Music mogul Clive Davis, the celebrated producer and label executive who signed and trained such genre-defining musicians as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen and Whitney Houston, died Monday at his home in New York City, according to Davis' representative, Aliza Rabinoff. He was 94 years old.
Davis had recently been hospitalized with an upper respiratory infection.
“To the world, our father was the iconic musical legend whose vision, instincts and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives,” his family said in a statement. “He discovered, guided and defended the greatest artists in the history of modern music, leaving an indelible mark on culture that will last for generations.
“To his family, Clive was dad and grandpa, the constant presence at the center of our lives, the source of wisdom, strength, encouragement and unconditional love. No matter how extraordinary his professional achievements, he never lost sight of what mattered most: the people he loved.”
Known for his unerring ear for innovative music and an innate ability to navigate the changing currents of popular music, Davis ruled Columbia, Arista and J Records. He most recently served as creative director of Sony Music Entertainment.
The Grammy Award-winning producer's career spanned six decades and was marked by success and turbulence as he developed an astonishing stable of talent, including Rod Stewart, TLC, Carlos Santana, Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys and Christina Aguilera, among others. He also co-founded Bad Boy Records with Sean “Diddy” Combs, home to hip-hop artists like Notorious BIG.
Fans said the veteran producer's longevity as the head of a high-profile record company was largely due to his ability to pair artists with must-see songs, which often climbed the charts and racked up Grammy nominations by the bucketload. Their annual pre-Grammy party was an industry event not to be missed, even as it went virtual amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
Davis's main goal was to “find a song that fits naturally, so there's no sense of artificiality when they sing it,” he told The Times in 2014.
Born on April 4, 1932 in Brooklyn, Davis's parents died when he was still a teenager and he moved in with a sister. He received full scholarships to New York University and Harvard Law School and graduated with honors from both. He began his professional career as a corporate lawyer working with CBS Records and was eventually recruited to the label's executive offices.
The label was then home to a young Bob Dylan, who became entangled with Davis when the young folk singer pushed to include a song called “Talkin' John Birch Society Blues” on his 1963 album “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.”
Davis, as Columbia's general counsel, found certain lines in the protest song defamatory and told the enraged songwriter that it would not appear on the record, he wrote in one of his two memoirs. Although furious, Dylan relented.
Davis is credited with attending the Monterey Pop Festival, the seminal 1967 music festival that featured adventurous acts like The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, for opening his eyes to the emerging psychedelic music scene. The festival brought him into contact with Joplin, who was then the lead singer of the rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. It was his first signing, and probably his best, he said repeatedly.
During his reign at Columbia/CBS, the company opened its doors to rock and folk music, releasing early albums by Springsteen, Santana, Aerosmith, Laura Nyro and Billy Joel.
When Springsteen delivered the first recording of his debut album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey,” Davis asked him if he could contribute any additional material because he didn't hear any potential hits.
“I went to the beach and wrote 'Blinded by the Light' and 'Spirit in the Night,'” Springsteen said later. “It was a good decision. They ended up being two of my favorite songs on the album.”
But Davis's penchant for spending lavishly caught up with him, and he was ousted from CBS amid accusations that he used company money for his son's bar mitzvah and other personal expenses, charges that were never proven. He quickly founded Arista Records, where he continued his winning streak of mainstream hits.
Clive Davis in 2016
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
After hiring the 19-year-old Houston, she became one of the most successful female vocalists in recording history. In 1999, he headlined Santana's comeback album, “Supernatural,” returning the guitarist to contemporary pop radio and winning eight Grammy Awards in the process.
However, his Midas touch was questioned when German R&B duo Milli Vanilli achieved international success and a Grammy, only to fall into infamy when it was discovered that none of the group's members sang vocals on their music. The duo was subsequently stripped of their Grammy. Davis insisted he was unaware of the hoax.
Despite his successes, Davis was forced to leave Arista in 2000, officially because at age 71 he was past retirement age. But he didn't give up, creating J Records, a subsidiary of BMG, and scoring hits with artists like Alicia Keys and Busta Rhymes. Four years later, he was named CEO of BMG North America, which included control of Arista.
He worked closely with several “American Idol” winners and finalists at the height of the singing competition's popularity, including Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard. In 2007, he openly feuded with original “Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson over creative control of his second album. He publicly apologized but insisted that the album could have been much better.
In 2009, Davis accomplished another feat by returning Houston to the top of the charts with the comeback album, “I Look to You,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The singer, who was scheduled to attend his annual pre-Grammy party, drowned in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton the night before the event. Subsequently, toxicology tests revealed that there was cocaine and other drugs in his system.
“For a while, I thought she had given up drugs,” Davis said of Houston's final years, dedicating much of her second memoir to the pop titan. She visited him at his home in Los Angeles just before she died and he left believing she was clean and ready to return. “Neither she nor I understood that she was flirting with death.”
As a producer, Davis earned four competitive Grammy Awards—two with Santana, one with Clarkson, and one with Jennifer Hudson—but earned several artist nominations and wins. He also received the Grammy Trustees Award in 2000 and the President's Award of Merit in 2009.
The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles named its 200-seat home the Clive Davis Theater and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Davis into its non-performing category in 2000. New York University named the music division of its art school the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. He was played by Stanley Tucci in the 2022 biopic “Whitney Houston: I Want to Dance with Someone.”
“Clive was one of the first to recognize the invaluable impact the Grammy Museum could have, not only within the music industry but for music lovers as well,” Grammy Museum President and CEO Michael Sticka said in a statement Monday. “Not only did he recognize our impact, he generously supported us as the first person to donate seven figures to further our mission and work.”
Davis was married twice and published his first memoir, “Clive: Inside the Record Business,” in 1975. “The Soundtrack of My Life” followed in 2013, in which he revealed he was bisexual. He wrote that he first had a sexual encounter with a man during the disco era in New York City and began leading a “bisexual life” after separating from his second wife, Janet Adelberg, with whom he had two of his four children. He had two long-term partners later in his life.
“My family knew it and my closest friends knew it,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013. “But bisexuality is and was misunderstood: 'You're either gay or straight, or you're lying.' But that's not true. Maybe I should have had the courage to air the issue sooner. But I knew I would convey it when I wrote my autobiography.”
Davis is survived by his four children; Fred, Lauren, Mitchell and Doug; eight grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and his longtime partner Greg Schriefer.
