#marc one of the very few living straight male divas

[topnotchquark]

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/topnotchquark/745645846228566017

Pol reminded me of akshaye khanna sm there lol also marc is the katrina kaif of motogp. Silly goofy And hot. Pls be with better men 🙏 . Rosquez could meet jesus and get register married…. Anyways practice today:

Damn Pol does have a little Akshaye Khanna to him...... Compelling, I have always had a soft spot for Akshaye Khanna.

Ur right Marc is silly goofy and hot. But I will say that in terms of life trajectory, he's probably closer to Priyanka Chopra? Beloved and talented as the wonderful new thing, and then spurned by a superstar lover while at the top of the game, which prompts a major change in how they interact with the world and their popularity. (I anyway think Vale is Italian Shahrukh).

And abt the practice, he's back from the dead and we're going to have even more fun in the coming races. Can't wait honestly.

[watusichris]

Betty Davis: They Say She’s Different

It appears that everything anyone has written for the old Music Aficionado site has now disappeared from the web. A random Facebook post has prompted me to re-purpose this story, written in 2016, about my favorite funketress. **********

To this day, the name Betty Davis – Betty with a “y,” that is – remains best known to connoisseurs of Miles Davis minutiae and ‘70s funk obsessives. While it’s true that Betty played an important off-stage role in the career of the jazz trumpeter, to whom she was married for just a year, and she undoubtedly made some of the best hardcore funk records of her era, she deserves to be recognized beyond the relatively narrow provinces of the jazzbo and the crate-digger.

Uncompromising, intelligent, brazen, aggressive, and not incidentally gorgeous, sexually provocative, and a fashion plate always ahead of the curve, Betty was a prophetic figure. Spawned by the explosion of music, fashion, and alternative culture of the late ‘60s, and by concurrent leaps in black consciousness and feminism, she was a take-no-prisoners singer and writer who presented herself as something new, rich, and strange with her self-titled debut album in 1973.

There were some badass contemporaries working the soul and funk trenches– gutter-tongued diva Millie Jackson and one-time James Brown paramour Yvonne Fair leap to mind immediately – but they seemed to be adapting tropes previously worked by male singers in the genres. Betty still sounds like something new: a tough, smart, demanding woman who reveled in pleasure and insisted on satisfaction, unafraid to claim what she wanted.

Despite the fact that she was associated with some high-profile male musician friends and lovers – beyond Davis, the roll call included Hugh Masekela, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Mike Carabello, Eric Clapton, and Robert Palmer – she was no groupie or bed-hopping climber. Possessed of her own self-defining vision, she was producing her own records and leading a tight, flexible little band by the end of her brief run.

In 1976, after completing four splendid albums (only three of which were released at the time), she disappeared, not only from the music business but from the public eye entirely. What happened? It’s an old story that many women in the industry will recognize: Her record company didn’t know what to do with her, and wanted her to tone down her act. Betty Davis wasn’t having any of that, thank you, and she hit the damn road.

She was born Betty Mabry in Durham, NC, in 1945. She grew up country, and was exposed to down-home, get-down music early. On the title track of her second album, They Say I’m Different, she runs down the artists who served as inspirations: Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Chuck Berry. The blues, in one form or another, is the backbone of her style.

Her family relocated to Pittsburgh when she was young, but at 16 she left home for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. There she was hurtled into the roiling cultural vortex of the Village. She took up modeling, working for the toney Wilhelmina agency, and began running with a posse of similarly disposed, equally beautiful women who called themselves the “Electric Ladies.” Sound familiar? One of her closest cohorts was Devon Wilson, for many years a notorious consort of Jimi Hendrix known for her freewheeling, outré sex- and drug-saturated lifestyle.

Mabry began to try her hand at singing, and cut a few self-penned singles. They were in an old-school mold in terms of structure, but her very first 45 hints at things to come. “Get Ready For Betty,” a 1964 track released by Don Costa (discoverer of Paul Anka and Trini Lopez and a key arranger for Frank Sinatra), is stodgy early-‘60s NYC R&B to its core, but its message is pointed: “Get out my way, girl, ‘cause I’m comin’ to take your man.”

