Betty Davis photos?
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
This is a shot in the dark but I'm working on the Betty Davis reissue CDs that Light In the Attic is putting out next fall and we've had the hardest time finding photos. It's a bit surprising: she wasn't Chaka Khan popular or anything but she wasn't hyper obscure either but the amount of stock photography on her in photo archives - even during her marriage with Miles - has turned out to be incredibly thin. Moreover, a lot of her old bandmates and friends don't seem to have any photos of her either. At this point, I'm putting out a general call to see if anyone might know of anyone who might have photos. Like I said, it's a shot in the dark but it's worth at least trying. PM or email me if you think you might have leads: [email]oliverwang@earthlink.net[/email]
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Raj - believe me, we've run through all her old bandmates. Uh, no ayo.
But seriously, no one has anything: not Greg Errico, not Michael Carabello, not Nicky Neal, not Fred Mills, not even Michael Lang. It's really crazy. Every "obvious" source has turned up nothing. That's why we're now fishing on the internet for random folks who might have it.
Whoa.
She was in France? I have under the impression that she never left home, let alone to go overaseas.
But if you ever come across this pic and can blow it up poster stylee, I'd buy.
Snapped it outta a mag at a friends.
Came across this:
There are a few more, all credited to a J.Berger[/b]. Not sure if he has the rights to them or just scanned them.
here's the Website ...
Please refrain from using the word "funkstress" or the phrase "female funkateer" anywhere in your liner notes...
Vincent-ese???
Believe me: you're not going to find anything online we haven't already found. I'm not trying to sound like an asshole here but if it were as simple as googling around, I wouldn't be asking here
That's why we're trying to track down some folks from the '70s who might have photos of her from shows or whatever that have never been scanned or published. Like I said, shot in the dark but you gotta start somewhere.
Rickey Vincent searches in vain for FauxRillz' name in the "Roll Call of the Funkafied."
Yeah it was in a record store in Paris. This happened just over a week ago... he said that she seemed quite eccentric and had some "people" with her. From memory the record store owner said that she came in here previously also?? Maybe she's out there on some business? Who knows... I'll get hommie to hit you up. He posts on here too under the name "Skeletor"... Aussie hommie on a diggin' mission...
Good luck O**ver!
Are they going to give a posters out with the reissue?
peace.
as for live stuff UK wise it may be worth getting in touch wit Blues & Soul magazine & asking them to hook you up with one of their old photographers.
b
Yeah - we're gonna see what Blues and Soul have in their archives. The Crashin For Passion era photos are more readily available: we're trying to find stuff that's pre-75 though which has proven tricky. Very few performance photos from the mid-70s (once Betty started doing gigs). Really striking.
I got to the bottom of this since - if it was Betty, that would have been remarkable.
As it turns out, the women in question never identified herself by name but she DID say that she was on the cover of "Sorcerer" by Miles Davis.
Betty Davis wasn't on the cover of "Sorcerer," she was on the cover of "Filles De Killimanjaro." Cecily Tyson, however, was on the cover of "Sorcerer" and I think that's who your friend ran into in Paris. I just sent him a recent photo of Tyson to get him to see if it's the same person he saw out there.
Too bad - that would have been a great story about Betty but alas, I think she spends most of her time at home.
whoa, i want that manticore shirt
yeh, i used to have an olive green one like that. given away as promo items only, i believe. i worked for Island, but don't have any Betty Davis pics.
Did you get my PM? I forgot all about this thread, I sent you a PM but it doesn't appear in my sent box so perhaps I fucked it up. Have you tired to contact Murray Lerner, The documentry maker, he did this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/jazz/reviews/davis_mileselectric.shtml
His archives are known to run deep, he may at least be able to point you in the right direction.
Dude.
Duuuuuude.
DUDE.
Just curious - do you know which performance it's from (i.e. what venue or city?).
And yes, please to post.
Rich, I didn't get your PM but someone else put me up on that documentary. The photos it uses are pretty much the same photos that are already in circulation - namely from Baron whashisname's archive.
That said, here's a youtube clip that has Santana and Herbie Hancock basically explaining how Miles wouldn't have become Miles ("Bitches Brew" and beyond era) without Betty. It's really quite amazing:
"The Coolest Muthafucker of The 20th Century and Beyond #1"[/b]
rumors about an unreleased album of songs that Betty wrote and recorded with Miles and his band??
Miles is the epidemy of Bad Motherfucker. And howcome Herbie Hancock doesn't age?
This is true. It was while they were married. Miles produced, Betty wrote - she had Wayne Shorter do the charts and Tony Williams, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell were all playing on it.
Columbia was supposed to take it but Miles ended up killing the project because, I quote, "he was really scared to release it, he told me, because he thought I would leave him [if I became successful]."
Following "Nasty Gal," Betty had two other albums, one of which (recorded in '79) was much later bootlegged and relased as both "Crashin For Passion" and "Hanging In Hollywood." Her fourth album was recorded in Louisana and has never been released. Philly Int'l was close to picking it up but that deal fell through and the album got promptly vault-ized. It may still see the light of day but it's not certain.
http://download.yousendit.com/B98A58180AD8CEBA
Herbie hancock is positively eerie in his non-aging.
I mean he is younger than some jazz douds (what is he, in his late 60s?) but still.
He must sleep in an oxygen tent and drink the blood of promising young virgin keyboardists.
I know he is serious about Zen Bhuddism, but even so, I do think he drinks virgin blood.