TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

I'd never heard Betty Mabry before tonight and, man, was I blown away. Not by the song, "Get Ready For Betty" released in 1964, but by the juxtaposition of it and "He Was a Big Freak", released ten years later under her married name Betty Davis.

Quote her ex-husband, Miles Davis: "Betty was too young and too wild for the things I expected from a woman." "Betty was a free spirit - talented as a motherfucker...she was raunchy and all that kind of shit, all sex...I just got tired of it."

Quote her: "The music is physical, and it's about sex. In the sixties everyone was into dope and staying high. Now it's sex. Man and woman. My lyrics go right to it. I don't beat around the bush. It's hip to eat pussy these days. Really hip."

Ohh la la, m'lady. Where were we? Oh yeah, "Get Ready For Betty" is Northern Soul dance floor fare. Good, really good, but not mindblowingly so. But listen to it and then check out "He Was a Big Freak", the latter sounding like a salad bowl of Bill Withers's "Use Me", the Slits, the Contortions, Gang of Four, and more. And that was 1974, ahead if it's time and all that jazz. Eat that.

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Listen:
Betty Mabry - Get Ready for Betty (streaming) at YouTube
Betty Davis - He Was a Big Freak mp3 at Surreptitious Music 
Betty Davis - Anti-Love Song mp3 at The Frump
Visit:
She Was a Big Freak - Betty Davis Profile at The Stranger