A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon.
Billie Holiday is one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. But her life was addled by sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, disastrous relationships, and government persecution. In this propulsive biography, Paul Alexander narrows his scope to focus on the final year of Holiday's life, a time when she arguably achieved the zenith of her fame. As compromised as her voice may have become by that time, she managed all the same to reach astonishing peaks as a singer both in the studio and on the stage. With flashbacks to formative episodes in Holiday's private and professional lives, “Bitter Crop” is a searing portrait of this highly sophisticated, complex, intelligent, yet famously elusive artist.
