Clive Davis, the titan of the music industry who shaped the careers of everyone from Janis Joplin to Whitney Houston, has died at 94. The news, confirmed by his family, has prompted an outpouring of tributes from British artists and executives who credit him with transforming popular music across the Atlantic.
Davis was not a musician. He was something rarer: a listener. As a young lawyer turned record executive, he had the peculiar gift of hearing in raw demos what the rest of the world would soon crave. At Columbia Records in the 1960s, he championed the counterculture when suits still ran the show, signing Janis Joplin and Santana while rivals dismissed psychedelia as a fad. He later founded Arista Records, where he discovered a teenage Whitney Houston and guided her to global dominance. The phrase “golden ear” is overused. In Davis’s case, it fits.
For Britain, Davis’s influence was profound. He saw potential in Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics when their androgynous synth-pop baffled American radio. He pushed for the transatlantic breakthrough of artists like Seal and Rod Stewart, whom he signed late in his career. Industry figures here remember a man who never settled for regional success. ‘He thought in arenas,’ a former EMI executive told me. ‘If you walked into his office with a hit for Britain, he’d ask where the anthem was for the world.’
His death marks the end of an era when record executives had personalities, when a single man’s taste could define a decade. The music industry is now run by algorithms and playlists. Davis belonged to a time when hubris and instinct ruled. He was known for his ferocious work ethic and high-stakes gambles. At 84, he was still producing the Grammys pre-telecast gala. At 90, he was still telling young producers the correct place for a chorus.
Tributes rolling in from British artists reflect a deep respect. Elton John called him ‘the godfather of modern music.’ Adele, via her management, said he ‘showed us what was possible.’ Paul McCartney remembered a lunch at the Savoy where Davis dissected ‘Silly Love Songs’ and suggested a key change that never materialised but the conversation stayed with him.
But Davis’s story is not all glamour. He was fired from Columbia in 1973 after being accused of using company funds to finance his son’s bar mitzvah (charges he denied, though a settlement was reached). He returned years later, a survivor who understood that power in music was cyclical. His autobiography, Clive: Inside the Record Business, is a masterclass in the mechanics of fame: how songs are chosen, how stars are manufactured, how taste is shaped by commerce.
The British industry will feel his loss keenly. Davis was one of the few American executives who truly loved British eccentricity. He signed the Kinks after their US career stalled. He fought to keep Coldplay’s first single on the radio when Columbia wanted to drop them. ‘He didn’t always understand what we were doing,’ said a former band manager who wished to remain anonymous, ‘but he trusted his gut. That’s rare now.’
On the street, the reaction is more muted. For younger generations, Davis’s name might not register. His death speaks to a hierarchy of fame that is fading: the executive as impresario. But for those of a certain age, his absence signifies something deeper. When Davis listened to a song, you felt he was listening to you. That is the human cost: the loss of a curator who believed in magic, even as the industry became a machine. His legacy, though, plays on every radio station, every streaming service, every jukebox where a voice leaps out of the silence and demands attention.
