Music business legend, five-time Grammy-winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nonperformer member Clive Davis has been variously, since 1967, the head of Columbia Records, Arista Records, J Records, and the RCA Music Group. He now is the Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment.
Davis doubled Columbia Records market share in three years after signing Donovan, Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company, Laura Nyro, Electric Flag, Santana, The Chambers Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Billy Joel, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Loggins & Messina and Pink Floyd, Aerosmith and Earth, Wind and Fire.
From Rolling Stone:
Davis, who has been married and divorced twice, has never before publically addressed his sexuality. In a candid five-page section toward the end of the book, due in stores today, he writes that he first had a sexual encounter with a man during “the era of Studio 54.” “On this night, after imbibing enough alcohol, I was open to responding to his sexual overtures,” writes Davis, who says he had only been with women before. Being with a man, he writes, provided “welcome relief.”After the Columbia years, Davis started Arista Nashville which became the home to Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Pam Tillis and Brad Paisley. At Arista, he brought on board Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, The Outlaws, Eric Carmen, Exposé, Ace of Base, Air Supply, Ray Parker and Raydio, and Alicia Keys, as well as Carly Simon, The Grateful Dead, The Kinks and Lou Reed. Davis founded LaFace Records with L.A. Reid and Babyface. LaFace subsequently became the home of TLC, Usher, Outkast, P!nk and Toni Braxton. He founded Bad Boy Records with Sean Combs and it became the home of the Notorious B.I.G., Puffy Combs, Mase, 112 and Faith Evans. Oh — also Whitney Houston, the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits.
After a period of “soul searching and self-analysis,” Davis separated from his second wife in 1985, and says that he went on to have simultaneous relationships with two women and a man. In 1990, he entered into a “monogamous relationship” with a male doctor, who is not named in the book. Although that relationship ended in 2004, Davis says he has been in a subsequent relationship with another man ever since. Davis writes that his coming out deeply affected his ties with one of his sons, Mitchell: After what Davis calls “one very trying year,” father and son worked out their differences, Davis says.
In late 1970, it was Davis who insisted "Rose Garden" be country singer Lynn Anderson'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 for 27 years. Here's the seldom-heard "quad mix" of that monster:
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