Anybody with a passing interest in pop culture will know that ‘Miles’’ ex is really a wholly inadequate moniker for Betty Mabry, though that is what she has been saddled with for the most part. Much more accurate is the claim that she was the blueprint for Grace Jones, and others in a vaguely similar vein, be it Erykah Badu, Kelis or Janelle Monae. Davis took the ‘my jellyroll is sweeter than yours’ attitude of the great blues sisters and made it into a funky milkshake all of her own, something more than hot enough to bring all the boys to the yard. Though she would go on to record some devastating funk in the 1970s, above all the super heavy ‘Anti-Love Song’, she did sessions for Columbia at the end of the 1960s and this is the result. In a word, it is a kind of hyper-blues, adrenalised and eroticised to the max, with the singer's sassy growl proving to be particularly effective amid the bubbling stew of pentatonic licks and punchy backbeats provided by a large cast of players that included members of The Crusaders. Although there is a reprise of Cream's ‘Politician’ that is stamped with a sleaze that the power trio could only hint at, the rest of the material is original, making the point that the self-styled ‘Down Home Girl’ was a writer as well as a singer who had something to say and her own way of going about it. She's on her way to ‘Nasty Gal’ status here and it is quite enthralling.