Clive Davis: The Last Record Man

Every Wednesday afternoon, for the past forty years, Clive Davis has met with his scouts, accountants, marketers, producers and promoters to examine the status of each new record on his label. When the news is good, the people around the table — in the boardroom of his company, J Records — cheer. "It can be hard for members of the rock press like yourself," he tells me before the meeting. "All these people cheering for pop music, which, maybe, you don't take so seriously. But, you know, not everything has to be Dark Side of the Moon."

Buried in this complaint is Clive's philosophy: Whereas for a critic, a song should be a hit because it's beautiful, for Clive, among the greatest hitmakers of his era, the song is beautiful because it's a hit. There are no crappy records in the Top Ten — every hit is to be studied and admired. It does not matter if it's by Carlos Santana or Rod Stewart or Barry Manilow — every hit is akin to every other hit. So when the A&R man says Hurricane Chris is Number Three and rising, you cheer, even if you are a seventy-five-year-old man who's been through this cycle — production, release, response — an infinite number of times.

Davis is the music industry's great survivor, the man who keeps coming back, who was old and is now young, who started with Janis Joplin, continued with Whitney Houston and now records Alicia Keys. He began in black and white, went psychedelic, went punk, and is ending like a long summer's day — in a riot of color. In the last few years, he's had a string of accomplishments that rival the late-career achievements of, say, Barry Bonds — scoring hits with Carrie Underwood, Baby Bash, Kelly Clarkson, Usher, Fantasia and Eddie Vedder. He's also been involved in the success of American Idol, serving as a guest judge, then recording the winners. "He's the ultimate long-term player," says Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen's manager. "He was a label head in the 1960s. He was on top then, and now, forty years later, is still on top — that's remarkable. I do not think you'll see that happen again." This spring, Clive will try to add to his stats with new releases by Jennifer Hudson, who, voted off an earlier round of American Idol, won an Academy Award for her performance in Dreamgirls, and British pop singer Leona Lewis, winner of another TV talent show, The X Factor. J Records — the label he founded in 2000 — has basically run the table at this year's Grammys, with a dozen nominations for artists including Eddie Vedder, Carrie Underwood and Fantasia. Clive is now at work on a new album by Whitney Houston — her first release in six years. Looking at Clive, you cannot help but wonder: Why does he continue? What keeps him going?