Vintage Black Glamour

Pioneering Rock/Funk Diva Betty Davis in February 1976. A model for magazines like Ebony, Seventeen and Glamour as a teenager, she is also the former wife of Miles Davis. She introduced Miles to the music of her friends Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, but her own musical career was tumultuous. She wrote all of her own songs and even wrote for bands like The Commodores, but her brash, sexual stage persona and lyrics drew protests from groups like the NAACP and resistance from record labels who wanted her to be more commercial. Refusing to compromise, she backed away from the music business in the early 1980s. In 2009, Light In The Attic Records released some of her long-lost albums. Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns