by Ted Fox
To broaden our base beyond album-oriented rock, Arista uniquely married songs with popular entertainers, and came up with the hits that propelled their careers.
Everybody in the music business has an opinion of Clive Davis, the former head of CBS Records and current president of Arista: He's marvelous.
He's awful. He's a genius at finding and developing talent. He's a genius at self-promotion. He's a visionary. He's an egomaniac.
Opinions can be readily argued; facts cannot. Part of the reason for Davis' sometimes inauspicious reception in the music community stems from his role in the shift of power in record companies from "music people" to lawyers and professional managers. Clive Davis was president of CBS Records for almost eight years, yet the Harvard Law School graduate admits to having no musical background whatsoever. Nevertheless, under his guidance it became the most important record company in the business. In his fascinating book, Clive--Inside the Record Business, he tells of his eye-opening experience at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. After that epiphany, Davis turned CBS from a musically conservative company into the corporate leader in rock 'n' roll by the end of the '60s, by signing top acts like Janis Joplin; Blood, Sweat & Tears; the Winter brothers; Santana; Chicago; Laura Nyro, and Sly and The Family Stone. He successfully negotiated to keep Dylan on Columbia, and not long before he was to leave, he signed Bruce Springsteen at John Hammond's urging. As his confidence grew at CBS, he began to take a more active role in the careers of many of his artists-tailoring their images, picking hit singles, occasionally even going into the studio with them. His success was dramatic, almost unprecedented.
His ouster from CBS in 1973 was even more dramatic. He was accused of misusing company funds. No criminal charges were ever filed and nothing proven, but he lay low for a year and a half and worked on his book. He fielded and turned down lucrative offers including ones from Island Records' Chris Blackwell and from Robert Stigwood.
Instead, in 1975 he began a totally new enterprise, Arista Records, in partnership with Columbia Pictures, which had had little success with its Bell Records. One of the only three artists he kept from the Bell roster was Barry Manilow. Under Davis at Arista, Mani low became a superstar; Arista also hit with other easy-listening acts such as Melissa Manchester and Air Supply.
But Davis also won praise for supporting a line of avant-garde jazz discs, and for signing innovative rock artists such as Patti Smith and Graham Parker.
From scratch, Arista became a major force in the record industry.
Far from making him more circumspect, Davis' troubles seem to have made him even more outspoken, and he has assumed the role of corporate spokesman on issues varying from record pricing and marketing to the death of rock 'n' roll. No matter what Clive Davis says or does, he'll never be unimportant--or uninteresting. T.F.
You have been personally involved in signing and bringing out records by such a wide range of people, from Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow to Johnny Winter and Patti Smith. I couldn't possibly relate to such a broad range of music. How do you do it?
Of course, a lot is dictated by necessity. Commercial considerations. My roots are really in AOR [Album Oriented Rock] in the sense that I began with early signings of Janis Joplin, Santana, the Winter brothers, even Blood, Sweat & Tears-who became a little middle-of-the-road later in their career, but when they began were very avant-garde in the fusion of jazz and rock.
And Chicago of course, Ten Years After, Pink Floyd, and Billy Joel. But I found after I started Arista that over this past 10-year span, up until relatively recently, there were very few American artists, American rock groups, other than one or two heavy-metal ones, that were breaking, and broke big. So out of economic necessity I had to turn to see if I had any other kind of talent to explore. In Arista's era I worked much more in the song area to supplement AOR because I could not live off only American groups. No company could.
What do you mean by song area?
