By Jason Kravarik, NCS
(NCS) — Clive Davis, the legendary music producer of industry icons from Janis Joplin and Whitney Houston to Billy Joel and Santana, has died.
Davis, famously dubbed “the man with the golden ears,” was 94. His household confirmed his demise in a social media post. His publicist additionally confirmed his demise to NCS.
Davis’s household remembered him as each “a towering figure whose influence changed music forever” in addition to “the man who led our family with grace, generosity, and kindness.”
The Brooklyn-born Davis by no means meant to guide a life in music, not to mention form popular culture’s musical tastes for many years. After his mother and father died in his late teenagers, he graduated from Harvard Law School and turned a lawyer earlier than going to work for Columbia Records in 1960. Five years later, Davis had ascended to be the record label’s prime lawyer and was quickly named Columbia’s president.
“I was thrust into it,” he instructed NCS in 2013. “Never knowing I had a natural ear and gift for music that,” he mentioned, “would become the passion of my life.”
Davis’ first main signing was Janis Joplin, whom he first noticed carry out on the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. In his 2013 memoir “The Soundtrack of my Life,” Davis described Joplin’s stage presence as “not conventionally beautiful,” however “her body seemed to vibrate with the modulations of her voice, which struck with equal impact whether she was wailing at the top of her lungs or delivering an intimate whisper.”
His intuition for expertise led Davis to find and signal eventual megastars like Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana, Chicago, Earth, Wind and Fire, Aerosmith and Barry Manilow. Billy Joel was floundering as a recording artist when Davis signed him in 1973. “Piano Man” was Joel’s first album at Columbia and paved his approach to superstardom.
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NCS’s Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.