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Funk priestess Betty Davis calls out her record company in ‘Stars Starve, You Know,’ 1976
10.04.2019
09:43 am
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Betty Davis 1
 
By the mid 1970s, Betty Davis had released three groundbreaking albums of sexually frank, hard funk, but with little to show for it. She had great, cutting edge material, and her concerts wowed audiences and generated controversy, but none of this translated into record sales. Her detractors—which included the NAACP—felt she was too provocative, too outrageous. After two albums for an independent label, she was courted and signed by a major, Island Records, but after the failure of her Island debut, Nasty Gal (1975), the suits were now also pressuring her to change. It was in this environment that Betty wrote what is perhaps her most personal song, one that outlines her plight as a famous, yet struggling, artist. It’s a tune that, for decades, few had heard.

In the summer of 1976, Betty Davis traveled to the rural city of Bogalusa, Louisiana to record album #4 at Studio in the Country. At the state-of-the-art facility, located out in the woods and free of the usual distractions, Betty went to work. With her core backing band, Funk House, and Davis in the producer’s chair, they went about getting Betty’s new songs down to tape. Among those tracks was the highly autobiographical, “Stars Starve, You Know.”
 
Betty Davis 2
 
Though she often sang about her life and career in song, “Stars Starve, You Know” was different. Seeming to put all of her frustrations into a single, furiously funky number, Betty sang about the demands placed upon her to change, to tone down her act, to sell out—to no longer be herself.

They said if I wanted to make some money
I’d have to change my style
Put a paper bag over my face
Sing soft and wear tight fitting gowns
They don’t like the way I’m lookin’
So it’s hard for my agent to get me bookin’s
Unless I cover up my legs and drop my pen
And commit one of those commercial sins

At numerous points, she calls out her record company—by name.

I said go on and be yourself man
Because I sure can’t be mine
I said
Ain’t no business like show business
I said
Tell me can you spare a dime
I’m hungry
Ah hey hey Island

 
Betty Davis 3
 
While a serious, real song about the perils of the music industry, Betty injects humor into it and there’s a playfulness in her delivery.
 

 
Though an album was completed and mixed by the summer of ‘76’s end, the tapes were shelved. It’s unclear why, though Betty later said it was due to an unrelated dispute with the head of Island, Chris Blackwell. Surely contributing to the label’s decision was “Stars Starve, You Know,” which they surely weren’t happy with, nor could they have been pleased with the rest of the material, which was as uncompromising as ever. 30-plus years later, the album was released as Is It Love or Desire (2009).
 
Betty Davis 4
 
Following the Bogalusa sessions, Betty was dropped from her label. She soon would go across the pond to London, where she continued to struggle. By the early 1980s, she had left her music career behind, staying out of the public eye. In recent years, she has granted the occasional interview, and participated in the documentary, Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different. After 40 years, this summer marked her return to music, writing and producing this track.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
A blistering 1976 live set from the Queen of Funk, Betty Davis
Legendary ‘lost’ Betty Davis recording sessions from 1969 (with Miles Davis) have been found!

Posted by Bart Bealmear
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10.04.2019
09:43 am
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A blistering 1976 live set from the Queen of Funk, Betty Davis
11.27.2017
08:56 am
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Betty Davis
 
I’ve been a fan of ‘70s funk priestess Betty Davis since a friend played me her sophomore long-player, 1974’s They Say I’m Different, in the mid-‘90s. I was hooked by the second track, “He Was a Big Freak,” which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Back then, it wasn’t easy to find copies of her three albums, and I once settled for a mud-covered edition (at least I hope it was mud) of her final LP, Nasty Gal (1975), figuring it might be years before I came across another copy. It would be another decade-plus before Light in the Attic Records began reissuing Betty’s out-of-print platters (as well as albums of unreleased material), though Nasty Gal has yet to be re-released on vinyl. LITA is about to remedy that situation—but more on that in a moment.

Born Betty Mabry, she changed her last name when she married jazz titan Miles Davis. Though they weren’t together long, Betty had a massive influence on Miles, encouraging him to update his look and sound, leading to the monumental double album of jazz-rock fusion, Bitches Brew (1970).
 
Miles and Betty
 
Betty’s albums are uncompromising works, full of raw, steamy funk. In addition to penning her own tunes during a time when it still uncommon for female artists to perform their own material, she also produced and arranged her records. Songs like the aforementioned “He Was a Big Freak” were sexually frank and presented a woman firmly in charge. Her live act was a funk force to be reckoned with. As P-Funk illustrator Ronald “Stozo the Clown” Edwards tells it:

Betty’s show was burlesque funk. [She was] sexy, bold, provocative, groovy and just down right fine…Long beautiful mesmerizing legs, funky space clothes, and silver leather psychedelic boots that were made for funkin’. Her voice, along with her backup singers and band, roared at you like a pack of lions. (from the reissue notes for They Say I’m Different)

 
Live 1973
“I just can’t seem to keep my tongue in my mouth.”

