Clive Davis, the record executive who revolutionized the music industry and discovered Whitney Houston, has died at the age of 94.
According to The New York Times, Davis passed away on Monday, June 22nd, at his home in Manhattan. His family said he had recently been hospitalized with respiratory problems.
A lawyer who fell into the music industry, Davis surprised even himself by becoming a new and rare archetype: the exec with the golden ear. He signed incredible voices, instrumental virtuosos, and some of the most beloved songwriters n modern music. “I accidentally discovered I had a totally unexpected and unexplained gift – ears,” Davis said to Leaders magazine. “This was quite a surprise, but I could, and would, discover great all-time artists.”
Davis was born in 1932 in New York and raised in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Both his parents died when he was a teenager, and he eventually went on to graduate from New York University before receiving a full scholarship to Harvard Law School.
After graduating from Harvard, Davis got his start in the music business through practicing law when he was assigned as assistant to counsel to Columbia Records. Soon enough, he had been promoted to general counsel, and was eventually chosen to head the newly-reorganized CBS Records. During his time at Columbia, the burgeoning record exec signed Janis Joplin after seeing her perform at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and segued the label into the rock market with acts like Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Chicago, and Aerosmith.
Davis founded Arista Records in 1974, one year after being fired by Columbia. With the first label of his own, the mogul-in-the-making signed a parade of stars, from Barry Manilow and Aretha Franklin to Dionne Warwick, Air Supply, Patti Smith, Carly Simon, Grateful Dead, The Kinks, and, eventually, a fresh-faced singer by the name of Alicia Keys.
At the turn of the century, the exec left Arista to start yet another label, J Records. The new venture’s first release turned out to be Keys’ smash 2001 debut album Songs in A Minor, which would go on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide. Davis went on to add R&B powerhouses D’Angelo, Luther Vandross, Jamie Foxx, and Monica to the label’s growing roster as well.
By 2002, Davis had made quite the reputation for himself. He’d even been named the “world’s No. 1 A&R” (by international music industry publication HitQuarters) the year prior based on worldwide chart data. At this point, he became president and CEO of RCA Music Group as a whole, where he would stay until 2008.
During this time, Davis became involved behind the scenes in a new reality singing show called American Idol, and would go on to help launch the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson, and more. (While producing Clarkson’s 2004 sophomore album Breakaway earned him a Grammy, Davis and the original Idol champ eventually had a bitter falling out over the direction of her 2007 follow-up My December.)
In 2008, Davis was given a new role: Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment. Both Arista Records and J Records were dissolved into RCA a few years later in 2011 — though seven years later Arista was revived as a flagship label under the larger Sony umbrella.
In the wider culture, he became equally well-known for his annual A-list Grammys party the night before the ceremony. Curated by Davis himself, the party was one of the most exclusive and sought-after invites in the industry, and famously featured no cameras, with superstars and rising talent performing and putting on a show for one another. Sadly, the 2012 event was marred by the death of Houston, who was supposed to perform that evening like she had for so many years before.
Over the course of his career, Davis won four Grammys as a producer and was also awarded the Grammys Trustee Award in 2000 — the same year he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — followed by the President’s Merit Award in 2009. Two years later, the theater inside the Grammy Museum was officially named after him. He also founded the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
He was married twice in his life — first to Helen Cohen from 1956 to 1965, then to Janet Adelberg from 1965 to 1985. He is also survived by four children and eight grandchildren, and came out publicly as bisexual in his 2013 autobiography The Soundtrack of My Life.
