It’s one of life’s ironies that an artist as independent and ahead of her time as Betty Davis (Mabry) is today remembered mostly for her brief marriage to Miles Davis, and for having transformed the trumpeter in record time from Italian suited jazzer to psychedelically garbed imbiber of Bitches Brew. (Davis credited Betty with introducing him both to hip threads and the sounds of Hendrix, Sly Stone, and others.) Chump change indeed for a singer, songwriter, model/fashionista, and provocateur who was a Greenwich Village scene maker while still in her teens. She wrote “Uptown (To Harlem)” for the Chambers Brothers, and later went on to release three unheralded records of low-down ‘70s funk whose open sexual attitudes prefigured later, more commercially successful efforts by Rick James, Prince, and Madonna.
Raunchy, uncompromising and not really in the mood to take crap from anyone, it seems that Betty was a bit too much, even for the sleazy ’70s. Album covers which ruled out her being confused with Joni Mitchell and song titles with lyrics to match, such as “If I’m in Luck, I Might Get Picked Up” and “He’s a Big Freak”, got her on the wrong side of the Religious Right, the NAACP, and feminists. In some cases, she got banned from the airwaves. By 1979, her recording career was finished and until recently she was little more than a rock footnote.
Returning to life’s ironies, however, the legacy of a woman who sang so often of pleasures down under has received a boost from just that location. Teaming up with American blues guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa, Australian powerhouse vocalist Mahalia Barnes (daughter of Australian Rock legend Jimmy Barnes) and her ace band the Soul Mates have revisited 12 tracks culled from Davis’s three releases: her self-titled 1973 debut, They Say I’m Different from a year later, and 1975’s Nasty Gal. The project reportedly took flight after Barnes played some vintage Betty for producer Kevin Shirley while working with him on her Dad’s Hindsight record. Shirley dug what he heard, and with a producer’s smarts he likely saw a talented songwriter ripe for rediscovery. In a masterstroke, he then flew Bonamassa down to Sydney to lend a hand. Three days of recording later Ooh Yea! – The Betty Davis Songbook was good to go. From: https://www.popmatters.com/190746-mahalia-barnes-the-soul-mates-featuring-joe-bonamassa-ooh-yea-the-be-2495559198.html