She also made a stolid romantic duet ballad with singer Roy Arlington and, produced by cult soul man Lou Courtney, a homage to the Cellar, the New York club where she DJed. But she didn’t start reaching the upper echelon of the music biz until one of her songs, a hymn to Harlem called “Uptown,” was cut by the Chambers Brothers for their smash 1968 album The Time Has Come, which also included the psychedelic soul workout “Time Has Come Today.”

The Chambers association probably secured a singles deal for her at Columbia Records, and her first session for the major label was produced by her former live-in boyfriend, South African trumpeter Masekela, in October 1968. By that time, she had split with him: A month earlier, she had married a far more famous horn player, Miles Davis, whom she had met in 1967. Davis and his regular producer Teo Macero would head her second session for Columbia in May 1969.

Those two dates were released for the first time as The Columbia Years 1968-1969 earlier this month by Light in the Attic, the independent label that has restored Betty’s entire catalog to print over the last decade. While devoted fans can be grateful that the work is finally seeing the light of day, it does not make for easy listening, for it was clearly made by people groping in the dark.

Betty’s artistic persona was at that point completely unformed, and so her male Svengalis did their best to mold the clay in their hands, with feeble results. Masekela evidently completed just three tracks, two of which, “It’s My Life” and “Live, Love, Learn,” were issued as a flop single. The homiletic song titles give the game away; the music, straight-up commercial soul backed by a large group (which included Wilton Felder and Wayne Henderson of the Jazz Crusaders and Masekela), has nothing original to say.

The date with Miles is a bigger waste, if a more spectacular one. The personnel couldn’t have been more glittering: Hendrix sidemen Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell; ex-Detroit Wheels guitarist Jim McCarty; bassist Harvey Brooks, studio familiar of Bob Dylan and former member of the Electric Flag; and Davis’ then-current or future band mates Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and Larry Young.

But nothing jells. The material is either weak (Betty’s directionless original “Hangin’ Out” is the best of a bad lot) or incongruous (lumbering covers of Cream’s “Politician” and Creedence’s “Born On the Bayou”). Worse, the jazzers are unable to lay down anything resembling a solid soul-rock foundation, and even reliable timekeeper Mitchell blows the groove on more than one occasion. Miles gets impatient with his spouse at one point, rasping over the talk-back, “Sing it just like that, with the gum in your mouth and all, bitch.”

Apparently intended as demos, the failed tracks were consigned to the tape library. By late ’69, Miles and Betty’s marriage was history. She left her mark on his music: She appeared on the cover of his cover of his 1968 album Filles de Kilimanjaro and inspired its extended track “Mademoiselle Mabry” (based on the chords that opens Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary”) and “Back Seat Betty” from his 1981 comeback album The Man With the Horn.

Moreover, she moved him toward the flash style that would dominate his music through the mid-‘70s, by exposing him to the slamming music of Hendrix and Sly and exchanging his continental suits for psychedelic pimp togs. Would we know Bitches Brew, On the Corner, and Agharta without Betty Davis? Maybe, maybe not.

For her part, Betty remained in the wings for a while. She collaborated on demos for the Commodores; in London, she modeled, worked on songs for Marc Bolan of T. Rex, and declined a production offer from her then-paramour Clapton. Drifting back to New York, she met Santana percussionist Carabello. They became involved romantically, and in 1972 she relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, where Carabello’s local connections led to the formation of a stellar band to back her on a debut album.

One reads the credits for Betty Davis in awe. The rhythm section was the Family Stone’s dissident, puissant rhythm section, bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico (who also produced). Original Santana guitarist Neal Schon, future Mandrill axe man Doug Rodrigues, founding Graham Central Station organist Hershall Kennedy, and keyboardist and ace Jerry Garcia collaborator Merl Saunders filled out the instrumentation. The Pointer Sisters, Sylvester, and Kathi McDonald were among a large platoon of backup vocalists.

Issued in 1973 by Just Sunshine Records, an independent label owned by Woodstock Festival promoter Michael Lang (who also released a set by another unique woman, folk singer-guitarist Karen Dalton), Betty Davis was one hell of a coming-out party. Since her abortive Columbia dates, she had developed a unique vocal attack that could leap from a velvety croon to a Tina Turner-like shriek in a nanosecond. The stomping funk of the studio band backed her up to the hilt.