Finding songs for entertainers such as a Manilow, such as an Air Supply, such as a Melissa Manchester. We're talking now from '75 to, say, '83. Except for The Cars, whom we almost signed. It's a dramatic story .... We had a memorandum of agreement all initialed, and thought we had them locked up. At the last minute, Elektra offered more money and got them. But I was there, and had them and loved them, and they had, in effect, agreed to come to Arista, interestingly enough. Of course, we had Patti Smith and The Outlaws at that time. But a lot of the industry's success was with foreign groups. And we as a young company did not have subsidiaries in Australia, let's say, to give us Men at Work, or in Canada to provide Loverboy or Rush, or foreign groups such as AC/DC, those foreign bands that were breaking here. There were very few major, original American groups. And here my career had begun with the original groups that I mentioned. So you had to survive by taking established artists, as I did; by attracting to a new operation groups like The Grateful Dead and The Kinks or The Alan Parsons Project, along with the discovery of The Outlaws and Patti Smith. We had to exist by doing something other companies were not doing.
I was never really disco oriented, so I didn't do what Neil Bogart did with Casablanca. I did it in the pop area. We uniquely married songs with popular entertainers and had terrific success with Manilow and Air Supply and Melissa, to supplement building an AOR base of artists that had varying degrees of success. I was even in the avant-garde with Stiff Records and Ze Records, and Lou Reed, and Graham Parker to supplement Patti Smith. But AOR radio was so conservative they were really only into the oldies with Led Zeppelin and The Stones.
I had to turn to that, apart from black artists and jazz artists. We had to be catholic in what we did because if I continued primarily with a base of AOR artists, we would not have survived the holocaust that occurred after.
The Bee Gees. We had to broaden our base from the beginning, and we were uniquely successful. We were one of the very few companies that were very song-oriented, and for entertainers like Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin and
Barry Manilow and Air Supply--whether they wrote or not--we came up with the hits that propelled their careers.
Are you saying that the. move into the pop-song area was something you would not have done if you did not have to do it?
I like pop music, personally. Right now the market dictates a lot of what you do, and right now the market is not receptive to pop acts. So therefore, apart from the pros like a Neil Diamond and a Barbra Streisand and a Barry Manilow, you're not finding singer songwriters. So I might like, and I do like, James Taylor or Jackson Browne, but you don't find companies signing artists like those today because the market is not going to play it on the radio. I tested the market substantially in the mid-'70s with avant-garde artists that I felt comfortable with, because I love originality. I worked with Dylan; I didn't sign him, but I was there. I was at the signing of Bruce Springsteen.
And I signed Joplin. I was there for the original talents. That's what gives me the greatest pleasure. I love a great song. I do not demean being able to write pop hits, but I do like to be with the hallmark of originality. Unfortunately, America has really not come up with a great original talent since Springsteen-except for Prince. It's formulated. There's a lot of corporate rock.
A lot of the New Wave acts are British. It's interesting hearing you talk of the importance of the song, because that seems to me to be at the heart of the New Wave movement. That return to the song instead of just long, indulgent guitar solos. Yet it doesn't seem that Arista has been that involved in the so-called New Wave.
----JOHNNY WINTER----
No, that's really not true. It's hard to really say what you classify as New Wave. With foreign acts you're only as good as the subsidiaries you get the talent from. We did get The Thompson Twins from our English company, and we did get Haircut 100, who had a nice sound with that first album-then they broke up-so we had a little of that. But because we did not get from our English company the likes of Culture Club or Duran Duran, we did go out to make deals with separate private entrepreneurs, and so we were able to get A Flock of Seagulls and we were able to get Heaven 17. If you talk about the original New Wave, we had the queen and the king in Patti Smith and Lou Reed, and certainly at a quality level we had Graham Parker. So I think we've been there and in AOR qualitatively, even if it wasn't in mass numbers.
Mass numbers we have with The Thompson Twins, who are a platinum act. A Flock of Seagulls, over two albums, sold about 1.2 million in the aggregate. And I'm looking for rock 'n' roll acts because I think America is ready for its own now.
