Clive Davis was an empathetic executive whose expertise transcended genres; he displayed an uncanny ability to spin talent into gold. Aretha Franklin once called him \u201cthe greatest record man of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClive has the mind of a bank executive and the ears of a teenager,\u201d said Davis protege Barry Manilow, the singer-songwriter known for \u201cCopacabana\u201d and other easy listening hits.<\/p>\n
A lawyer by education, Davis entered the music world as counsel at Columbia Records before shifting into management and, in 1966, becoming president of the reorganised CBS Records.<\/p>\n
It marked the start of a career that would come to define the modern music industry.<\/p>\n
From Janis Joplin to Earth, Wind & Fire, Aerosmith to Billy Joel, Patti Smith to Alicia Keys, Davis discovered, mentored and catapulted an empire of artists to household name status, reigning for decades in a business where longevity is rare.<\/p>\n
Grateful Dead singer Bob Weir even sometimes changed a lyric when performing the band\u2019s standard \u201cJack Straw\u201d to honour Davis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to play for acid,\u201d he\u2019d sing. \u201cNow we play for Clive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born April 4, 1932, in Brooklyn, Davis enjoyed music but did not see it as his professional future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe emphasis in Jewish families that did not have any money was that you\u2019ve got to be a lawyer, or you\u2019ve got to be a doctor,\u201d Davis said in the documentary \u201cClive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was going to be a lawyer, with no clue what being a lawyer meant.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was a New York University student when personal tragedy struck: Davis\u2019s mother died suddenly, and then his father passed within the following year.<\/p>\n
He graduated from Harvard Law School and began working at a New York law firm. His move to CBS subsidiary Columbia Records as legal counsel proved pivotal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew nothing about music. I knew nothing about what awaited me,\u201d said Davis. \u201cBut I did seize that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Weakness for artists\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Legends Miles Davis and Clive Davis<\/p>\n CBS executives ultimately convinced him to change from law into management, and Davis took an interest in the burgeoning world of folk and rock.<\/p>\n He attended the storied Monterey Pop Festival, an experience he later described as life-changing.<\/p>\n Awestruck by Joplin and the social and musical revolution she embodied, Davis signed her that night.<\/p>\n He worked with Bob Dylan as well as Simon and Garfunkel, convincing the duo that the soft, melodic \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water\u201d could be a radio hit, though it was far from the sounds on the airwaves at the time.<\/p>\n And Davis returned a demo to a young Springsteen, telling him it still needed a hit single.<\/p>\n So the rocker went to the beach and penned \u201cBlinded by the Light\u201d and \u201cSpirit in the Night\u201d in a single evening.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a good call,\u201d Springsteen has joked.<\/p>\n Davis encouraged jazz legend Miles Davis, who came to the executive furious that young white artists were profiting off styles pioneered by Black musicians like himself, to play rock venues.<\/p>\n Shortly thereafter, the trailblazing trumpeter released \u201cBitches Brew,\u201d a seminal, rock-imbued album.<\/p>\n Davis had a \u201cweakness for artists,\u201d said another groundbreaking musician, Patti Smith, a Davis favourite who he signed to the record company he would eventually found, Arista.<\/p>\n Whitney, his ultimate star<\/strong><\/p>\n Whitney Houston and Clive Davis<\/p>\n Davis struck out on his own after CBS Records fired him in 1973, on charges, which Davis denied, of bankrolling personal expenses, including his son\u2019s bar mitzvah.<\/p>\n Arista, which Davis started in 1974, featured stars including Manilow, Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Keys, The Kinks and Lou Reed.<\/p>\n And he made the eyebrow-raising decision to throw his weight behind Kenny G, convincing radio stations to play the solo saxophonist\u2019s music among pop songs.<\/p>\n Davis also forged a deal with Sean Combs, the mogul known as \u201cDiddy,\u201d who is now in prison on prostitution-related charges, to start Bad Boy Records, one of hip-hop\u2019s foundational labels.<\/p>\n But for all the stars he launched, it was Davis\u2019s mentorship of Whitney Houston that would prove among the most significant.<\/p>\n She became one of the best-selling artists ever and a great voice of her generation under his guidance, before her shocking death on the day of one of Davis\u2019s famed pre-Grammy galas.<\/p>\n It was another of the mogul\u2019s great personal tragedies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe loss of Whitney came about as suddenly as the loss of my parents,\u201d Davis said. \u201cAnd profoundly reminded me how quickly and immediately vitally important people in your life can just disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n Party of the year<\/strong><\/p>\n Married and divorced twice, Davis had four children, and publicly came out as bisexual in his autobiography.<\/p>\n After another skirmish with CBS over Arista and several more shake-ups and mergers in the industry, Davis landed the title of Chief Creative Officer at Sony Music Entertainment, where he remained into his later years.<\/p>\n His career was not without critics: an industry joke held that Davis\u2019s ego was so large he thought CDs were named after him.<\/p>\n But he was a music mainstay for well over half a century.<\/p>\n But for all the stars he launched, it was Davis\u2019s mentorship of Whitney Houston that would prove among the most significant.<\/p>\n A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee with an armful of Grammys, Davis for decades hosted a splashy signature pre-Grammy galas.<\/p>\n The bash remained one of the most coveted tickets in showbiz and included a private variety show put on by A-listers.<\/p>\n \u201cClive\u2019s Grammy parties, it\u2019s kind of more than just a party\u2026 it\u2019s kind of a historical event,\u201d said Berry Gordy, the storied founder of Motown Records.<\/p>\n Davis refused to retire.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t continue to do things to prove a point,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in 2021. \u201cI just do what I always did.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Clive Davis: the starmaker who shaped modern music<\/a> appeared first on KBC Digital<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clive Davis was an empathetic executive whose expertise transcended genres; he displayed an uncanny ability to spin talent into gold. Aretha Franklin once called him \u201cthe greatest record man of all time.\u201d \u201cClive has the mind of a bank executive and the ears of a teenager,\u201d said Davis protege Barry Manilow, the singer-songwriter known for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}