Betty Davis: The Queen of Funk
“Betty Davis was a force of nature,” says music historian Rob Bowman. “A flamboyant funk diva who wrote and arranged her own material, she was renowned for her aggressive sexuality in performance and for a voice that could shred shrapnel.”
Join us on Sunday, June 7, noon, at the Revue Cinema for a documentary and discussion about the incomparable Queen of Funk.
We will be screening Betty — They Say I Am Different, directed by Phil Cox. He has agreed to join us on Zoom from England to introduce the film and explain some of the difficulties he faced in making it. Our favourite music historian Rob Bowman brings his deep expertise to our Q&A following the film.
Phil has created a lyrical film about the artist who disappeared for 35 years, her style too abrasive and sexual for the times. She withdrew from the public eye, as she coped with mental illness and poverty. She passed away from cancer in 2022, but fortunately Phil managed to connect with her and tell her story in his 2017 documentary.
Read more about Betty Davis and the film in the New York Times and The New Yorker.
Watch the trailer here.
Here’s what Director Phil Cox says about Betty and the film:
“Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. She “was the first…” as former husband Miles Davis said. “Madonna before Madonna, Prince before Prince”.
“An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty arrived on the 70s scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion and outrageous funk music. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and the Commodores, and married Miles – startlingly turning him from jazz to funk on the album she named “Bitches Brew”.
“She then, despite being banned and boycotted, went on to become the first black woman to perform, write and manage herself. Betty was a feminist pioneer, inspiring and intimidating in a manner like no woman before. Then suddenly – she just vanished.
“Betty Mabry Davis is a global icon whose mysterious life story has until now, never been told. Creatively blending documentary, animation and nonfiction techniques, this movie traces the path of Betty’s life, how she grew from humble upbringings to become a fully self-realized black female pioneer the world failed to understand or appreciate, revealing the mystery of her 35-year disappearance and her battle with mental illness and poverty.
“After years of seclusion, the elusive Betty, forever the free-spirited Black Power Goddess, finally allowed the filmmakers to creatively tell her story based on their conversations.
About the Director (taken from IMBD):
Phil Cox: A director and writer, Phil helms the award-winning indie film collective Native Voice Films in London UK. He has directed, written and shot over 30 films for TV and cinema. His most recent cinema work is Khartoum premiered at Sundance in 2025 and Berlinale 2025. Other cinematic features as director/writer are The Bengali Detective (Sundance and Berlin premiere – HBO), Love Hotel (Toronto premiere, Netflix / BBC Storyville), Betty – They Say I’m Different (IDFA premiere, ARTE / BBC / Amazon), The Cleaner (FR2), The Spider-Man of Sudan (ARTE / The Guardian). He is the recipient of a British Grierson Award, a Rory Peck Award, and the Hinzpeter and Bayeux Calvados award. He also is developing two narrative fictions based on real events: A Boy’s Journey and The Other Side Of Here.
About our guest expert:
Rob Bowman (summarized from the Canadian Encyclopedia) Musicologist, writer, record producer, broadcaster, Rob began writing magazine articles about popular music as a teenager in 1971. In 1978 he completed an Honours B.A. in musicology at York University, and in 1982 completed an M.F.A. in ethnomusicology at the same university. In 1983 he began PhD studies at the University of Memphis.
Rob is best known for having pioneered popular music studies in Canada at York University in 1979. He was listed by Maclean’s nearly every year 1997-2008 as one of York University’s most popular professors. His courses have covered such undergraduate and graduate offerings as rock music, rhythm and blues, music and society, world music, issues in ethnomusicology, African-American music, and popular music studies.
Rob was book review editor for The Memphis Star 1984-8. He hosted 1987-94 CKLN-FM’s show “The Trout Mask Airshow;” won a Grammy award for best album notes in 1996 and was nominated for four additional Grammy awards (in 1988 for best historical release and in 1992, 2000, and 2002 for best album notes); wrote and presented CBC’s four-week 1991 special about Stax Records (“The Entertainers”); wrote Country Music Television’s four-part 2001 documentary The Industry: How Stars are Created in Country Music; and wrote the script and wall panels for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music (which opened in Memphis, TN in 2003). He presented academic papers and guest talks in Canada and the U.S. (for example, on Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bob Dylan, Roy Brown, Stax Records, Otis Redding, African influences, Parliament/Funkadelic, James Brown, and Elvis Presley).
Among his best-known works are his 47,000-word album notes for Fantasy Records’ 10-CD box set The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Volume 3: 1972-1975 (1994; Grammy award 1996, Bowman also having co-produced the set); and his book Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records, which was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
Rob lives in the Roncesvalles-High Park neighbourhood!!
