Without her, there would be no Macy Gray, Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse or Janelle Monáe! Gone to heaven, Betty Davis remains the pioneer of feline soul sisters. The funk goddess par excellence. She was also one of the leading ladies in a certain Miles Davis' life, whose wife she would be for a short time. But who really were you Betty?

Betty was a big influence on my personal life as well as my musical life… If Betty were singing today she’d be something like Madonna; something like Prince, only as a woman. She was the beginning of all that when she was singing as Betty Davis.” In his autobiography that was published in 1989, Miles Davis sums up Betty Davis’s potential in just a few words. And who better to do so than the trumpeter who was her husband between 1968 and 1969. It was a romance, however fleeting, that would leave its mark upon the most famous of jazzmen… Sadly no longer with us, Betty Davis is the one who passed on to Miles the sounds of a whole generation. It was she who introduced him to the colourful funk of Sly & The Family Stone and the psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix! She also transformed his wardrobe, exchanging his suits for flares and flashy shirts. A completely different world then opened up for the forty-year-old trumpeter who was anxious to stick to the tastes of the young audience. We hear this change on albums such as Filles de Kilimanjaro (1969), In a Silent Way (1969) and especially Bitches Brew (1970). But who is this mysterious muse whose face adorns the cover of Filles de Kilimanjaro, which concludes with the theme that takes her maiden name Mademoiselle Mabry (Miss Mabry)?