Betty Davis, the ex-wife of jazz legend Miles Davis, was years ahead of her time, only to disappear from the spotlight for decades
The near-entirety of Davis’ musical catalog was recorded between 1964 and 1975, but her impact has been felt for decades. A model by profession, Davis first began making music under her birth name Betty Mabry, including her 1964 single “Get Ready for Betty.” An influential figure in the New York music scene in the late-Sixties, she would pen the Chambers Brothers songSummer of Soul
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Following that three-year spurt of material — and following a year in Japan where she spent time with silent monks — Davis abruptly left the music industry, moving to the Pittsburgh area where she lived for the next 40 years without making new music.in a rare interview in 2018. “And nobody else was knocking at my door.”
However, over that decades-long period, Davis’ music gained a cult following, inspiring a generation of artists like Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae. The renewed interest in Davis’ work resulted in a series of reissues from archival label Light in the Attic — including the first-ever printing of her unreleased 1976 fourth LP — that celebrated her legacy. “Our hearts are incredibly heavy today,” Light in the Attic’s Matt Sullivan said in a statement Wednesday.
Woods added, “[I remember] instantly being struck by just the sonic quality of her voice,” she says, also referring to the emotiveness of Davis’ singing. It’s like she makes me want to listen to what she’s saying. And I don’t think I understood the power of just that for a long time, and she really helped me internalize that.”
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