Clive Davis Dies: Music Biz Icon Who Discovered Whitney Houston & Revived Careers Was 94

Clive Davis, the Grammy-winning music mogul who founded Arista Records, discovered and mentored Whitney Houston and specialized in resurrecting the careers of artists many considered past their peak, died Monday at his New York City home. He was 94.

A five-time Grammy winner Davis founded Arista Records in 1974 after a storied tenure in senior posts at Columbia/CBS Records and later Arista predecessor Bell Records. His label would specialize in revitalizing the careers of veteran artists whose commercial success seemed to have peaked. Among those were Aerosmith, Aretha Franklin,the Grateful Dead, Santana, the Kinks, Dionne Warwick and many more. The label also was home to such popular acts as Houston, Barry Manilow, Air Supply and Patti Smith.

Davis’ legacy also is tied to one of the most popular singers of the past half-century. Whitney Houston had been a backup singer for such acts as Lou Rawls, Chaka Khan and Jermaine Jackson before Davis saw her onstage in New York. He signed her to Arista in 1983 and would mentor the young phenom for the next quarter-century. Houston became Arista’s all-time best-selling acts, with sales of her albums and singles topping 109 million in the U.S. alone. She died in 2012, a day before a planned appearance at Davis’ annual star-studded pre-Grammy party.

Born on April 4, 1932, in Brooklyn, Davis worked as a lawyer landing an assistant counsel job at Columbia Records at age 28 in the early 1960s. By 1965, he was upped to administrative VP and GM following a reshuffle, overseeing the Columbia and Epic labels. The CBS-Columbia Group was launched a year later, and Davis headed up the new division.

During his tenure atop CBS Records, Davis would sign and record such legendary acts as Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Santana, Donovan, Chicago, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, and Earth, Wind & Fire. But the exec would be fired unceremoniously in 1973 amid a scandal over alleged padding of expense reports for personal use.

But the mogul hardly was done.

David took over the reins at CBS’ Bell Records, which scored a global smash by a young singer-songwriter who had made a name penning and singing such earworm commercial jingles as “You Deserve a Break Today” for McDonald’s and “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There” for the insurance giant. Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” topped charts on both sides of the pond and launched a stellar pop career.

Bell would morph into Arista Records, which was the label home to dozens of popular and acclaimed acts.

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