What I'm saying to you, in answer to your question about the universality of the acts I've been involved with in one capacity or another, is that a lot is dictated by commercial considerations. And because American AOR dried up for the most part, and was not prolific as it was in '67 to '72 or '73, to become a sizable label we had to go into pop and black music, which relies more heavily on the song, and not AOR play which has a harder rock edge. We built up .... we certainly had the biggest growth of any company in the business, and I would say in the pop or black areas we were either number one, two or three every year. That's what accounted for our ability to survive and to diversify and grow.
You must have been right at the forefront of breaking black acts on pop radio and butting heads with MTV to get black acts on there. Was that a frustration?
Candidly, no. I never came to that with MTV. I don't think MTV avoided black acts, any more than an AOR station. How many black acts does WNEW [in New York City] play?
Good question.
-----DAVIS AND JAMS JOPLIN-----
They don't play them, not because they're against blacks, but because it doesn't fit their format. Their format is hard rock, or rock 'n' roll, and there aren't that many black rock 'n' roll acts.
You can't ask them to play Dionne Warwick or Ray Parker. Yes, one or two Ray Parker records, maybe. But you've got to understand the other person's problem. It's certainly not racial prejudice. It's based on segmented formats.
Once you understand the problems of MTV or radio you recognize that it would be silly. It doesn't fit their format. I never bumped heads at all with them.
I did bump heads with AOR radio because of their conservatism, and their not playing Lou Reed's Street Hassle or not playing some groups in Middle America or the South. It's shocking, not playing some of the avant-garde stuff. I think that's terrible. Until KROQ [in Pasadena] and WBCN [in Boston] showed that new music can play, you were there in a bastion of oldies but goodies. It was terrible, except for harder rock stuff. Even now-where's the new Dylan? Where's the new Springsteen? Where's the new Dan Fogelberg or Jackson Browne? It's horrendous to me that there's no new artists coming along with music that is lyric-oriented!
Are you blaming this on the stodginess of AOR radio?
Yeah! Absolutely.
They don't encourage these sounds? Absolutely not. It has to be shoved down their throats pretty much. Yeah.
It seems that it still hasn't caught on. If you want to hear New Wave in New York, you've got to tune in to WLIR on Long Island.
Well, for your definition of New Wave. Big New Wave, in the broader sense, has become mainstream music today.
True.
I mean, Duran Duran and Culture Club and The Thompson Twins are Top 40, primarily. They still don't give the exposure to Elvis Costello or X. No, they don't. Graham Parker is great! He doesn't get the kind of play in the South or Midwest that he should get. Nowhere near.
Will they ever break nationwide, except for the New Wave acts that have crossed over to pop success?
Today, first of all, AOR doesn't have the strength it did five years ago. Contemporary Hit Radio, the equivalent of Top 40, now dominates. It's a shame that the new artists who are literate and lyrical and articulate and intelligent, lyric-oriented as distinguished from harder rock-oriented, don't have the avenues for exposure of their music; ergo, record companies shy away from it. How long can you keep banging your head up against the wall if you're not going to get exposure?
In that line, let's talk about Patti Smith. You seem to have a very special relationship with her.
I do because she was one of very few originals. You know, when you start a new record company and you're able to come up with an original who breaks all over the world as she did .. .. She did it in her own style and her own way, with her own charisma, with very few compromises and condescension, with true poetry and excitement. She was very warm and personal and would always drop in, so we established a personal friendship and relationship. Then when she got hurt and her neck was in a brace for a year she lived right here at One Fifth Avenue, and I would go down there to visit her.
Because she's bright. She's a Renaissance woman. She's an artist in her own right, not only as a poet, but she's an artist from an artistic point of view.
She was literate; you know, she lived for years with Sam Shepard. She was a delightful, stimulating person to both talk to and be around.
What's happened to her now? I understand she got married.
Enigmatically--not enigmatically because she got married; she's certainly entitled-the enigmatic part is that in her marriage and in her pursuit of domestic and personal happiness, she really dropped out of the jungle of musical warfare, so to speak. She's had a child. She did reappear. .. I had no contact with Patti, not even a phone call for over three years. No one did, except her mother. It wasn't that I was phoning her; I didn't ask for product.
