Published: 09:57 AM, 24 June 2026
Clive Davis, towering music executive who reshaped American sound, dies at 94
Clive Davis, a former corporate lawyer who became one of the most influential figures in American rock and pop music as he fostered the careers of Bob Dylan, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen and other stars, died on Monday at the age of 94, the New York Times reported, citing his family.
Davis, who was known as "the man with the golden ear" for his ability to identify potential hit songs, died at his home in Manhattan, the daily reported, having recently been hospitalised with respiratory problems.
As an incomparable hitmaker, Davis was highly adaptable and could span genres and generations, even as he hit his 80s. For every Janis Joplin he discovered in 1960s rock, there was a Sean "P Diddy" Combs he mentored in hip-hop in the 1990s and a Kelly Clarkson he guided in pop in the 2000s.
Davis won four Grammys for producing works by Clarkson, Carlos Santana and Jennifer Hudson, and a fifth for his contributions to music. He could even revive careers, as he did for Santana with an album that won nine Grammys in 2000, in addition to fostering comebacks by Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick.
Davis was born in the New York borough of Brooklyn on Apr 4, 1932. As a boy, he said he listened to the radio but had no overwhelming affinity for music and did not even collect records like his friends.
After graduating from New York University and Harvard Law School, Davis worked at private law firms before joining the legal department at Columbia Records, a branch of CBS, in the early 1960s. He made his first mark there by putting together a case that kept Dylan at the label when his handlers had tried to void his contract with the label.
In 1966 Davis was named head of the record label, which until then had been largely ignoring the burgeoning rock-oriented market with only a few acts such as Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and the Byrds aimed at the youth audience.
In his new position Davis helped change the sound of American music. Record producer Lou Adler took Davis to the Monterey Pop Festival in California in 1967, which Davis would come to consider "the creative turning point in my life." Mesmerised by Joplin's performance at the festival, he signed her and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company.
