Born Betty Mabry in New York City, U.S.A., when she turned sixteen she moved to New York and met several musicians including Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. She met Miles Davis in 1967 and married him in 1968. As he stated in his autobiography, in addition to creating turmoil in his personal life, his wife helped him to explore music by introducing him to psychedelic rock guitarist Hendrix and funk innovator Stone.

After the breakup of her marriage, Davis moved to London to pursue her modeling career. She wrote music - a passion since childhood - while in the U.K. and returned to the U.S. with the intention of recording songs with Santana and The Commodores. When those projects didn’t work out, she organised a group of talented West Coast funk musicians and recorded the songs under her own name.

Her first album, Betty Davis, was released in 1973 and her band included members of Sly and the Family Stone, Graham Central Station, The Pointer Sisters, Tower Of Power, and Neil Schon who came from Santana, but went on to form Journey. Davis released two more studio albums: They Say I’m Different (1974) and Nasty Gal (1975). Her backing band, Funkhouse,consisted of her cousin, Larry Johnson on bass, Fred Mills on keyboards, double-platinum artist Carlton Morales on guitar, and Nikki Neal on drums.