Robeson Down Under
A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece about story that CBS This Morning did about the song "Strange Fruit" that Billie Holiday famously recorded and which focused the story on its writer, Abel Meerapol. I mentioned that at the end of the report the reporter discussed that Meerapol also wrote the words to a song she mistakenly called "What is America to Me?", though its actual name is "The House I Live." And she noted that Frank Sinatra had had success with the song.
That got me to referencing the other famous recording of the song, by the great Paul Robeson, and posting his version of the song, as well as writing a bit about him, which you can find here .
That got me to tracking down some other material of Robeson just for my own enjoyment, and I came across a video that I thought I should post here.
It’s footage of when Robeson (who had been Blacklisted in 1950) gave an impromptu acapella concert in Australia at the Sydney Opera House on November 9, 1960, when they were building the structure. Among other things, he was there in support of the union workers.
As a very brief addendum to this, Robeson was supposed to play the role of ‘Joe’ in the original 1927 Broadway production of Show Boat, In fact, the song “Old Man River” was written for him, but because of a delay in the production his schedule had a conflict, and so he had to drop out of the show. However, he did play the role the next year in the London production. And when the first version of the movie was made in 1936 he played the role (and sang The Song) in the film.
Here he is with those two songs outside the Sydney Opera House in construction. He may have changed some of the words to fit his purpose, but his strength comes through clearly.
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