-----DAVIS AND SLY STONE-----
We were so close, I figured, if she's happy, who am I to even remotely bring up the subject of music? Then, several months ago we had a tenth anniversary party for Arista. We took over the Museum of the City of New York. I didn't even invite her; I didn't have her address or her phone number. The photographers were there. It was a major event, if you will. All of a sudden there's this incredible stir, and who walks in unannounced, no advance notice, but Patti with her husband Fred. She had heard about it through her manager. She came in and threw her arms around me and said, "I just had to do this for you." I didn't ask her anything about recording. She showed me pictures of her child. She seemed happy. She was overwhelmed by the attention because there were a lot of TV cameras and press there, clicking away. She was a little shaky because of that. Because it was really a return from absolute isolation, it appeared to me. But she was extremely warm. She said she'll come back.
Where's she living?
Detroit.
You used the term musical warfare. Re-reading your book, it does seem like warfare. Is it, really?
Well, it can be. I mean, on a day-to-day basis it's not.
It sounded like it in the book.
Well, I'll tell you. That book coincided with an explosion of original talent in every area. I wish there was such an explosion today. You get the warfare when a hot new artist comes along, and we all go after that artist at once.
But since there are so few of those today in America, the opportunity for that kind of competition at the artist signing level is not nearly what it was from 1967 through 1973. The biggest new, original talent, in my opinion, is Prince. To my knowledge he was first offered to Columbia, and I don't know what happened there, but they did not get him for whatever the reason, and then he went to Warner Bros. So it wasn't that anybody knew of Prince.
He was part of a local group that was creating noise. It wasn't that everybody was going after this hot new group; I mean, it doesn't happen. Now it happens in the banking deals to some extent.
How do you mean?
Well, if you hear that a Bowie is free, or a McCartney or an Elton John or The Rolling Stones, then there's competition, obviously. I'm sure that Atlantic wanted to retain The Rolling Stones.
You call them banking deals because of the vast amounts of money involved?
Yes. Very few of those deals have ever made money for the label. They usually are deals where the artist uses the competitive interest of the companies, and walks away with an enormous sum of money .... I would think that the history of the last seven years should be a clear message to all record companies to stay away from these banking deals, because they just don't make money.
Why do record companies pursue them? Is it a prestige thing?
Part of it is that. Part of it is miscalculation-not recognizing when an artist has peaked, and thinking it is going to go on. Of course, certain artists do go on for a long time. But I would say the history of most of these deals is that the company has lost considerable sums of .money.
One thing I have never understood is how different record companies can come up with such widely divergent offers for the same artist. I just read somewhere that one record company tripled the offer made by another company for a certain artist.
There is a different mentality at almost every record company. I'm amazed a: some of the deals that I hear of. I can't even believe that a rational businessman would offer those amounts of money.
Let's talk about The Cars.
Well, that was a brand-new group, that wasn't a banking deal. I was signing them for the standard terms of a new artist, which at the time probably was $25,000 and a recording budget of $100,000 to $125,000.
This was around when, '76?
Probably, yeah. It's not that different today. I'm just now signing an artist that I've gotten excited about. The first American rock artist in a long time. I'm closing the deal at $25,000 to sign, and a $130,000 recording budget.
Who's the artist? He's not signed so I'll only tell you that I think he's original and exciting, and I was really turned on, which was the first time in a long while. Not that I haven't been turned on to an artist, because there is a black artist I'm launching, Whitney Houston, that I'm very excited about. But we're talking here now about rock, as opposed to black and pop. I am very excited about the black roster that we've built here.
It's spectacular, I think. I mean, working with Aretha, and having the success we've had in re-launching Dionne Warwick ....
I want to get into that in a minute, but before we do, tell me--when you're going to make an offer for an artist, what do you look for?
A new artist?
