Betty Davis - Marriage To Miles Davis

Marriage To Miles Davis

She met Miles Davis in 1967 and married him in September 1968. In just one year of marriage she influenced him greatly. The Miles Davis album Filles de Kilimanjaro includes a song named after her and her photo on the front cover. In his autobiography, Miles credited Betty with helping to plant the seeds of his future musical explorations by introducing the trumpeter to psychedelic rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix and funk innovator Sly Stone.

Miles believed that Hendrix and Betty had an affair which supposedly hastened the end of their marriage, but Betty denies this. Hendrix and Miles stayed close after the divorce, planning to record until Hendrix's death. The influence of Hendrix and especially Sly Stone on Miles Davis was obvious on the album Bitches Brew, which ushered in the era of jazz fusion. The origin of the album's title is unknown, but some believe Miles was subtly paying tribute to Betty and her girlfriends. In fact, it is said that he originally wanted to call the album Witches' Brew — it was Betty who convinced him to change it.

Read more about this topic:  Betty Davis

Famous quotes containing the words marriage, miles and/or davis:

    Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funeral baked meats
    Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

    Men insist that they don’t mind women succeeding so long as they retain their “femininity”. Yet the qualities that men consider “feminine”Mtimidity, submissiveness, obedience, silliness, and self-debasement—are the very qualities best guaranteed to assure the defeat of even the most gifted aspirant.
    —Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)