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DAVIS, BETTY - NASTY GAL
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ARTIST:
TITLE:
Nasty Gal
LABEL:
CATNO:
LITA046LP
FORMAT:
Vinyl record
DESCRIPTION:
1975 Funk & Soul Classic Re-issued - LP housed in a deluxe gatefold Stoughton tip-on jacket with lyrics. LP Version contains 8 page booklet with liner notes by John Ballon with rare studio and stage photographs.
Funk diva Betty Davis was supposed to break big upon the release of her third album, Nasty Gal. After all, her Just Sunshine Records contract had been bought up by Chris Blackwell and Island Records, and they were prepared to invest not only big money in the recording, but in the promotion of the 1975 release. Davis and her well-seasoned road band, Funk House, entered the studio with total artistic control in the making of the album. This set contains classic and often raunchy street funk anthems such as the title track (with its infamous anthemic lyric: "...You said I love you every way but your way/And my way was too dirty for ya now...." ), "Talkin' Trash," "Dedicated to the Press," and the musically ancestral tribute "F.U.N.K." It also features the beautiful, moving, uncharacteristic ballad "You and I," co-written with her ex-husband, Miles Davis, and orchestrated by none other than Gil Evans. It's the only track like it on the record, but it's a stunner.
The album is revered as much for its musical quality as its risqué lyrical content. This quartet distilled the Sly Stone funk-rock manifesto and propelled it with real force. Check the unbelievable twinning of guitar and bassline in "Feelins" that underscore, note for note, Davis' vocals. The drive is akin to hardcore punk rock, but so funky it brought Rick James himself to the altar to worship (as he later confessed in interviews). And in the instrumental break, the interplay between the rhythm section (bassist Larry Johnson and drummer Semmie "Nicky" Neal, Jr.) and guitarist Carlos Moralesis held to the ground only by Fred Mills' keyboards. In essence, the album is missing nothing: it's perfect, a classic of the genre in that it pushed every popular genre with young people toward a blurred center that got inside the backbone while smacking you in the face. Heard through headphones, its spaced out psychedelic effects, combined with the nastiest funk rock on the block, is simply shocking.
The fact that the album didn't perform the way it should have among the populace wasn't the fault of Davis and her band, who went out and toured their collective butts off, or Island who poured tens of thousands of dollars into radio and press promotion, or the press itself (reviews were almost universally positive). The record seemed to rock way too hard for Black radio, and was far too funky for White rock radio. In the 21st century, however, it sounds right on time. Light in the Attic Records has remastered the original tapes painstakingly for the first North American release of this set on CD. As is their trademark, they've done a stellar job both aurally and visually, as the digipack is spectacular. The set also features a definitive historical essay by John Ballon.
Funk diva Betty Davis was supposed to break big upon the release of her third album, Nasty Gal. After all, her Just Sunshine Records contract had been bought up by Chris Blackwell and Island Records, and they were prepared to invest not only big money in the recording, but in the promotion of the 1975 release. Davis and her well-seasoned road band, Funk House, entered the studio with total artistic control in the making of the album. This set contains classic and often raunchy street funk anthems such as the title track (with its infamous anthemic lyric: "...You said I love you every way but your way/And my way was too dirty for ya now...." ), "Talkin' Trash," "Dedicated to the Press," and the musically ancestral tribute "F.U.N.K." It also features the beautiful, moving, uncharacteristic ballad "You and I," co-written with her ex-husband, Miles Davis, and orchestrated by none other than Gil Evans. It's the only track like it on the record, but it's a stunner.
