Blog Posts by Phil Sutcliffe

Injustice, murder and record company politics: the remarkable story of the greatest protest song of all, by MOJO's Phil Sutcliffe.

Seventy years ago this month Billie Holiday released "Strange Fruit": man's inhumanity to man made manifest in precisely three minutes, 12 scalding lines, inspired by the lynching of two black men--"Southern trees bear a strange fruit..."

A couple of weeks ago on Britain's Radio 2 Bob Dylan played it on Theme Time Radio Hour. It had to close the show, he said, nothing could follow it, certainly nothing germane to his chosen topic, fruit. "Yes, We Have No Bananas"? Not really.

The song always closed the show, from the first time Holiday sang it at Café Society, Greenwich Village, then the only integrated club in New York. Last song, darkness bar one spotlight on her face throughout. No bows, no encores.

Then from the audience, silence. Followed by nervous applause. Because "Strange Fruit" became part of the great wave of black American history from slavery

The folk legend is 90. MOJO's Phil Sutcliffe hails a prophet in his own land.

When Pete Seeger, the man Bruce Springsteen calls "the father of American folk music," walks on stage at Madison Square Garden on May 3 for his 90th birthday concert, 20,000 people will rise to their feet and roar acclaim--accompanied in spirit by multitudes around the world.

This will embarrass him no end. Although a lifelong performer, he is almost allergic to applause: a man whose collectivist political morality tells him he really can't be worth it, that life isn't about him or you or me, it's about us, the whole seething mass of us.

That's why, as ever, the first words his cracked old husk of a voice utters are almost certain to be something like, "Well, let's sing a song together. I'll teach you the words as we go along..." That's what he did in January at President Obama's pre-inaugural concert. A couple of plinks on the banjo, then a holler of "This land is your land..." and 400,000 voices sent Woody

"No matter what else is wrong with music, no matter how the Internet uproar plays out, live gigs are booming because fans love to be there, experience the real thing and be in the moment."

Yadayada.

It's the Water Rats, King's Cross, North London. Good new band on tonight. You find a spot towards the back of the room as the singer says "Hi" and they whack the opening chord... then the bloke in front of you turns to his mate and shouts, "Did you see the fight then? Bloody Hatton!"

"Yeah, all that hype and friggin' useless!" his mate shouts back. "Another let-down for British sport!"

"Yeah, after the football and the..."

And they're off. You're trying to listen to the band while, with every decibel it takes to outgun a howling lead guitar, these two pillocks bellow half-remembered clichés culled from tabloid back pages.

So you move away, scouting for lips that aren't moving, get settled again... until the git now adjacent shouts at his neighbour, "Like I was saying, I was down 43 by