Like Turner, she was one Bold Soul Sister. The lust-filled opening invitation “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up” announces that a new game was afoot. The statement of romantic/sexual independence “Anti Love Song,” the lovers’ chess match “Your Man My Man,” and the self-explanatory “Game is My Middle Name” offer up a startling, hard-edged new model of a hard-funking female vocalist.

The album’s most affecting track may be “Steppin in Her I. Miller Shoes,” Davis’ level-headed elegy for her sybaritic friend Devon Wilson, who sailed out a window at the Chelsea Hotel in 1971. “She coulda been anything that she wanted…Instead she chose to be nothing,” Davis sings, implying that route wouldn’t be one she would take herself.

“If I’m in Luck” grazed the lower reaches of the R&B singles chart and the album failed to reach the LP rolls at all, but Davis was undaunted. For 1974’s They Say I’m Different, she took the producer’s reins, which she would hold for the rest of her career. While the backup lineup is less glitzy (though Saunders, Pete Escovedo, and Buddy Miles, on guitar no less, appear), the support is still sizzling; crackling drums and burbling clavinet put over a set of songs that may have been even stronger than those heard on her debut.

No one who hears “He Was a Big Freak” is likely to ever forget it; it’s a startling dissection of a masochistic relationship -- inspired by Jimi Hendrix, and not, as many have assumed, by Miles Davis (“Everyone knows that Miles is a sadist,” Betty remarked later). Almost as notable are “Don’t Call Her No Tramp,” a prescient condemnation of what we now call slut-shaming, and the autobiographical title track, with slicing slide guitar work by Cordell Dudley.

Different and its attendant singles tanked, but Betty managed to maintain her profile with live gigs noteworthy for their uninhibited bawdiness, on-stage abandon, and the star’s Egyptian-princess-from-outer-space wardrobe sense. By early 1974 she had assembled a hot, lean road band that included her cousins Nickey Neal and Larry Johnson on drums and bass, respectively, plus keyboardist Fred Mills and guitarist Carlos Morales. This lineup would back her on her last two albums.

The end of Just Sunshine’s distribution deal liberated Davis, who, at the suggestion of then-boyfriend Robert Palmer, inked with Palmer’s label Island Records. The company released Nasty Gal in 1975, and it may be Davis’ best-executed work. The pared-down backing lets the songs shine, and there are good ones here: The shameless title song, the vituperative blast at the critics “Dedicated to the Press,” and the out-front ultimatum for sexual satisfaction “Feelins” get right up in the listener’s face. The most surprising track is the ballad “You and I,” an unexpected songwriting reunion with Miles, orchestrated by the trumpeter’s famed arranger Gil Evans.

It’s a tremendous album, and Betty supported it with live shows that ate the funk competition alive. A bootleg of an especially out-there set recorded at a festival on the French Riviera in 1976 literally climaxes with Nasty Gal’s “The Lone Ranger,” an in-the-saddle heavy breather that Davis wraps up by feigning a loud orgasm.

One should remember that at this particular juncture, Madonna was studying dance at the University of Michigan.

But Nasty Gal faded with hardly a trace, and Davis’ relationship with Island swiftly became fractious. It’s easy to see why the label declined to issue her final album, originally called Crashin’ From Passion and ultimately released, after years as a bootleg, by Light in the Attic in 2009 as Is It Love or Desire. The collection, which leans heavily on songs about sex, doping, and heavy drinking, includes “Stars Starve, You Know,” an outright condemnation of the games record companies play:

They said if I wanted to make some money

I’d have to change my style

Put a paper bag over my face

Sing soft and wear tight fitting gowns

 They don’t like the way I’m lookin’

So it’s hard for my agent to get me bookin’s

Unless I cover up my legs and drop my pen

And commit one of those commercial sins…

 Oh hey hey Island

And that was all she wrote. Until writers began to seek her out in the new millennium as her records became available again, Betty Davis was an invisible woman, one who had blazed a trail that other talents, such as Prince and Madonna, would blaze more profitably after her. She was definitively ahead of her time.