Either new or old.
It's vastly different. In the established category, sometimes the talent is just there. The question is how much money they're asking, and whether you think they're going to go out of style.
You have to make a judgment, creatively, as to where that artist is at.
Because sometimes artists and their managers ask astronomical monies.
You've got to believe they can retain their superstardom. Or are they going to diminish in popularity? With a new artist it depends on the category of music. If it's rock, I look for originality. Also, today you've got to look for hit songs. Very few artists break from AOR today. Years ago, and for many, many, many years, you could break from AOR play; the category was sufficient to sell millions of albums for Pink Floyd without a Top 40 single, or Bruce Springsteen, or other artists.
Today, you gotta have a single, so you're also looking at their song sense, and looking at their musical-composition sense-apart from charisma. So, in the rock area, it's either commercial appraisal of material or looking from an originality point of view. In the pop area you're listening for hit songs. In the black area you're listening for where the material is coming from, whether there will be hit songs; plus the artists' ability to entertain, and the kind of vocal ability they have.
How about stage presence?
Stage presence is more in the rock area, and the black area, too. It really varies so much. I didn't look for stage presence when I signed Springsteen. It was just pure originality of lyric content. He was very uncharismatic as a rock personality when he was signed in '72. He really was not a major performer onstage. He didn't move around. He was totally different than he is today. He developed into the best rock 'n' roll performer alive over the years, on his own. But nobody knew he would, neither John Hammond, who brought him into my office, nor I, who then appraised him. I said no to 10 or 12 or 15 or 30 John Hammond acts--and then said yes to Springsteen.
That's why I feel, candidly, very close to the signing process involving Springsteen. Because I said no to a few acts, the previous week, that John might have been interested in, and this one was different. His lyrics were piercing. I can remember going on closed-circuit TV just reading his lyrics, saying you're not going to break him because of his musicality, but his lyrics are spectacular, and listen to this imagery, and I recited his poetry to the Columbia sales force. Yes, and I had the videotape sent out to be shown to every retailer. Because that was the approach we were taking. And he didn't 'break right away. He came, really, out of the folk/rock poet tradition, but he has developed into the most incredible live performer. Joplin, on the other hand, was a vibrating, charismatic, exciting, exhilarating live performer from the day I first saw her. I knew I had to have her.
Talking about getting on closed-circuit TV to your Columbia sales force, is that a big part of your job? Keeping your promotional people and salespeople and marketing people motivated and excited about acts?
I leave that to others within the company, but it's part of it, yes. But I find that today the sales and promotion forces are so sophisticated, much more sophisticated musically. Originally, it was a great part of what I had to do, because when I inherited Columbia they were all so middle-of-the-road oriented, into the music of Mitch Miller and Andy Williams, who was a great seller, and Tony Bennett and what have you, that a lot of orientation was required.
Today, not that much orientation is required, and they pretty much pick up on their own, whether someone is a really great talent or not. Most of my time, 80% of my time, is spent in the creative arena, at the artistic level of finding new talent, finding material for established talents who don't write for themselves, and watching an album evolve. All these cassettes on my desk are either songs for artists or albums in preparation. I'm monitoring, listening to them, helping pick the singles, editing the record, and in a few specialized cases, going into the studio to produce it, if it's a song I found for a pop act or a black act. That's 80% of my time.
Do you think you are different in that way from most other major record company presidents?
I think that it's probably different-from most. It's not singular, but I think that a lot of executives who have been very successful in their own right operate in their own style, which is not quite as creatively oriented.
This is the first section of a two-part interview.
---------PATTI SMITH AND DAVIS
---------PAUL SIMON, ART GARFUNKEL, AND DAVIS
(Source: Audio magazine, July 1985)
Also see:
The Audio Interview--Clive Davis: Finding Songs for Singers -- part 2 (Aug. 1985)
Inscriptions--Miles Davis on CD (Apr. 1988)
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