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Betty Davis, the cult funk singer and ex-wife of jazz legend Miles Davis who left an under appreciated yet trailblazing body of work, died Wednesday at the age of 77.
Danielle Maggio, a close friend of Davis whose research as an ethnomusicologist focused on Davis’ work, confirmed the singer’s death to Rolling Stone. Amie Downs, communications director for Allegheny County where Davis lived, added that the cause of death was natural causes.
The near-entirety of Davis’ musical catalog was recorded between 1964 and 1975, but her impact was felt for decades that followed. A model by profession, Davis first began making music under her birth name Betty Mabry, including her 1964 single “Get Ready for Betty.” An influential figure in the New York music scene in the late-Sixties, she would pen the Chambers Brothers song “Uptown (to Harlem)” and, in 1968, become the second wife of Miles Davis; the following year, Mabry, now performing under the name Betty Davis, would appear on the cover of the jazz great’s Filles de Kilimanjaro, with Betty also the inspiration behind Miles’ “Mademoiselle Mabry.”
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