both her and Arthur Herzog. In fact, the story goes that Herzog heard her use the phrase, liked it, and turned it into a song.

VLS: Who were your most important primary sources for the book- those who actually witnessed the events described and whom you personally interviewed?

DM: Most of the direct participants had died before I could reach them, so I was dependent on prior interviews with them. But I spoke with Milt Gabler, who'd recorded "Strange Fruit;" John Williams, who played bass behind her; various people who knew Abel Meeropol and actually sang "Strange Fruit" before Holiday did; and Lena Horne, Heywood Hale Broun, Studs Terkel, Ahmet Ertegun and many others who heard her perform it at Cafe Society and elsewhere.

VLS: Do you know on what corner of Sheridan Square, or else the exact address, at which Cafe Society was located?

DM: I had mistakenly thought the site was abandoned. A journalist just told me that it is at One Sheridan Square [a reproduction in Margolick's book of a 1939 advertisement actually indicates "2 Sheridan Square"- VLS], and that there is now a very technologically-sophisticated theater on that spot. [It is the Axis Theater Company, and is on a quiet, "neigborhood-y" corner, just east of Seventh Avenue. I visited the location, and was struck by the fact that there is no plaque or sign commemorating either Cafe Society or Billie's presence there: could it be that the New York Historical Commission wants to avoid political controversy?- VLS]

VLS: The book is a statement about music, about values, about racial discrimination and violence, about political convictions, about life during a particular era, and about an extraordinarily gifted and expressive soul, i.e. Billie Holiday. David, what impact would you like the book to have on the reader and on our society, and also with young people today?

DM: I'd like the reader to ponder precisely what conditions led to the creation of such a song, to become more familiar with the history of race relations in this country; to consider the kind of courage it took for Holiday -- who was all of 24 years old at the time -- to perform the song; to realize the enduring impact that a single person can make on the consciousness of many, and the power of art to change the way we look at life and ourselves.

VLS: If it's not divulging trade secrets, what are some of your upcoming projects?

DM: I'm working on my next story for Vanity Fair and hope to do a book about sports in the 1930s. (I may be able to be a bit more explicit on that shortly. I'm not being coy here, but superstitious, since it's still gestating).

VLS: You have a knack for bringing the history of jazz alive, and we hope that you'll continue to write about the jazz scene. Is that a possibility?

DM: That's very nice of you to say. I would like to do another story at some point, perhaps about some other interesting jazz personalities and/or some historic event. It will be hard, though, to find something else that brings together so many of my interests.

VLS: Dave, all the best with your new book, Strange Fruit, coming out as it does on the occasion of Billie Holiday's birthday on April 7, and thanks for taking the time to talk with the readers of "All About Jazz."

DM: I've enjoyed the interview very much.

(Both Vic Schermer and Mr. Margolick are interested in your reactions to the book and the review. If you email Vic Schermer, he will respond as well as pass along any questions and comments for Mr. Margolick, and we consider publishing any dialogue on All About Jazz with our discretion and your permission.)

The book, Strange Fruit, may be purchased directly from the publisher, Running Press, or from Amazon.com as well as at your local bookstores.

Vic Schermer is a psychologist and jazz aficianado in Philadelphia, PA. He is a regular contributor to All About Jazz and other jazz venues on the Worldwide Web.