21 Music Legends Developed, Signed or Boosted by Clive Davis’ Golden Touch

After seeing Janis Joplin perform as the lead singer of a then-little-known psychedelic rock band Big Brother & the Holding Company at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, Davis, newly appointed as Columbia Records’s president, inked Joplin and her band as his first signing. “I had never signed anybody before,” Davis told Billboard in 2019. “But watching Janis at Monterey, I had this spine-tingling feeling that I was witnessing a musical, cultural and social revolution. I had nothing to do with causing the revolution whatsoever, but I was fortunate that I was there to act on it.”

The band’s first album under their Columbia then went on to top the Billboard 200: “It certainly relieves anxiety when the first record you release goes to No. 1 — you get respect, you create momentum for the artists and the label, and you influence other artists to say, ‘I want to be with this company.’ I have a very healthy respect for failure. I never assume that the next artist will be a hit. You’ve got to prove yourself each time.” — Kristin Robinson

The then-called Chicago Transit Authority released its Columbia debut in 1969 and introduced the world to its signature horn-driven sound that quickly caught fire with rock and pop audiences. While other executives were scared off by Chicago’s multigenre sound, Davis embraced it and the group’s songwriting chops, saying in a Chicago documentary, they combined “jazz, pop and rock and clearly in a very, very special way.” Along with the Beach Boys, Chicago went on to become the most successful U.S. band on the charts in the U.S., according to Billboard, behind only The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Bee Gees. — Melinda Newman

Guitarist Carlos Santana and his band first signed with Clive Davis in the late 1960s when Davis was at Columbia Records, but their paths crossed again much later on, in 1998, when Davis signed Santana once again, leading to perhaps the most defining hit of Santana’s career: “Smooth,” featuring Rob Thomas, which topped the Hot 100 for 12 weeks. In an interview with Billboard about the song in 2019, Santana noted that “Smooth” was actually the last song he finished for his record Supernatural, and undoubtedly one of the reasons the LP hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, saying “I’m very grateful to Clive Davis, Itaal Shur and of course Rob Thomas,” Santana said. “All three were supremely successful in bringing this masterpiece that makes women very happy. It makes women go bananas.” — K.R.

Davis and young Bruce Springsteen began working together during Davis’ tenure at Columbia Records after Springsteen auditioned for A&R guru John Hammond. According to Springsteen’s memoir, when Springsteen turned in his first album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., he recalls Davis did not hear a hit. “Clive’s say was final,” wrote Springsteen about the experience later. This led Springsteen to go back and write two more songs for the album, “Spirit in the Night” and “Blinded by the Light.” It turned out Davis’ note was right — both of the songs became early successes for the nascent rock legend. — K.R.

Billy Joel signed to Davis’s Columbia Records in 1973. That same year, Joel recorded his now-iconic single and album Piano Man in Los Angeles, inspired by his six-month gig at The Executive Room on Wilshire Boulevard. Joel later said of his decision to sign with Davis: “I didn’t go to Columbia University, but I went to Columbia Records.” — K.R.

In 1998, Clive Davis told New York Magazine about his earliest days signing acts to Columbia Records. After being blown away by the talent of Janis Joplin at the Monterey Pop Festival, whom he would go on to sign, he also went to Greenwich Village in New York to scout an unknown group called Blood, Sweat & Tears. “I was very involved with the signing,” he said of the group who would top the Billboard 200 twice. “With their first releases, [these artists] became household names. It was a shock to me, but it gave me the confidence to start a company from scratch, which is what Arista Records is: a company that I founded in 1975, right here in New York.” — K.R.

Disappointed by the commercial impact (or lack thereof) of Sly and the Family Stone’s debut album A Whole New Thing in 1967, Clive Davis went to work on the mercurial Sly Stone and urged him to write and record more pop-friendly songs. Stone agreed (albeit reluctantly) and delivered Dance to the Music in 1968, which did what it was intended to do: the title track propelled the band into the Hot 100’s top 10, expanded their audience and solidified them as a force to be reckoned with on the radio and on the road. – Joe Lynch

Like with Chicago, Davis instantly recognized the appeal of Earth, Wind & Fire’s sophisticated musical blend of funk, R&B, jazz, pop and rock that set the Chicago-based band led by Maurice White apart from all others. After seeing them audition at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound Studios, Davis signed the collective, whose two previous albums on Warner Bros. had failed to ignite. Shortly thereafter, EW&F scored their first No. 1 on both the R&B/Hot 100 charts with “Shining Star,” becoming one of the preeminent acts of the ‘70s. Billboard editors named EW&F the best R&B group of all time in a recent editors’ list. Without Davis’ intervention, the world may have never heard “September.” Davis remained close with the band: members Verdine White and Ralph Johnson regularly attended his annual Grammy party up through 2026. — M.N.

