"A self-righteous 23-year old model, Betty conquered the man twice her age with a potent mixture of youth, beauty, and sex. Within a year, she had completely remade Miles in her own youthful image. As she poured herself into him, his playing grew younger, his outlook fresh. She ripped through his closets, tossing out the elegant suits he had worn for years. This was the late ’60s, revolution was in the air, and suits were the uniforms of the Establishment. The time had come to get hip, and Betty pointed the way, introducing Miles to the musical and material gods of revolutionary style: Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone.
Anyone with half a grip on the past knows that Miles experienced far more than a wardrobe makeover during his tumultuous Betty year. Deeply influenced by the cosmic rock guitar of Hendrix and the experimental funk of Sly Stone, Miles turned mad genius and unleashed the electrified musical Frankenstein known as Bitches Brew. This monster he created would sadly run amok as fusion lost its soul and became an F word. But for a brief moment during these still glowing days of late ’60s Eden, Betty ruled as the mentor-muse for the original man and his music. There are even rumors about an unreleased album of songs that Betty wrote and recorded with Miles and his band.
Rumor holds that Miles broke things off because he suspected that his wife was tangled up in a torrid affair with Jimi Hendrix, an infidelity that she has flatly denied to this day. Miles claims that it was he who gave up his good thing in the end, while an old friend of Betty’s claims that it was she who got bored, leaving Miles for an unnamed rock star.
Unfortunately for Betty, America was not yet ready to embrace a woman with such an explicitly sexual persona. Her outrageously flamboyant image eclipsed her talent. Several of her live shows were boycotted by religious groups and even canceled. Radio steered clear of her unconventional music, judging it too hard for black stations and too black for white ones. Her records didn’t sell. Betty vanished from the scene, a rumored victim of a drug overdose. According to several old friends, Betty was very much set against drugs, making this oft-repeated and persistent rumor particularly vicious.
That the record buying public shunned Betty Davis should come as no surprise. She had a much rougher edge to her music than other female funk and soul artists of the ’70s. Song for song, Betty Davis is actually one of the most extreme sounding debut records of the decade."
(musthear.com)
