Not Fade Away

BETTY DAVIS

Raw funk innovator

(1945)-(2022)

BETTY Mabry’s tempestuous marriage to Miles Davis lasted only a year. Creatively, however, it proved mutually beneficial. She introduced him to the music of Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, prompting his shift towards jazz fusion, particularly on 1970’s Bitches Brew. In turn, Miles encouraged her to pursue a stopstart singing career that had until then been secondary to modelling. Betty resumed writing music after their divorce in 1969, eventually leading to a self-titled debut album four years later.

Her style was uncompromising and raw, specialising in sensual songs with hard funk-blues backings. “I wrote songs about sex, and that was sort of unheard of then,” she told in 2018. By 1974’s self-produced , Davis had become one of the first black women to exert full artistic control over their work. She made her major label bow with the following year’s (on Island), but had already fallen foul of the US censors, who effectively barred her from TV and