Browse by Label: MPC LTD. (UK)

Artist:	DAVIS, BETTY
Title:	Nasty Gal
Label:	MPC LTD. (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	UFOXY 001CD

"Third and final rock/funk monster from Betty Davis, originally released on Island in 1975. No credits this time out, and since very little seems to be known about Ms. Davis since she dropped off the map in 1979, I can only guess who the players are on this one, but the overall vibe veers towards the hard rock end at this point. On the same wavelength as Ike and Tina's records from the same era, as the first real effects of Jimi's Band of Gypsy's were seeping into the musical meta-conciousness in myriad ways (see 'Nutbush City Limits'). Betty also sounds as if she's fueled with the same, uh, 'enthusiasm' that inspired Ike & Tina's records from that era. Her vocal limitations do become a bit apparent on the one ballad included here, but the rest of the tracks are top notch; ferocious bass, guitar, drum and clavinet blowouts as Betty vents her spleen all over the studio walls. Lots of trash talkin', a tribute to Ike & Hendrix et al., and the randomly placed blood curdling scream. Admittedly, records rarely have everything one wants, but how often do you hear one that tries to convince you it has everything you need? Truly unique." -- Billy Kiely

Artist:	DAVIS, BETTY
Title:	They Say I'm Different
Label:	MPC LTD. (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	UFOXY 003CD

"Miles Davis met Betty in 1969, when she was Betty Mabry, still in her very early twenties and hanging with Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix. Betty Davis's photograph appeared on the cover of his Filles De Kilimanjaro album, but their marriage lasted not much longer than a year, finishing when Davis discovered she was sleeping with Hendrix. By the trumpeter's own admission, however, she turned him on to the funk rock that revolutionized his sound forever. Her own music was a pressure cooker of sex and adrenalin, equalled in guts by only a handful of her husband's records. They Say I'm Different contains the much sampled 'Shoo-B-Doop And Cop Him', the tough fetish-funk 'He Was A Big Freak' ('Pain was his middle name... he used to laugh when I made him cry'), and a title track that remains one of the decade's overlooked funk masterpieces. In Davis's own words: 'If Betty were singing today she'd be something like Madonna; something like Prince... She was the beginning of all that when she was singing as Betty Davis. She was head of her time.'" -- Linton Chiswick, "100 Records That Set The World On Fire," The WIRE, September '98.

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