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COLUMN
FIFTY-EIGHT, APRIL 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
ABOUT BILLIE HOLIDAY AND
RUBY ELZY
Subject:
Billie Holiday and Saddest Song Ever Sung
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 04:18:02 -0000
From: "David Weaver" <dweaver_52@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Dear
Al,
Sorry
you had to postpone the poetry reading last night. It has been on my
agenda to
write you some time re "The Saddest Song Ever Song."
Ever since
our first
communication last fall about Billie Holiday, Ruby Elzy and "My
Man's Gone
Now," I've been trying to track down further information on
Holiday's
claim to you, made soon before she died in 1959, that Gershwin had
offered the
role of Serena when he, brother Ira and Dubose Heyward were
creating
"Porgy and Bess" in 1934-35.
To
date, every source I've investigated, every person knowledgable about
Gershwin or
the opera has told me there is no validity to Holiday's claim.
Gershwin was
composing an opera. He wanted
operatic voices and he got them
-- Ruby Elzy
(Serena) and Anne Brown (Bess) were both Julliard graduates,
Todd Duncan
(Porgy) was a voice teacher on the faculty of Howard University,
both he and
Abbie Mitchell (who as the original "Clara" introduced
"Summertime")
had sung with the all-black Aeolian Opera Company, and Warren
Coleman
(Crown) was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Of all the
main principals, only John Bubbles, who created the role of
Sportin'
Life, was not a trained singer.
One
author who had written extensively about George Gershwin, said it's
quite
possible Gershwin may have heard Holiday, since she was singing in New
York in the
mid-30s. Gershwin frequented
Harlem, and was a great admirer of
black
talent. But Billie Holiday, great a
singer as she was, simply didn't
have the
type of voice Gershwin wanted for "Porgy and Bess."
Last
year I sang with a soprano for Opera/Columbus (a white soprano,
incidentally),
who performs "My Man's Gone Now" in concert.
She said in all
of opera,
that the song is one of the vocally difficult and demanding pieces
for the
soprano voice in all of opera. She's
also an admirer of Billie
Holiday, and
thinks a Holiday version of the song would've been unique and
stylish, as
was her "Summertime." But she said there's no way Holiday
could've
sung it the way Ruby Elzy sang it on stage.
Is
it possible Billie Holiday's memory was faulty in 1959, perhaps as a
result of
her long-time addiction to drugs? The Gershwin expert theorized
that
performers sometimes make outrageous claims, thinking no one will ever
check the
facts. And he said Billie claiming
Gershwin asked her to be
Serena is
one of the most outrageous he's ever heard.
Your
"Saddest Song Ever Sung" story is very moving and poignant, and I'm
sure Billie
Holiday believed it wholeheartedly as she told it to you.
But
to quote
another song from the opera, "It Ain't Necessarily So."
If I do
turn up
corroborating evidence, I'll share it with you immediately.
Best
wishes -- enjoying every issue of TBJ!
David
Weaver ##
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Subject:
Re: Billie Holiday and Saddest Song Ever Sung
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 06:21:59 -0500
From: al aronowitz <info@blacklistedjournalist.com>
Organization: THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST
To: David Weaver <dweaver_52@hotmail.com
DAVID:
Billie didn't sing it as opera. She
sang it as blues, just as Amina
Baraka does
when she accompanies me in my reading of the story.
That whole
night
remains very clear in my memory---one of he most moving moments of my
life---and I
am only reporting what happened. Billie
knew the lyrics of the
song
perfectly and sang them perfectly--as a blues song!
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Subject:
Re: Billie Holiday and Saddest Song Ever Sung
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 18:17:48 -0000
From: "David Weaver" <dweaver_52@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Hi
Al!
Thanks
for your quick response. I was not
disputing Billie's singing of "My
Man's Gone
Now," I was only sharing the results of my research re her
telling you
she had been offered the part of Serena. I
know her rendition
of the song
would've been very soulful and bluesy, and not at all operatic
as Ruby
Elzy's was.
Also,
in re-reading my message to you, I should have noted that it is quite
possible
Billie auditioned for Gershwin and PORGY AND BESS. According to
the archives
kept about the production, Gershwin auditioned more than
ONE-THOUSAND
SINGERS. Since the cast was so
large, Gershwin listened to
probably
every black singer of any significance, including the great Paul
Robeson.
I
know how vivid your memory of Billie Holiday and that time you spent with
her must be.
She was truly a unique singer, and her signature songs like
"Strange
Fruit" will never be sung that way again.
Again,
best wishes on rescheduling the poetry reading -- our weatherman here
said the big
blizzard didn't materialize as predicted, so I hope you're all
okay in New
York!
Take
care.
David
Weaver ##
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Subject:
Re: Billie Holiday and Saddest Song Ever Sung
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 20:12:02 -0000
From: "David Weaver" <dweaver_52@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Hello
Al,
Ruby
Elzy's last public performance was as Serena in "Porgy and Bess" in
Denver,
Colorado, on June 19, 1943. It was
the final stop in the "Porgy and
Bess"
tour that had begun the previous September, atfer the opera had played
286
triumphant performances on Broadway.
The
company was going on hiatus after June, to resume the tour in the fall.
However,
Ruby would not be rejoining them, as she was booked to begin a solo
concert tour
and was to make her grand opera debut in the title role of
"Aida"
in 1944. After Denver, her next
performance was to be in New York
City on July
6, 1943, in the all-Gershwin concert at Lewisohn Stadium.
En
route from Denver to New York, Ruby felt ill and stopped to see a doctor
in Detroit,
Michigan. An exam revealed a benign
tumor of the uterus. Her
doctor urged
that she have surgery before going on to New York.
She
consented,
and an operation was performed at Detroit's Parkside Hospital.
In
accounts from her mother, who was with her at the time, Ruby made it thru
the surgery
okay. She was in the recovery room
and asked her nurses if she
could have a
drink of water, but they told her it was too soon.
A few
minutes
later, Ruby went into cardiac shock, and doctor's efforts to revive
her failed.
She died on the afternoon of June 26, 1943, just one week after
her last
performance. She was only 35 years
old.
Thanks,
Al. Hope the poetry reading and
concert you had to postpone is back
on, and is a
great success. Take care.
David
Weaver ##
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