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• Video: Clive Davis On Hits, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and More

  Billboard - Found Nov. 6, 2009 By Billboard staff Clive Davis sat with Billboard editorial director Bill Werde on Wednesady (Nov. SoundCtrl & NYU Present a Special Conversation with Clive Davis! - Examiner.com Explore All

• Clive Davis Gives Music Industry Lecture at NYU

  Spinner.com - Found Nov. 5, 2009 ... by the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music and music and digital media convergence promoter SoundCtrl, this was the first time Davis...

• Barry Manilow Recording Best 'Make-out Album of All Time'

  Spinner.com - Found Nov. 3, 2009 Now, three decades after his crooning heyday, Manilow is returning to romance at the suggestion of music industry titan Clive Davis .

• Clive Davis Will Not Apologize for Kenny G

  Vanity Fair - Found Oct. 30, 2009 Clive Davis is not that guy. Which is kinda weird. Davis certainly seems like hed qualify for creepy-old-guy-at-the-party status.

• SUPERNATURAL SANTANA: A TRIP THROUGH THE HITS

  THE JAZZ CHILL CORNER - Found Oct. 31, 2009 ... the late Spring/early Summer of 2010. The record will be released through RCA/J Records with Carlos and Clive Davis as the Executive Producers.

• Lee fights for 'Precious'

  Variety - Found Oct. 28, 2009 Mirren -- and, I guess -- me.CLIVE DAVIS continues to treat the rejuvenated Whitney Houston like a piece of fragile china.Whitney is Clive's...

• Idol Headlines for 10/27/09

  American Idol - Found Oct. 27, 2009 ... album is in the works, though fans shouldn?t expect a complete new effort this year, according to Sony Chief Creative Officer Clive Davis.

• Jamie Lee Curtis Is A Flower Child For AIDS Charity Halloween Event

  New York Times - Found Oct. 26, 2009 1) claire unabia (1) claudia schiffer (3) clay aiken (5) clint black (1) clint eastwood (9) clive davis (1) clive owen (1) cloris leachman (2...

• Clive Davis to help Alexandra Burke break America

  Unreality TV - Found Oct. 22, 2009 Clive Davis has reportedly offered to assist Alexandra Burke in her efforts to crack America.

• Carly Simon has "good time" revisiting old songs (Reuters)

  Reuters via Yahoo! - Found Oct. 24, 2009 My previous album of original material, 'Bedroom Tapes,' got lost in the mix-up when Clive Davis left Arista. So I bought that album back. Carly Simon has "good time" revisiting old songs - Reuters Carly Simon has "good time" revisiting old songs - Reuters Canada Carly Simon has "good time" revisiting old songs - Reuters Carly Simon has "good time" revisiting old songs (Reuters) - Yahoo! News Explore All

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Clive Davis
Clive Davis, November 13, 2007, New York City
Born	April 4, 1932(1932-04-04) (age 77) Brooklyn, New York
Occupation	Record producer

Clive Davis (born April 4, 1932) is an American record producer, executive and a leading music industry executive. He has won multiple Grammy awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. From 1967-72 he was the President of Columbia Records, was the founder and president of Arista Records in the late 1970s through 2000 until founding J Records. From 2003 until April 2008, Davis was the Chairman and CEO of the RCA Music Group (which includes RCA Records, J Records and Arista Records), Chairman and CEO of J Records, and Chairman and CEO of BMG North America. Currently Davis is the Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment Worldwide.¹ He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer.² He currently plays a part in the careers of Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, Harry Connick, Jr., Leona Lewis and Whitney Houston.

Contents 1 Early life and career: The CBS years 2 The Arista years 3 Chief creative officer at Sony Music 4 References 5 Further reading

Early life and career: The CBS years

Davis was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish family, the son of Herman and Florence Davis. After spending his first four years in England, Davis was raised in the middle-class neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He received a full scholarship to New York University College of Arts and Science, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa in 1953. He then received a full scholarship to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1956. He 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 client. Hired by a former colleague at the firm, Harvey Schein, Davis became assistant counsel of CBS subsidiary Columbia Records at the age of twenty-eight.³

Davis became a protegé of CBS Records President Goddard Lieberson, and discovered a passion for music which led him up the ranks of Columbia/CBS. In 1967, he became president of Columbia Records and, more or less by accident, he became a convert to 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 USA on the Epic label.

In June 1967, at the urging of his friend and business associate Lou Adler, Davis attended the Monterey Pop Festival, a musical event that changed the course of his career, and was inspired by what he saw as the future of music.

He immediately signed Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company, and Columbia went on to sign Laura Nyro, Jimmie Spheeris, Electric Flag, Santana, The Chambers Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Andy Pratt, Chicago, Billy Joel, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Pink Floyd. The company, which had previously avoided rock music, doubled its market share in three years. One of the biggest recordings released during Davis' tenure at Columbia was Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden", in late 1970. It was Davis who insisted "Rose Garden" be the country singer's next single release. The song reached number one in 16 countries around the world and remained the biggest selling album by a female country artist from 1971-1997.

In 1972, Davis also signed Iggy Pop and Earth, Wind & Fire to Columbia Records. One of his most recognized accomplishments was signing the Boston group Aerosmith to Columbia Records in the early 70s at New York City's Max's Kansas City, which was immortalized in the 1979 Aerosmith classic "No Surprise", where Steven Tyler sings "Old Clive Davis said he's surely gonna make you a star, just the way you are".⁴ Starting in 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 silver now we play for Clive Davis".

The Arista years

After Davis was fired from CBS Records for using company funds to bankroll his son's bar mitzvah,⁵ Columbia Pictures hired him to be a consultant for the company record and music operations. After taking time out to write his memoirs, he was offered the presidency of the division in late 1974.⁶ Davis subsequently merged the various labels -- Colpix Records, Colgems Records and Bell Records -- into a new entity named Arista Records, ultimately buying a percentage of the company from Columbia Pictures. The label was named Arista after New York City's secondary school honor society (of which Davis was a member). Two of his greatest accomplishments during his time at Arista Records were the signing of music legends Lou Reed and Whitney Houston.

Davis was featured in the February 21, 2008 (1046) issue of Rolling Stone. The article titled "The Last Record Man" discusses how Davis has helped guide the careers of hit artists and how even four decades later he still looks for the next hit.

Chief creative officer at Sony Music

In a reshuffling of the executive ranks at Sony BMG, it was announced on April 18, 2008 that Davis was appointed chief creative officer at Sony BMG. Zomba Music Group head Barry Weiss replaced Davis as chairman and CEO of the BMG label group. ^{7not in citation given} Sony BMG became Sony Music Entertainment in 2008 and in his role as chief creative officer, Davis is reasserting himself in his role as starmaker at Sony Music.⁸

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Clive Davis
3. ^ Dannen, Frederic (1990). Hit Men. Times Books. pp. 66-67. ISBN 0-8129-1658-1
4. ^ "Aerosmith Biography: From Clive Davis to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith". Max's Kansas City. 2008-09-26. http://www.maxskansascity.com/aerosmith/. Retrieved 2008-09-26. 
5. ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/clive-davis
6. ^ Dannen, Frederic (1990). p. 107.
7. ^ http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/18/news/companies/sony_bmg_chief.ap/index.htm?eref=ew
8. ^ http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/business/sony_music_turns_to_davis_for_hit_133017.htm

Further reading

• Davis, Clive (1975). Clive: Inside the Record Business. William Morrow & Company, Inc.