“Riviera ‘76” was a music festival held in Le Castellet, France, during late July 1976. The event took place on a racetrack overlooking the French Riviera. Betty and her group played on July 25th, dedicating the concert to Miles Davis (Betty and Miles had recently collaborated on the tender Nasty Gal ballad “You and I”). Thankfully, someone in the audience had the good sense to tape it, as in addition to being a stellar show, there aren’t many existing Betty Davis bootlegs out there. It’s also one of the final gigs—perhaps even the last—Betty ever played with her longstanding road band.

Keep reading after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Bart Bealmear
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11.27.2017
08:56 am
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Legendary ‘lost’ Betty Davis recording sessions from 1969 (with Miles Davis) have been found!
06.29.2016
02:15 pm
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Nope, not Bette Davis, an ass-kicking woman in her own right. This is about Betty Davis, born Betty Mabry, who married and divorced none other than Miles Davis in 1968/69, during which time she introduced the trumpet master to the music of Hendrix and Sly Stone; in his memoir Miles credited Betty with sparking the direction his music would take in the 1970s. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Miles’ legendary 1970 album Bitches Brew is unimaginable without the contributions of Betty Davis.

Betty Davis released three incredibly vital funk albums in the mid-1970s: Betty Davis, They Say I’m Different, and Nasty Gal—all three albums have been rescued from unjust obscurity by Light in the Attic Records. In 2009 Light in the Attic also put out Is It Love or Desire, a full album Betty Davis recorded in 1976 that had never been released.

Now Light in the Attic is back with more Betty Davis treasures—the centerpiece being previously unreleased music from sessions at Columbia’s 52nd Street Studios on May 14 and 20, 1969, sessions at which Miles Davis and Teo Macero served as the producers. The impressive lineup of musicians who participated included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. During the session the musicians covered Cream and Creedence Clearwater Revival and recorded originals by Betty. However, the songs have never been released—until now.
 

 
Remastered from the original analog master tapes, the album—released this week—is called Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968-1969. True to its title, the album also includes a Los Angeles session from 1968 that featured the great Hugh Masekela and members of the Crusaders.

More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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06.29.2016
02:15 pm
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She’s got Betty Davis Eyes: Rare interview of funk goddess giving demure interview to flirty DJ
09.09.2014
01:25 pm
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Betty Davis cares not for your notions of respectability
 
It really is an injustice that Betty Davis (born Betty Mabry) is perceived primarily as Miles Davis’ “muse”—that’s her photo on his Filles De Kilimanjaro album and that record’s “Mademoiselle Mabry” is a tribute to Betty, obviously—rather than an artist in her own right. This is not to say she didn’t have a huge hand in the trajectory of his work. Bitches Brew would not have been Bitches Brew had she not introduced Miles to the music of JImi Hendrix and Sly Stone, and she says that she convinced him to change the original title from “Witches Brew.”
 

 
After her divorce from Miles, Betty recorded two albums in the early 70s with crack backing musicians like Larry Graham, Merl Saunders (Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt), Neal Schon (Santana/Journey) and members of Graham Central Station, Tower of Power, even the young Pointer Sisters singing back-up. Davis was the original “nasty gal” creating the blueprint for suggestive “outrageousness” well-trod by today’s female chart toppers.

Her 1973 self-titled debut, for example, featured “Your Man My Man,” a wholesome little ditty about… sharing:

He’s your man, my man
it’s all the same ‘cause you need him
you please him when he’s there
I free him, I release him, when he’s here.

 

 
The follow-up, 1974’s They Say I’m Different, featured her as a gorgeous afro’d Ziggy Stardust-type on the album cover and the trademark slinky funk sound and lascivious lyrical content does not disappoint. Her third album, aptly named Nasty Gal, is also amazing, but none of Betty’s records ever really got the credit they deserved, and her fourth record, Is It Love or Desire? was shelved until 2009 (although this material was bootlegged twice.)
 

 
In his autobiography, her ex-husband wrote:

“If Betty were singing today she would be something like Madonna, something like Prince only as a woman.”

 

 
There’s very little press record of Betty’s career floating around—her highly sexual music and live shows earned her boycotts and radio censorship from the NAACP and church leaders. She didn’t get a lot of public relations opportunities, and I highly recommend you listen to the below track, “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up” to understand why—it makes “Your Man My Man” sound downright subtle:

I said if I’m in luck I just might get picked up
I said I’m vampin’ trampin’ you can call it what you wanna
I said I’m wigglin’ my fanny (“Ooooh”)
I want you dancing I’m a movin’ it movin’ it (“Man, I’ma take her home, man”)
Try not to pass out

The parentheticals are the voices of her very appreciative male counterparts, by the way.
 

 
In stark contrast to her delightfully dirty persona is the audio below, from a 1974 radio interview promoting They Say I’m Different, one of the rare documents of her career you can find on the Internet. Davis is warm and charming, but… modest here. As the DJ attempts to draw out a little bit of her infamous sexual persona, she’s not having it, keeping decorous manners right up until she drops a coy, “I love to be loved… by a lot of people.” (There is a more recent interview with Betty Davis from The Sound of Young America podcast in 2009)
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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09.09.2014
01:25 pm
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