Remembering Clive Davis, the man with the golden ears

Clive Davis titled his autobiography The Soundtrack of My Life. It is over 500 pages long and has an index of names and events that runs nearly 50 pages. But who cares? It is such an engrossing read. He had quite a life, and the book is a must for everybody who has decided to make a career in the music industry.

Thanks to Davis’ innate feel for the music business, lessons abound in the book for the A&R guy, he picked out I Never Promised You a Rose Garden for Lynn Anderson; the record producer, he won a Grammy for Santana’s Supernatural; the talent scout, he saw Janis Joplin at Monterey and signed her up; the marketing man, he leaned Broadway diva Barbra Streisand for Stoney End or even the lawyer. He was all those things. From being a Harvard Law School graduate, he joined the legal department of Columbia Records in 1967 and rose through the ranks to become president until 1973.

Davis next founded the Arista label, then Jay Records, and then became a top executive at the RCA label. He was a lot of things over the years, but my favorite is hitmaker because from him flowed the most memorable songs. That was what he made happen. He created hits and was the shepherd to the artists who made them. That was why he was labeled The Man with the Golden Ears.

Every tune he listened to turned to gold. It was like he like a song and instinctively knew that other people, millions of them, in fact, would also love that bit of music. That is why I think his book title is very wrong. It should not be The Soundtrack of My Life, it should be The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Almost every song in his enormous legacy connects to our emotions and later on to our memories.

Without Clive, we would not have had Bob Dylan, Blowing in the Wind; Barbra, People; Andy Williams, Love Story; Aretha Franklin, You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman; Janis, Another Piece of My Heart; Whitney Houston, I’ll Always Love You; Barry Manilow, Somewhere Down the Road; Santana, Smooth; Boz Scaggs, We’re All Alone; Dionne Warwick, I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again; Leona Lewis, Bleeding Love; Toni Braxton, Unbreak My Heart; Lynn, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; Eric Carmen, All By Myself; Blood Sweat and Tears, Spinning Wheel;

Alicia Keys, Empire State of Mind; Chicago, Hard to Say I’m Sorry; Laura Nyro, Up on the Roof; Loggins & Messina, Danny’s Song; Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Waters; Billy Joel, Just the Way You Are; Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run; Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone; Kenny G, Songbird; Aerosmith, Dream On; Earth, Wind & Fire, September; Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline;

Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall; The Kinks, You Really Got Me; Sarah McLachlan, Angel; Sly & the Family Stone, Dance to the Music; Grateful Dead, Eyes of the World; Bay City Rollers, Bye Bye Baby; Babyface, Every Time I Close My Eyes; Luther Vandross, Never Too Much; TLC, Waterfall; Air Supply, Making Love Out of Nothing at All; Ace of Base, I Saw the Sign; LFO, Summer Girls; Monica, Angel of Mine; Taylor Dayne, Love Will Lead You Back; Rod Stewart’s Great American Songbook.... and the list goes on.

Davis was born Clive Jay Davis on April 4, 1932 in Brooklyn New York. He passed away last June 22 in his New York home from age-related illness. He was 94 years old. He once said, “I can’t imagine a world without music.”