Tales from the Tour Bus - The Vickery Family

Betty Davis

Narrator: More like Grace Jones and Janis Joplin, Betty Davis was hotter than hell as her ex-husband Miles Davis, the trumpet player admires Aaron and Zola's mother Melba.

Vernon Gibbs: I saw her perform live at The Bottom Line. This is '73, and basically, people would be staring ahead, in mute shock. They could not believe what they were seeing.

Narrator: In 1973, Betty Davis was 28 years old and fresh off the release of her first full album. Vernon Gibbs was a journalist on assignment that night for Penthouse Magazine.

Vernon: It wasn't the music that they were shocked by, it was her performance. It was the sexuality of her performance, the raw lyrics, and her vocal approach. She had kind of a screeching, metallic voice. The music critics who were there could not deal with it. I mean, how dare somebody in 1973 get up on the stage and not sing like Aretha, right? But forget about the music, it was the short shorts, the thigh-high boots, the luscious lips, the big afro. And then you're gonna spread your legs? You're gonna use the Mic like a penis? It was shock and awe. That's the only way to describe it. I remember one man was so transfixed that he basically fell over during the performance and smashed the whole table full of glasses, and it went all over the place. Betty was too much for that guy. Her performance, it was so far ahead of its time that it was to a lot of people unacceptable.

Narrator: At the time, Betty was probably best known for her last name, which she kept for the stage with the blessing of her ex-husband, jazz legend Miles Davis. They were married in 1968 and divorced a year later.

Quincy Troupe: Miles always liked those women who had that dancer thing, that kind of that you can't put your finger on. You know, she was that kind of person.

Narrator: Quincy Troupe was a working poet in the 1970s who became California's first poet laureate. He knew Miles Davis from his time on the Upper Westside of Manhattan and eventually wrote his biography.

Quincy: I would see him around the city. I mean, he was going to the gym all the time and he was swimming. He had stopped getting high. He stopped snorting coke, he didn't drink any more. I'm talking about Miles Davis. I think she was the one that changed the way he was in a lot of ways, you know? And when I met him, for real, I remember one of my friends took me by his house. He was sitting in a white terry cloth robe I'll never forget it in front of this table. He had a big pile of cocaine in front of him like that, and he had a gun right over here. So my friend's like, "Come on, Miles. What's goin' on here, man?" Miles said, "Yeah, oh man, I'm sorry. Who is that motherfucker with you?" - "This is Quincy." - "Who?" "Quincy, Quincy Troupe. He's a writer." "Get that motherfucker out of here." He said, "Motherfucker, get out of here!" And he reached for the gun. I said, "Oh shit!" I backed out the door. 'Cause that's how he was, he had white stuff all in his You know, this is what he was doing at that time. So he had to get healthy after Betty, you know? That was in that dark period.

Narrator: If Miles entered a dark period a few years after the marriage, Betty eventually fell into a black hole.

Oliver Wang: She just vanished. And there were a lot of rumors that she was dead because no one had heard from her in decades. Betty was almost mythological amongst the kind of small, nascent community of people who were really fascinated and obsessed by her.

Narrator: Oliver Wang is a professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach with an impressive record collection.

Oliver: I'm almost positive that the first time I discovered Betty Davis was really through this, her third album. At the time, she was an unknown quantity to me. It's kind of this really amazing artifact of a time machine to go back to listen to Betty when she was really at the height of her musical career.