Clive Jay Davis (April 4, 1932 – June 22, 2026) was an American record executive, A&R executive, record producer and lawyer. He won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a non-performer, in 2000.
From 1967 to 1973, Davis was the president of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1974 through 2000 until founding J Records. From 2002 until April 2008, he was chair and CEO of the RCA Music Group (which included RCA Records, J Records, and Arista Records), chair and CEO of J Records, and chair and CEO of BMG North America.
Davis is credited with having hired a young recording artist, Tony Orlando, as a music executive for Columbia in 1967, who provided Barry Manilow with his first recording contract a few years later. Davis signed many artists who achieved significant success, including Pink Floyd; Sly and the Family Stone; Janis Joplin; Laura Nyro; Santana; Bruce Springsteen; Chicago; Earth, Wind & Fire; Aerosmith; Billy Joel; Donovan; the Bay City Rollers; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Luther Vandross; Loggins and Messina; Ace of Base; Olivia Longott; Westlife; and Gavin DeGraw. He is also credited with having brought Whitney Houston and Barry Manilow to prominence.
Davis served as the chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment from 2008 until his death in 2026.
Early life and education
Clive Jay Davis was born on April 4, 1932, in Brooklyn, New York City, to Jewish parents, Herman and Florence Davis. His father worked as an electrician and salesman. Davis was raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and attended Erasmus Hall High School.
His mother died at the age of 47, and his father died the following year while Davis was still a teenager. He then moved in with his married sister, who lived in Bayside, Queens.
Davis attended New York University College of Arts & Science, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in political science and Phi Beta Kappa in 1953. He received a full scholarship to Harvard Law School and graduated in 1956.
Career
Columbia/CBS Records years
Davis practiced law in a small firm in New York, then moved on to the firm of Rosenman, Colin, Kaye, Petschek, and Freund two years later, where partner Ralph Colin had CBS as a client. Davis was subsequently hired by a former colleague at the firm, Harvey Schein, to become assistant counsel of CBS subsidiary Columbia Records at the age of 28, and then general counsel the following year. As part of a reorganization of Columbia Records Group, group president Goddard Lieberson appointed Davis as administrative vice president and general manager in 1965. In 1966, CBS formed the Columbia-CBS Group which reorganized CBS’s recorded music operations into CBS Records with Davis heading the new unit.
The next year, Davis was appointed president and became interested in the newest generation of folk rock and rock and roll. One of his earliest pop signings was the British folk-rock musician Donovan, who enjoyed a string of successful hit singles and albums released in the U.S. on the Epic Records label. That same year, Davis hired 23-year-old recording artist Tony Orlando as general manager of Columbia publishing subsidiary April-Blackwood Music; Orlando went on to become vice-president of Columbia/CBS Music and signed Barry Manilow in 1969. In June 1967, Davis attended the Monterey Pop Festival after his friends and business associate, Lou Adler, convinced him. He immediately signed Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Columbia went on to sign Laura Nyro; The Electric Flag; Santana; The Chambers Brothers; Bruce Springsteen; Chicago; Billy Joel; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Loggins and Messina; Aerosmith; and Pink Floyd (for rights to release their material outside of Europe).
One of the most commercially successful recordings released during Davis’s tenure at Columbia was Lynn Anderson’s Rose Garden, in late 1970. It was Davis who insisted that “Rose Garden” be the country singer’s next single release. The song crossed over and was a No. 1 hit in 16 countries worldwide. “Rose Garden” remained the biggest-selling album by a female country artist for 27 years. In 1972, Davis signed both Earth, Wind & Fire and Aerosmith to Columbia Records. In 1979 Aerosmith mentioned Davis in the song “No Surprize”, in which Steven Tyler sings, “Old Clive Davis said he’s surely gonna make us a star, I’m gonna make you a star, just the way you are.” Starting on December 30, 1978, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead occasionally changed the lyrics of the Dead standard “Jack Straw” in concert from “we used to play for silver, now we play for life”, to “we used to play for acid, now we play for Clive.” One of the last bands Davis tried to sign to Columbia Records was the Detroit band Death. A Rolling Stone article dated July 5, 1973 reported that CBS fired Clive Davis “amid allegations of misuse of funds and providing drugs to artists and disk jockeys” as part of an alleged payola scandal. Davis, however, denied that his dismissal was connected in any way to drugs or payola.
Arista years
After Davis was fired from CBS Records in 1973 for allegedly using company funds to bankroll his son’s bar mitzvah, Columbia Pictures then hired him to be a consultant for the company’s Bell Records label. Davis took time out to write his memoirs and then founded Arista Records in 1974. The company was named after New York City’s secondary school honor society of that name, of which Davis was a member.
At Arista, Davis signed Barry Manilow, followed by Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, Westlife, Al Jourgensen, The Outlaws, Eric Carmen, Kenny G, the Bay City Rollers, Exposé, Taylor Dayne, Milli Vanilli, Ace of Base, Air Supply, Ray Parker Jr., Raydio, and Alicia Keys, and he brought Carly Simon, Melissa Manchester, Grateful Dead, The Kinks, Jermaine Stewart, Gil Scott-Heron (on whose episode of TV One’s Unsung Davis was interviewed) and Lou Reed to the label. He co-founded Arista Nashville in 1989 with Tim DuBois, which became the home to Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Pam Tillis, and Brad Paisley.