Asked by one writer what she had done since leaving music, Davis, who turns 71 on July 26, responded with the most tragic thing one can imagine any artist saying: “Nothing really.”

[born-to-lose]

Classic Rock interview with Roger Taylor (2013)

Let's cut straight to the chase, Roger - what is the status of Queen right now?

I'm still in that band, but there's only two of us left, Brian and myself. And only one of us can walk [laughs]. We still run the brand - that's what it is these days.

So if Queen is a brand, operated by you and Brian, where does Adam Lambert fit in?

I wouldn't say he's always going to be a part of Queen. We're doing the live TV show in Vegas with Adam and a couple of other guests, in a 10,000-seater, but that's all we've got planned. There are no rules, really. We do things very much on the spur.

But do you plan to continue performing as Queen, with or without Adam Lambert?

Yeah, but it's only an occasional thing now. Last year, with Adam, we did three really big shows in Europe and three at Hammersmith Apollo, which was a lot of fun. Brian and I realised a long time ago: this is what we do, this is what we are. I'm afraid, readers, it goes on forever.

Are you happy with Adam as Queen's singer?

He works very well with us. He's an incredible singer. He's got a really magnetic stage presence. He's very sexy. And, of course, our more theatrical songs suit him perfectly. He's a diva - a male diva. And that's what he should think about being.

Before you began working with Adam, you toured and recorded an album as Queen + Paul Rodgers.

Paul is a singer that Freddie admired. He led two of rock's greatest bands: Free and Bad Company. In that sense he is the antithesis of Adam Lambert.

We actually loved playing the Free and Bad Company stuff with Paul. But strangely enough, although Paul was wonderful, with that amazing blues-soul voice, Adam is more suited to some of our bigger songs than Paul was.

Some Queen fans think you're selling the band short by having a guy from American Idol as your singer. Do you understand that?

Whatever you do, people have to take it or leave it. That's always the case.

The same applies to The Queen Extravaganza, this new 'official tribute show'. What does that mean, exactly?

Good question. It means that we, or rather I, had a hand in making it. There's an awful lot of Queen tribute bands around, some good, some bad. So I thought, why don't we try to make a really good one, with brilliant musicianship? I put the band together in America, using the internet to audition. And the singer I found, Marc Martel, is an absolute dead ringer for Freddie's voice.

What's Marc Martel's background?

He's in his 30s, from Nashville, originally from Montreal. He's been in Christian bands. He's an extraordinary singer. We also found these amazing musicians. We had a nine-piece group at the beginning and it was too unwieldy. Too much like a showband, with three singers. Now it's a six-piece.

Three singers has the whiff of musical theatre.

And that's the last thing I'd ever want. I can't stand all that over-singing. What these guys do is play our music brilliantly. They can perform the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody, because they can all sing.

How good is the drummer, Tyler Warren?

Brilliant. And he can sing higher than I can. We all know that the drummer is the most important member of the band.

And in some cases the best looking?

Yeah, that as well [laughs].

Seriously, are Classic Rock readers going to like the tribute show?

I'm a rock and roller. I'm not a balladeer. And I think rock fans will love this band. They really get me going. Everybody who sees them will be impressed, I can pretty much guarantee it.

There were rumours in 2011 of a new Queen album, based on 'lost' demos of Freddie's.

Not true. We wouldn't want to put out an album of demos anyway.

Are there any remaining Queen songs, recorded with Freddie, which might be released in the future?

Yes, there's a couple of tracks. Brian and I are going to work on them. One of them we all worked on, the other one was mainly a Brian song.

Were both songs written near the end of your time with Freddie?

Actually, no, they're quite old. I'm not bigging them up or anything, but yes, there are a couple of things that we're going to finish, and I dare say they will come out.

Are there any plans for another Queen album?

Universal want us to put together an album of the slower songs that people don't know so well, so I'm compiling that this week with Brian.

You also have a new solo album out soon.

It's been written over a five-year period, so it's very eclectic. Some gentle stuff, some rockier stuff, and some fairly political stuff.

Where did the political stuff come from?

I wrote a song called The Unblinking Eye, about disillusionment, the mess the country was in, shops on the high street closing and out politicians being such a despicable bunch.

Are you the kind of man who rants at the telly when the news is on?

