Betty Davis

Betty Davis (born July 26, 1944, Durham, North Carolina, U.S.—died February 9, 2022, Homestead, Pennsylvania) was an American singer-songwriter, model, and pioneer of feminist funk, known for her fierce independence, bold fashion, and unapologetically sexual lyrics that pushed the boundaries of music and gender norms in the 1970s. Davis produced most of her own albums, wrote her own music, and handpicked the musicians to be used on the tracks. Her control over the creative process, powerful vocals, and raw, electric sound made her a trailblazer in funk, with her work ultimately influencing artists such as Erykah Badu, Outkast, and Prince.

Early life

Mabry grew up on a farm outside of Durham, North Carolina, where her interest in music was influenced particularly by her grandmother’s collection of blues albums, which they listened to regularly. When she was 12, she wrote her first song, “I’m Going to Bake a Cake of Love.” Shortly thereafter, her family relocated to Homestead, Pennsylvania, located just outside of Pittsburgh. At age 16, Mabry moved to New York, where she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. She worked as a model and a manager at a nightclub and very quickly immersed herself with the art and music scene of New York, becoming acquainted with artists such as Andy Warhol and musicians Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone.

The New York years

While living in New York, Mabry was featured as a model in magazines such as Ebony, Glamour, and Seventeen. She also honed her skills as a vocalist and formally entered into the music world with her first single, “The Cellar,” after meeting soul singer and producer Lou Courtney. The single, produced by Courtney, demonstrated a fervor that would become a hallmark of Mabry’s music. While hosting parties at a private uptown club known as The Cellar and frequenting famous nightclubs in New York, including the Cheetah and Electric Circus, Mabry met and befriended the members of the blues rock band the Chambers Brothers. She convinced their producers to record her song “Uptown” on their album The Time Has Come (1967), which was a critical success.

In 1967, the same year “Uptown” was released, Mabry met jazz musician Miles Davis. They were married in 1968. Although they divorced the following year, both were influential in one another’s careers. Notably, Betty Davis introduced Miles Davis to musicians such as Hendrix and Stone and inspired Miles Davis to adopt a more timely aesthetic, ditching the suit and tie in favor of hipper clothes. He also used Betty Davis’s picture for his album Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968) and named its final track, “Mademoiselle Mabry,” after her. Miles Davis also helped Betty Davis record tracks of her own through Columbia Records; the tracks featured prominent musical artists, including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Mitch Mitchell, and Billy Cox. The tracks from the recording sessions were eventually released in 2016, as The Columbia Years 1968–1969. Betty Davis also came up with the name for Miles Davis’s groundbreaking album Bitches Brew, released in 1970.

Albums and later career

In 1972, after a brief stint in London to pursue work as a model, Betty Davis went to San Francisco, where she set to work on her first album, the eponymous Betty Davis. She met with producer Greg Errico, former drummer of Sly and the Family Stone, who arranged a band made up of well-known musicians in the Bay Area, including bassist Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station and guitarist Neal Schon from Santana (and later Journey). The album was released in 1973 on the label Just Sunshine. Davis followed with They Say I’m Different in 1974, under Just Sunshine, and Nasty Gal in 1975, released under Island Records; both albums she produced herself. The albums, however, failed to achieve critical success, for various reasons but particularly her openness about sexuality.

After Nasty Gal, Davis recorded a fourth album but was dropped from her label, and the album was shelved. In 1979, after recording a final album that went unreleased, she retired from songwriting and recording. In the 1990s, however, her final sessions in the late ’70s, Crashin’ from Passion (1995) and Hangin’ Out in Hollywood (1996), were released. In 2009 Light in the Attic Records issued her fourth album, Is It Love or Desire, and reissued Crashin’ from Passion in 2023. Davis experienced a surge of popularity with the release of Betty: They Say I’m Different (2017), a documentary about her life.