The album is revered as much for its musical quality as its risqué lyrical content. This quartet distilled the Sly Stone funk-rock manifesto and propelled it with real force. Check the unbelievable twinning of guitar and bassline in "Feelins" that underscore, note for note, Davis' vocals. The drive is akin to hardcore punk rock, but so funky it brought Rick James himself to the altar to worship (as he later confessed in interviews). And in the instrumental break, the interplay between the rhythm section (bassist Larry Johnson and drummer Semmie "Nicky" Neal, Jr.) and guitarist Carlos Moralesis held to the ground only by Fred Mills' keyboards. In essence, the album is missing nothing: it's perfect, a classic of the genre in that it pushed every popular genre with young people toward a blurred center that got inside the backbone while smacking you in the face. Heard through headphones, its spaced out psychedelic effects, combined with the nastiest funk rock on the block, is simply shocking.
The fact that the album didn't perform the way it should have among the populace wasn't the fault of Davis and her band, who went out and toured their collective butts off, or Island who poured tens of thousands of dollars into radio and press promotion, or the press itself (reviews were almost universally positive). The record seemed to rock way too hard for Black radio, and was far too funky for White rock radio. In the 21st century, however, it sounds right on time. Light in the Attic Records has remastered the original tapes painstakingly for the first North American release of this set on CD. As is their trademark, they've done a stellar job both aurally and visually, as the digipack is spectacular. The set also features a definitive historical essay by John Ballon.
PRICE:
£29.99
RELEASED YEAR:
SLEEVE:
Mint (M)
MEDIA:
Mint (M)
BUY:
LISTEN:
Last FM Information on Betty Davis
Please note the information is done on a artist keyword match and data is provided by LastFM.
Betty Gray Davis (née Mabry; July 26, 1944 — February 9, 2022), was an American cult funk-rock and soul singer-songwriter, producer, model and fashion icon. She was known for her harsh, erotic and raw funky vocals, controversial sexually-oriented lyrics and performance style, and for being the second wife of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. She's also regarded by many as the "Queen of Funk."
Davis was born as Betty Mabry in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Mabry's debut was as a songwriter, with The Chambers Brothers's Uptown (1967, Columbia). When Betty turned sixteen, she moved to New York and met several musicians including Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. She met Miles Davis in 1967 and married him in 1968. As he stated in his autobiography, in addition to creating turmoil in his personal life, his wife helped him to explore music by introducing him to psychedelic rock guitarist Hendrix and funk innovator Stone. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence, though seemingly no credible documentation, to support the idea that Miles Davis named his masterpiece jazz-fusion album Bitches Brew after Betty.
After the breakup of her marriage, Davis moved to London to pursue her modelling career. She wrote music - a passion since childhood - while in the U.K. and returned to the U.S. with the intention of recording songs with Santana and The Commodores. When those projects didn't work out, she organised a group of talented West Coast funk musicians and recorded the songs under her own name.
Her first album, Betty Davis, was released in 1973 and her band included members of Sly and the Family Stone, Graham Central Station, The Pointer Sisters, Tower of Power, and Neil Schon who came from Santana, but went on to form Journey. Davis released two more studio albums: They Say I'm Different (1974) and Nasty Gal (1975). Her backing band, Funkhouse,consisted of her cousin, Larry Johnson on bass, Fred Mills on keyboards, double-platinum artist Carlton Morales on guitar, and Nikki Neal on drums. None of the three albums was a commercial success, and Davis's 1976 album Is It Love or Desire remained unreleased until 2009.
Davis remained a cult figure as a singer, due in part to her open sexual attitude, which was controversial for the time and remains so thirty years later. Some of her shows were boycotted and her songs not played on the radio due to pressure by religious groups. With the passage of time her records have become highly regarded by collectors of soul and funk music. Davis eventually stopped making music and returned to the city where she had attended high school, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She continues to live there as a recluse from the music industry.
Material from a 1979 recording session,which was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, where Kevan Tynes attended, and Alfonse Mouson was the drummer, with Carlton Morales on guitar, and Davis's 1979 material was eventually used for two further albums: Hangin' Out in Hollywood (1995) and Crashin' from Passion (1996). A greatest hits album, Anti Love: the Best of Betty Davis, was released in 2000. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.