I've grown out of that. The TV can't hear you.

What's the title of your new album?

My first solo effort [in 1981] was called Fun In Space. I was reading a lot of science fiction at the time. So I've called this one Fun On Earth. I've come down to earth a bit, but there's still a bit of fun in there - some smiley tracks.

Is it influenced by any modern music?

The best band I've seen in a long time is Sigur Ros. I love that atmospheric, semi-ambient thing they have. They're magnificent too. I saw them at the Academy in Brixton.

Do you still get out to gigs?

Very rarely. But I went to see that, even though I had flu at the time. Well, a nasty cold.

Also released in September is a collection of all the music you've made outside of Queen - including solo albums and your 80s side-project band The Cross.

Yes, it's called The Lot. I said: "Let's have the lot in there," so I thought let's call it that.

Is it all good stuff, or is there some rubbish in there too?

Like anything, there are some things you regret. But my last solo album, Electric Fire [1988], still sounds great.

What's the best song you wrote for Queen?

Hard to say. I like Radio Ga Ga. It was a nice fusion of synthesisers and... what can I call it... epic pop.

And the worst?

There's a few. I hate Delilah [on Innuendo]. That's just not me.

Was Modern Times Rock 'N' Roll, on the first Queen album, the first song you wrote for the band?

Yeah. Although before that we'd all written Stone Cold Crazy together. I think that was our first proper song.

As a drummer, you've cited John Bonham as your biggest influence.

For me there were three main influences: Bonzo, Keith Moon, and Mitch Mitchell, who I think was so underrated. I heard Ginger Baker saying some incredibly cruel things about Mitch Mitchell and I thought, what a cunt. Ginger Baker didn't have any of the subtlety or dexterity of Mitch Mitchell, whom he slagged the hell out of. That really got up my nose.

Who are your biggest influences as a songwriter?

Oh, Ginger Baker, definitely [laughs]. Seriously, it would be Dylan, Lennon... and Springsteen is fabulous.

Which song would you say has your best lyrics?

Heaven For Everyone [recorded first by The Cross and later by Queen] had some good stuff about love and dignity, the usual anti-war thing. These Are The Days Of Our Lives was quite nice in a reminiscing, rather old-fashioned kind of way.

And that song took on a greater meaning after Freddie's death.

It took on a resonance, yeah. I was sort of referencing us at the time I wrote it. We knew Freddie wasn't well.

Did you ever see a better frontman than Freddie?

You'll never see anyone connect as well with an audience as Freddie could.

But for all his showmanship on stage, wasn't he somewhat insecure in private?

Oh yeah. He was quite insecure about all sort of things. Strangely, he was also shy in some ways. But he could switch it on and off. He was great when he was with his close circle, but if there were people he didn't know very well, he could feel quite awkward.

Was there any part of Freddie's personality that used to get on your tits?

Almost nothing. But he used to clear his throat in a quite nauseatingly loud way. But we got on famously.

In the 2011 documentary Queen: Days Of Our Lives, when you talk about the last year of Freddie's life and the hounding he received from the tabloid press, you sound furious, even after all the years.

I still feel it today. It was The Sun. It was like an assassination in order to flog a few newspapers. How vindictive and horrible. I thought that was a bit much. I felt very protective of Fred then. And just recently when the News Of The World went down I danced a fucking jig.

Did you ever court the tabloid press?

Not really. I never believed that tabloids sold records. Or actually furthered your career. And I think you're better off trying to keep out of them. I don't think they help you. If anything, they make you look like a tit. And there's too much ammunition there. The less they know, the better. Freddie got a lot of crap printed about him, Brian had a lot, and I had a little bit but not much.

Did you believe there was a homophobic subtext to some of the media coverage of Freddie's death?

Absolutely. "This is what you get..." It was just prurient, wasn't it?

Do you ever dream that Freddie is still around?

Yeah. Brian would tell you the same - that Freddie sort of lives with us. We spent so many years together, living in each other's pockets. And we'd socialise quite a lot together. So he's someone who's not going to go away. But I don't intend to spend the rest of my life living under the shadow of Freddie Mercury. He was my best mate and he's gone, bless him, and we miss him, but you've got to get on with life.

