Jazz great Miles Davis experienced mixed reactions toward his role as a major architect of jazz/rock fusion. It was seen by some as a sellout of a master’s medium to a more “base” art form. Nevertheless, this new genre exploded in the mid-seventies, and is now considered essential music. What you may not know is that Davis’s one-time wife – a relatively unheralded singer/songwriter named Betty Mabry – introduced him to the rock/funk scene, and planted the seeds of fusion in his music. By contributor Mike Canton, host of The Soul Show on WYEP fm.