By Bill Trott
June 22 (Reuters) – Clive Davis, a former corporate lawyer who became one of the most influential figures in American rock and pop music as he fostered the careers of Bob Dylan, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen and other stars, has died at the age of 94, his family said on Monday.
Davis, who was known as “the man with the golden ear” for his ability to identify potential hit songs, died at his home in Manhattan, the New York Times said, having recently been hospitalized with respiratory problems.
“To the world, our father was the iconic music legend whose vision, instincts, and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives,” his family said in a statement posted on Facebook. “To his family, Clive was Dad and Granddaddy, the steady presence at the center of our lives, the source of wisdom, strength, encouragement, and unconditional love,” the statement said.
As an incomparable hitmaker, Davis was highly adaptable and could span genres and generations, even as he hit his 80s. For every Janis Joplin he discovered in 1960s rock, there was a Sean “P. Diddy” Combs he mentored in hip-hop in the 1990s and a Kelly Clarkson he guided in pop in the 2000s.
Davis won four Grammys for producing works by Clarkson, Carlos Santana and Jennifer Hudson, and a fifth for his contributions to music. He could even revive careers, as he did for Santana with an album that won nine Grammys in 2000, in addition to fostering comebacks by Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick.
CAREER-CHANGING FESTIVAL
Davis was born in the New York borough of Brooklyn on April 4, 1932. As a boy, he said he listened to the radio but had no overwhelming affinity for music and did not even collect records like his friends.
After graduating from New York University and Harvard Law School, Davis worked at private law firms before joining the legal department at Columbia Records, a branch of CBS, in the early 1960s. He made his first mark there by putting together a case that kept Dylan at the label when his handlers had tried to void his contract with the label.
In 1966 Davis was named head of the record label, which until then had been largely ignoring the burgeoning rock-oriented market with only a few acts such as Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and the Byrds aimed at the youth audience.
In his new position Davis helped change the sound of American music. Record producer Lou Adler took Davis to the Monterey Pop Festival in California in 1967, which Davis would come to consider “the creative turning point in my life.” Mesmerized by Joplin’s performance at the festival, he signed her and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company.
In following years he would build the Columbia roster by signing Chicago, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Springsteen, Santana, Billy Joel, Sly and the Family Stone and Boz Scaggs — all of whom became superstar acts.
‘TALENT ATTRACTS TALENT’
Davis was a hands-on executive, taking a major role in the marketing of Columbia’s performers, working as a producer in the studio and giving input on song selection. When he suggested that Springsteen’s “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” album needed a radio hit, Springsteen came up with “Spirit in the Night” and “Blinded by the Light,” which would become staples of his act.
“Talent comes to me because they believe I’ve established a creative haven in which they can flourish,” Davis said in an interview with Newsweek. “And talent attracts talent.”
Davis enjoyed the attention that his success brought him and conceded that it inflated his ego. According to a running joke in the music world, Davis thought that CDs took their name from his initials.
By 1973, CBS’s record division was on the verge of scandal amid its success. According to the book “Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business,” there were reports of prostitutes at company meetings, payoffs to get records played on the radio and a Davis underling who was linked to fraud with a heroin smuggler. Davis was under scrutiny regarding use of corporate money to pay for his son’s bar mitzvah.
CBS eventually fired Davis that year and filed a $94,000 expense-account-related suit that would be settled out of court. Davis later pleaded guilty to failure to pay taxes on job-related expenses and was fined $10,000.
BIRTH OF ARISTA
Davis was not down for long. By 1974, he found backing for his own record label, which he named Arista. Among the first signees was Barry Manilow, who gave Davis a string of hits.
At Arista, Davis specialized in taking acts such as Franklin, Warwick, Lou Reed and the Kinks that had faded after initial success and returning them to stardom. The revived acts and new talent brought in great revenues, Grammys and stacks of gold records for Arista.
Not all of his moves were profit-driven. He signed Patti Smith, known as the godmother of punk rock, even though her commercial appeal was limited.
“I really felt Clive, whatever his mainstream reputation … does love artists,” Smith, who inducted Davis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, told the Associated Press.
Davis’ best move at Arista was discovering a teenaged Whitney Houston in 1983 and guiding her career to record-breaking heights with a string of No. 1 hits. He took a hands-on producer role with Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” — from her movie with Kevin Costner, “The Bodyguard.” It set a record by holding the No. 1 chart spot for 14 weeks and becoming one of the biggest-selling commercial singles of all time.
‘IT RIPS YOUR HEART OUT’
Davis and Houston grew close personally and Houston thought of Davis as family. Her decline due to drug abuse and her overdose death in 2012 were crushing for him.
“It rips your heart out, is what it does,” Davis told CNN in a 2013 interview. “We knew there was no one like her and it is very, very painful that this tragic, tragic talent so prematurely came to an early demise, really.”
Davis also signed saxophonist Kenny G, who became one of music’s best-selling instrumentalists at Arista, and branched out by starting a Nashville subsidiary that became home to country stars Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn and Brad Paisley.
Also at Arista, Davis helped proteges L.A. Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds set up a label that featured star R&B acts such as Usher, TLC and Outkast and brought in future music mogul Combs as a partner on a rap label.
Despite his roaring success, in 2000 Arista’s parent company, BMG Entertainment, ousted Davis, who was undeterred and started J Records. His biggest successes at J were with Alicia Keys, Luther Vandross and the “American Songbook” series of 1930s and 1940s pop standards that revived Stewart’s career.
J Records went out of existence after a series of corporate mergers and in 2008 Davis was named chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment.
In his 2013 memoir, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” Davis, who was married and divorced twice and had four children, revealed that he was bisexual. He said he had a 13-year relationship with a male doctor and was at the time in a long-term one with another man.
(Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Will Dunham)
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