I'll admit I'd barely even heard of the late Betty Davis before picking up JR Moores' Electric Wizards and seeing her described as "one of the heaviest funk artists to grace the planet". Her particular brand of funk, he claims, "is so slow, heavy, phat, fierce and full of feeling that it could persuade even a morgue full of corpses to resume shaking their booties".
In his obituary, Moores' Quietus colleague John Doran makes a strong case for her importance as an artist - one who wrote and sang frankly about sex with a voice that was "equal parts honey, grit, engine oil and bourbon" but who found herself looking on from the sidelines, the victim of misogyny, while lesser male musicians enjoyed far greater recognition and success. Perhaps pieces like Doran's will help to ensure that she gets in death the dues that she was largely denied in life.
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