Davis founded LaFace Records with L.A. Reid and Babyface. LaFace subsequently became the home of TLC, Usher, Outkast, Pink, and Toni Braxton. He assisted Sean “Puffy” Combs with the creation of Bad Boy Records; it became the home of the Notorious B.I.G., Craig Mack, Combs, Mase, 112, and Faith Evans, although Davis would later admit that he never quite understood rap music. In 1998, Davis signed LFO, who became best known for their 1999 hit single “Summer Girls”. During the Arista years, he set up his own production company Clive Davis Entertainment, for a two-year first-look agreement with movie studio TriStar Pictures in 1987. Davis was made aware of Cissy Houston’s daughter Whitney Houston after he saw the Houstons perform at a New York City nightclub. Impressed with what he heard, Davis signed her to Arista. Houston became one of the biggest selling artists in music history under the guidance of Davis at Arista.
J Records, RCA, Sony years
Davis was fired from Arista in 2000 and started J Records, an independent label with financial backing from Arista parent Bertelsmann Music Group, named with the middle initial of Davis and his four children. BMG would buy a majority stake in J Records in 2002, and Davis would become president and CEO of the larger RCA Music Group. Davis’s continued success in breaking new artists was recognized by the music industry A&R site HitQuarters when he was named “world’s No.1 A&R of 2001” based on worldwide chart data for that year.
In 2004, BMG merged with Sony Music Entertainment to form Sony BMG. With the assets of the former CBS Records (renamed Sony Music Entertainment in 1991) now under Sony’s ownership, the joint venture resulted in a return of sorts for Davis to his former employer. Davis remained with RCA Label Group until 2008, when he was named chief creative officer for Sony BMG. Davis was elevated to chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment, a title he held until his death, as part of a corporate restructuring when Sony BMG became Sony Music Entertainment in late 2008 after BMG had sold its shares to Sony. Arista Records and J Records, which were both founded by Davis, were dissolved in October 2011 through the restructuring of RCA Records. All artists under those labels were moved to RCA Records.
Personal life and death
Davis was married to Helen Cohen from 1956 to 1965 and to Janet Adelberg from 1965 to 1985; both marriages ended in divorce. He had four children, including Doug Davis, a music executive and Grammy award-winning record producer. Davis had eight grandchildren.
In 2013, at the age of 80, Davis publicly came out as bisexual in his autobiography The Soundtrack of My Life. On the daytime talk show Katie, he told host Katie Couric that he hoped his revelation would lead to “greater understanding” of bisexuality. The autobiography was the basis for the two-hour documentary Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives.
Davis died at his home in Manhattan on June 22, 2026, at the age of 94. He had been hospitalized with respiratory problems shortly before his death. A funeral service for Davis will be held on June 29 in New York City.
Legacy
In their obituary, The New York Times called Davis a “Hitmaking Titan of the Music Industry” who became one of “music’s most
powerful executives”. He was noted for elevating the careers of several influential musicians such as Aretha Franklin; Barry Manilow; Billy Joel; Carlos Santana; Chicago; Earth, Wind and Fire; Aerosmith; Bruce Springsteen; and Whitney Houston. The New York Times regarded him as one of the “few non-performers in the music industry to become a household name”.
The BBC regarded Davis as “one of the most influential music executives in the history of rock and pop”. CNN also called Davis a “monumental music producer and record industry titan” who “nurtured [stars]” in his career. The Guardian noted his ability to find musical talent as he “predicted music’s biggest stars like no one else”. Grammy Award winner Diane Warren called Davis the “greatest music man of all time”. The Hollywood Reporter credited his “golden ear” who helped elevate Janis Joplin’s career and “made Bruce Springsteen and Whitney Houston household names” and “carried Carlos Santana and Aretha Franklin to newfound fame”.
Davis was also considered a bisexual icon who helped shift the cultural attitude around bisexuality, with Yahoo calling him a “bisexual star-maker”.
An alumnus of New York University, Davis was a significant benefactor to the institution. The recorded music division of its Tisch School of the Arts is named in his honor as the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.
Popular culture
Davis was portrayed by Stanley Tucci in Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, a Sony Pictures biopic about Houston’s life and career. Davis also served as a producer on the film. A 2024 interview with Davis conducted by Ritch Esra and Eric Knight was published on MubuTV.
Awards and honors
As a producer, Davis won four Grammy Awards. Davis also received the Grammy Trustees Award in 2000 and the President’s Merit Award at the 2009 Grammys. In 2011, the 200-seat theater at the Grammy Museum was named the “Clive Davis Theater”.
In 2000, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the non-performers category. The same year, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
In 2015, he was recognized by Equality Forum as one of the 31 Icons of the LGBT History Month. Davis was a 2018 honoree at The New Jewish Home’s Eight Over Eighty Gala.
Grammy Awards
Written works
- Clive: Inside the Record Business. with James Willwerth. William Morrow and Company. 1975. ISBN 978-0-688-02872-5. OCLC 960303.
- The Soundtrack of My Life. with Anthony DeCurtis. Simon & Schuster. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4767-1478-3. OCLC 826998284.
References
External links
- Official website
- Clive Davis at IMDb
- Clive Davis discography at Discogs
- Clive Davis’ Personal Publicist“Clive Davis”. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.