Record producer and music titan Clive Davis, who has died at age 94 at his Manhattan home on Monday, could spot talent from miles away. He championed a new generation of musicians during his time at Columbia Records in the late 1960s before shepherding a number of stars across R&B, hip-hop, country and pop at the famous Arista Records, and then, in his later years, at J Records.
Nippy performed with her mother Cissy Houston at a small diner called Sweetwater’s, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Among the venue’s 150 patrons was Chris Jones, who worked at Arista Records and spotted Nippy. He didn’t hesitate to mention his latest finding to the head of Arista, Davis, who, of course, already knew all about the legend of Cissy, who as a member of The Sweet Inspirations had toured with Elvis Presley as both background singer and his warm-up act.
Her daughter Nippy was different, which Davis realised the instant he heard her sing at Sweetwater’s. But Cissy made Clive wait until Nippy finished high school before signing her to the famous music label, and soon afterwards the legend of Whitney Houston was born — Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know and The Greatest Love of All were hits in quick succession.
The Grammy Award-winning producer’s working life spanned six decades, studded with one talent after another, like Rod Stewart, Carlos Santana, Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys and Christina Aguilera among others. He had the ear to match artistes to songs that suited their styles. It was always about finding songs that fit naturally, with “no sense of artificiality when they sing it”. His annual pre-Grammy party was a sought-after event.
Meeting Janis Joplin
It was at the Monterey Pop Festival that he witnessed rock music change before his eyes. The 1967 seminal music festival featured acts such as the Who, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane. It was here he came in contact with Janis Joplin, who was then the lead singer of the rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company.
“The more she belted and vibrated, the more I was physically affected to the core… to the soul. The course of rock music was forever changed at that festival, and I was there,” he told Billboard magazine in 2000.
His time at Columbia as its president had many highs, working with the likes of Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Santana and Bruce Springsteen.
When he started in the Columbia legal department in 1960, at age 28, he didn’t have a background in music. “I knew nothing about music,” he said in a 2017 documentary, Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives. By studying the Billboard charts and analysing what made a song a hit, he changed direction entirely.
Then the unthinkable happened. In 1973, Columbia fired him and filed a lawsuit accusing him of using $94,000 in company funds to pay for personal expenses. He said an underling had forged invoices without his knowledge.
He rebounded at once. In 1974, he took over the Bell label and renamed it Arista. He scored a number-one hit with Mandy, performed by Barry Manilow, one of the few Bell acts he retained on the label.
Arista quickly built a diverse roster of artistes, including Patti Smith, the Kinks and Lou Reed.
“I wanted to sign special, unique talents that could be headliners, self-contained rock artistes. So, when I started Arista, I just followed that pattern, and in rock came Patti Smith and The Outlaws and the Kinks and the Grateful Dead and Al Stewart, among others,” Davis said.
At Columbia, he hadn’t worked directly with professional songwriters to provide material for artistes who didn’t write, or for artistes who did write but remained open to outside material. This helped Houston, as she depended on other songwriters.
Born in Brooklyn on April 4, 1932, Davis grew up in a Jewish family, with a father who worked as an electrician and salesman and a stay-at-home mother. By age 18, Davis’s parents had both died within 11 months of each other.
“I had been toughened by my parents dying when I was 17, 18, by going through school as an orphan and having to earn everything,” he told Rolling Stone.
Without financial support, he attended New York University on scholarship and, on graduation, received another scholarship to attend Harvard Law.
After his Harvard years, he got a job at the prestigious New York law firm Rosenman, Colin, Kaye, Petschek and Freund. There, he reviewed contracts for Columbia Artists Management, a talent agency with no connection to the music company. A lawyer at his firm, Harvey Schein, had been hired by CBS and tasked with setting up its international division, and it was Schein who brought Davis on board. He soon impressed Goddard Lieberson, then president of Columbia Records, who brought him into the label.
Throughout his working life, he never meddled in his artistes’ personal lives; it was always a professional relationship. When Houston needed a hit, he worked with her to release her cover of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, which became a defining moment in her life. He told Bruce Springsteen to move around more on stage unless he wanted the “new Dylan” tag that Davis thought was a kiss of death. There were also misses along the way, like turning down Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell because it was “too theatrical” and the singer didn’t look like a star.
Forming J Records
Another setback arrived in 2000 when he was ousted by Arista. It was then that he set up his own label, J Records, which proved very successful in the early 2000s and became home to Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, Alicia Keys, Kesha, Maroon 5 and Leona Lewis. It was during this period that he gave Rod Stewart’s run a new lease of life by encouraging him to record albums of Great American Songbook standards.
As a producer, Davis picked up four competitive Grammy Awards, two with Santana, one with Kelly Clarkson and one with Jennifer Hudson, but guided several more nominations and wins for his artistes. He also received the Grammy Trustees Award in 2000 and the President’s Merit Award in 2009.
One of the few nonperformers inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he knew how to throw a party at the Beverly Hilton every year on the night before the Grammys.
In 2013, he published a memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life, in which, at the age of 80, he came out publicly as bisexual. But it was always music that was his first love. “I still love it today. I’m immersed in it. I think music is the universal language,” he said.