{"id":1818893,"date":"2026-07-09T00:05:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1818893"},"modified":"2026-07-09T00:05:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:05:55","slug":"clive-davis-music-industry-titan-who-signed-whitney-houston-dies-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/clive-davis-music-industry-titan-who-signed-whitney-houston-dies-at-94\/","title":{"rendered":"Clive Davis, Music Industry Titan Who Signed Whitney Houston, Dies at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Clive Davis, the music executive who rose from a midlevel legal position at Columbia Records to become one of the industry\u2019s most powerful and longest-reigning dons, guiding the careers of Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow and dozens of other stars, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.<\/p>\n

His family confirmed the death. Mr. Davis had recently been hospitalized with respiratory problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the few nonperformers in music to become a household name, Mr. Davis maintained a visible role as a starmaker for half a century. In the late 1960s he propelled a reluctant Columbia headlong into the rock era with acts like Janis Joplin and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He also encouraged the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis to connect with the Woodstock generation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Later, at the Arista and J labels, he championed R&B-leaning pop divas like Ms. Houston, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson; seized on the commercial potential for hip-hop; and orchestrated major career revivals for Carlos Santana and Rod Stewart, with albums selling in the millions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For the public that saw him on television or in magazines, Mr. Davis was a mellow, dandyish eminence, seldom pictured in anything but a brightly accessorized suit. He spoke with an accent that hinted at European refinement, although his middle-class Brooklyn origins shone through when he referred, with affection, to \u201cArether.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the music industry, Mr. Davis, whose last position was chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment, was known as a relentless pursuer of hits, and as a symbol of continuity whose career survived numerous setbacks and corporate leadership sweeps.<\/p>\n

Sometimes Mr. Davis even turned up in the lyrics of his artists\u2019 songs. In Aerosmith\u2019s 1979 track \u201cNo Surprize,\u201d Steven Tyler sang about being greenlighted by the Columbia boss at an early gig at Max\u2019s Kansas City in Manhattan: \u201cAnd then old Clive Davis said he\u2019s surely gonna make us a star.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the industry\u2019s A-list executives cultivated their leadership skills through years as producers or talent wranglers. When Mr. Davis started in the Columbia legal department in 1960, at age 28, he had no relevant background; he later described himself as a garden-variety striver who was most proud of getting full scholarships to New York University and Harvard Law School.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI knew nothing about music,\u201d he said in a 2017 documentary, \u201cClive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Davis worked to develop his business instincts \u2014 and his ear \u2014 by studying the Billboard charts and analyzing what made a song a hit. He came to believe in the power of what he called contemporary music: the unabashedly commercial pop that results when a record executive plays matchmaker in the studio, connecting the right singers with the right material.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That process could take a while. For Ms. Houston\u2019s first album, Mr. Davis and his lieutenants hunted for producers and songs for nearly two years. When \u201cWhitney Houston\u201d was finally released, in 1985, it had three No. 1 singles \u2014 \u201cSaving All My Love for You,\u201d \u201cHow Will I Know\u201d and \u201cGreatest Love of All\u201d \u2014 and became one of the most successful debut albums in history, selling more than 25 million copies around the world, according to Sony.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I learned from Clive is that the only thing that matters at the end of the day when you\u2019re making a record is the three and a half minutes of magic,\u201d Jimmy Iovine, the producer and record executive, told The Los Angeles Times in 1996. \u201cEveryone says they keep the music first, but from my experience, Clive is one of the few who truly practices this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Davis\u2019s longevity in the music world \u2014 embodied by his glamorous annual Grammy Awards parties, which he hosted starting in 1976 \u2014 made him an institution in the business. Well past the point when most of his contemporaries had retired, Mr. Davis continued to hunt for talent. He could also draw headlines, as when he revealed<\/a>, at age 80, that he was bisexual and had been in serious relationships with men in addition to his two marriages to women.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat is patently clear,\u201d he wrote in a memoir, \u201cThe Soundtrack of My Life\u201d (2013), \u201cis that openness in all areas of life is an important component of happiness and success.\u201d<\/p>\n