Bitter crop

‘Bitter Crop’ is an unconventional portrait of arguably America’s most eminent jazz singer. Acclaimed biographer Paul Alexander shrewdly focuses on the last year of Billie Holiday’s life – with relevant flashbacks to provide context – to evoke and examine the persistent magnificence of her artistry when it was supposed to have declined, in the wake of her drug abuse, relationships with violent men, and run-ins with the law. During her lifetime and after her death, Billie Holiday was often depicted as a down-on-her-luck junkie severely lacking in self-esteem.