Clive Davis at 90: His Executives Recall the Man, the Mentor, the Music and the Long, Cold Meetings
variety.comClive Davis’ name is a synonym for the ultimate record man.In terms of success, influence, longevity, and the artists and executives he has mentored, he has no peer and probably never will.
To give just one example, in 1972 he told a young Bruce Springsteen that the debut album he’d just submitted didn’t have any songs that would get played on the radio.
Dejected but determined, that night Springsteen wrote “Spirit in the Night” and “Blinded by the Light” — and thanks Davis to this day for the tough love that spawned those two now-classics.But that story and many others have been told countless times over the course of Davis’ 60-plus-year career, in two autobiographies, a documentary film and thousands of interviews.
So for his 90th birthday, we took a different approach and spoke with 15 or so executives who were employed by Davis over the years — ranging from Ron Alexenburg, who worked with him in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, to Sarah Weinstein Dennison, who joined his team in 2004 and is on the clock for his superstar-studded 90th birthday celebration tonight in New York City. (Apologies and no offense intended to those we didn’t speak with: We could have done an equally comprehensive article with at least five different sets of alums.) In the amazing, inspiring and often hilarious stories below, what emerges is not a different Clive Davis, but a different side of him: his generosity in sharing his wisdom and knowledge, his leadership by example, his tireless effort to keep up with the times in both art and commerce, and perhaps most of all, his respect and desire for the opinions of others, especially young people — and not having any hesitation to incorporate their ideas into a larger plan.
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