HONORING BETTY DAVIS
Last week, the pioneering, boundary-smashing Queen of Funk Betty Davis passed away at the age of 77. Davis, who left behind a trailblazing body of work that is hugely under-appreciated, was way ahead of her time. She only recorded music between 1964 and 1975, but her impact was felt for decades afterward. She was briefly married to Miles Davis, and introduced the jazz legend to the rock music of the era—and you can hear the influence clearly in his albums IN A SILENT WAY (1969) and BITCHES BREW (1970; my personal favorite Miles Davis album). But back to Betty. She first started making music in 1964 under her birth name Betty Mabry, and was an influential figure in the New York music scene in the late ‘60s. After her marriage to Miles Davis in 1968, she started performing under Betty Davis, and finally released her debut self-titled album in 1973. She quickly followed up with two more albums: THEY SAY I’M DIFFERENT (1974) and NASTY GAL (1975). Marked by her controversial sexually liberated lyrics and her raw and gritty performance style, Davis quickly gained a cult following but failed to achieve commercial success. After all, sexual liberation did not hit the charts (at least from a female perspective) until the late ‘80s and ‘90s—by which time Davis has long disappeared from the public eye. But her music inspired many to come, including Prince and Madonna. In Lenny Kravitz’ words…”This lady was hip before hip was hip.”
—Mimi Li, Development Assistant