The first Queen album is now 40 years old. What are your memories of making it?

It was all very exciting. Time in the studio seemed so expensive - 30 quid an hour, a huge amount of money back then. We would go in at four in the morning. It was hard work. And we never really got the sound that I wanted on the first album. We didn't have quite enough control, which we got on the second album.

In those early days, what were your hopes and dreams for Queen?

We wanted to get lots of work. We wanted to be recognised. We wanted to be rich and famous.

And how did that work out for you?

It worked out all right. But it's always a more gradual process than people imagine.

Looking back over Queen's career, what are you most proud of?

The way that the music has seeped into the general consciousness, the fact that we are still occasionally played on the radio, and a lot of the music is still popular. Kids know our music now, and I find that fantastic.

Any regrets?

Many regrets. Most are small ones. But I think we made a bad decision to go to South Africa [to play in Sun City in 1984, during the era of apartheid]. I think we were badly advised. Although we went there with the best intentions, I think it was the wrong decision.

But the following year Queen did the right thing and played at Live Aid. And stole the show with a performance that people still talk about today.

Live Aid was a great day. I remember Bob Geldof describing it as a global jukebox. And we got that: right, we'll ram in as many songs as we can. If you're appearing on a global stage, you know that most people watching on television won't be your fans, so we thought the most sensible thing was to play the ones they know. Or rather, play the ones that they might know. So that's what we did.

How would you describe your relationship with Brian May?

We're best mates, really. It's amazing what Brian fits into his life. He's a genuine polymath. He's an astrophysics PhD, one of the world's foremost experts on stereophotography. He does all sorts of things. A bit bonkers, some of it.

You and Brian have continued as Queen without Freddie and without the band's other founding member, bassist John Deacon, who retired from the music business in the 90s. Can you understand why Robert Plant chose not to tour again with Led Zeppelin?

Yeah. Robert's a very pure-spirited man. Also, Zeppelin is very demanding on a singer - all those vocal gymnastics. Pehaps he thinks in some way he might not deliver at the level he was delivering at. And also there's the huge respect for Bonzo, who was the motherfucker of all rock drummers. So yeah, I can see why he won't do it. And Robert has a very respected career of his own.

But if Freddie had lived and had declined to tour again with Queen, that would have been hard for you to accept.

I guess it would. But Freddie always felt his real comfort zone was when we were all together... bickering away [laughs].

Did that bickering come from having four songwriters in Queen?

Very much so. There were definitely four schools of writing going on. John and I found our strengths later than the other two. Right from the start, Freddie just went on in leaps and bounds. He just sort of invented himself. But, at the end of the day, we understood each other. And it worked very well.

In the glory days of Queen you had a reputation as a playboy. Were you?

No. I think that's overplayed. We had a good time - we had a really good time - but we didn't shout about it.

Have you slowed down over the years?

Of course. Everybody slows down. Or dies. And I don't intend dying yet.

What's next for Roger Taylor? A solo tour for your new album?

I'm thinking about getting together some mates in a really hot band and getting out on the road. And if I did, I'd have my son Rufus Tiger Taylor playing drums. He plays with Queen when we tour. He plays percussion most of the time, and when I do anything out front he plays drums. He's Brian's favourite drummer, I think.

Did you teach him too well?

Actually, he's more from the Taylor Hawkins school than mine.

Have you ever thought about stopping playing drums?

I can't imagine it. It would be horrible to think I'd never play the drums or sing again. It's like a painter, really - most painters keep painting.

But it's a bit easier to paint than to play drums.

Very true. But my style gets more economical and relaxed, without me realising it. It's not quite as wild as it was. But I still love to play. I've done a couple of shows with Jeff Beck recently, which is a delight. Jeff is just the most wonderful guitar player.

So you're not thinking of retiring?

Why would I want to stop? It's not like I have to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to go and play the drums, it's something I can pick up and put down when I choose.

All those years ago you wanted to be rich and famous. And your dreams came true. Is there a downside to all of this?

Not really. I slide around fairly unrecognised, which suits me down to the ground. Some people enjoy making an entrance and being noticed. That's not really me.

It's been a good life, hasn't it?

It has. I'm very lucky.