How many acts felt so indebted to Davis that they commemorated him in song? Boston rock band Aerosmith sure did. In 1979’s “No Surprize,” the group immortalized Davis seeing them at legendary New York City club Max’s Kansas City in 1972, which led to his signing the quintet to CBS Records supposedly for $125,000: “We all shot the sh-t at the bar/With Johnny O’ Toole and his scar/And then old Clive Davis said/He’s surely gonna make us a star.” Their first Hot 100 top 40 hit, “Sweet Emotion,” came in 1975, followed by such now classics as “Dream On” and “Walk This Way.” — M.N.

“The song that launched Arista [Records] was ‘Mandy,’” Davis told New York Magazine in 1998. Manilow’s hit song is one of the instances when Davis’ golden ears helped him develop an artist into a bonafide superstar. At the time, Davis had recently been fired from his post at Columbia and decided to launch his own label, Artista Records, in 1975. “I had found the song and given it to Barry Manilow,” Davis recalled. “He does write – over the years, he has written ‘Copacabana’ and ‘This One’s for You.’ But the reason I signed him was that he is a showman. So I gave him ‘Mandy,’ and our first record went to No. 1.” — K.R.

One of the greatest and perhaps least predictable of Davis’ success stories was tenor saxophonist Kenny G — who not only became big for an ‘80s smooth jazz musician after signing with Arista in 1982, but actually outsold and out-charted most of the biggest pop stars of the era, even being certified diamond by the RIAA for 1992’s Breathless. “He took a big chance on me, because back in the ‘80s, there was no radio or any outlet for instrumental music really — and for some reason he just saw something in me that just struck a chord with him,” the artist recalled to CNN after Davis’ death. “I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for him taking chances on me and going out of his way for me. He really treated me like a family member that he really cared about.” – Andrew Unterberger

The artist who proved Davis’ near-immediate redemption upon his ousting from Arista at the turn of the century, Alicia Keys followed Davis to his new J Records and became a superstar upon the 2001 release of her debut album Songs in ‘A’ Minor. After a tumultuous start to her industry career as a teen singer-songwriter who label execs expected to be able to mold in a TRL-friendlier image, Keys credited Davis’ trust in her own vision for allowing her to grow into the unique superstar she became. “To Clive Davis, the visionary who transformed dreams into reality,” she posted to her IG stories on Monday, “leaving an indelible mark on music and lives worldwide.” – A.U.

The legendary Whitney Houston was as inextricably associated with Davis as any other performer of his lifetime. The exec signed the prodigious vocal talent after seeing her perform in 1983, then allowed her to develop over the next couple of years before releasing her 1985 debut album on Arista. That self-titled album turned her into one of the most explosive phenomena in pop music history — and she somehow became even bigger in the early ‘90s, thanks to blockbuster cross-platform success with The Bodyguard. Houston topped the Hot 100 11 times and won six Grammys. Sadly, the tragic end to Houston’s life was also intertwined with Davis’ story, as her hotel bathtub drowning at age 48 came the night of his annual pre-Grammys party, which she’d been expected to attend. – A.U.

One of Davis’ earliest signings upon becoming president of the Columbia-CBS Group was British folkie Donovan, whose music was released in the U.S. through the Epic subsidiary. On Epic, Donovan became a stateside pop hitmaker whose stardom matched and at times eclipsed his domestic popularity, with psychedelic rock-flavored smashes like “Mellow Yellow” and the Hot 100-topping “Sunshine Superman” turning him into both a household name and a peer of then-leading groups like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. – A.U.

Though Don Kirshner hired a teenage Tony Orlando to write (and eventually record) songs, Davis was part of Orlando’s music industry evolution, too. As the president of Columbia, Davis appointed Orlando to head April-Blackwood Music, the publishing arm of Columbia’s parent company CBS. In 1970, Orlando sang on “Candida,” which was credited to Dawn and released on Bell Records (owned by Columbia at the time, the label that evolved into Arista). With Davis supporting the career pivot, the song propelled him to the spotlight as part of Tony Orlando and Dawn, who topped the Hot 100 with “Knock Three Times” in 1971. — J.L.

“I’m not getting any younger,” Patti Smith told Clive Davis when he was courting the then-29-year-old CBGB performer to sign with him at Arista. “I have to be in a rush — I don’t have‐the strength to take too long becoming a star.” Mission accomplished: Smith’s 1975 Arista debut with her eponymous group, Horses, made her an immediate New York legend, critics’ darling and godmother to the soon-burgeoning punk movement, while three years later, the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Because the Night” also made her a crossover hitmaker.  “This is thanking Clive Davis for transforming music,” Smith posted on IG following Davis’ passing, “and on a very personal note, for believing in me, shepherding my efforts and a half century of your love and support.” — A.U.

Bay City Rollers were well on their way to becoming a force in the U.K. prior to Davis and Arista’s interest, but Davis was key in making the Scottish band a major Stateside success and catapulting them to teen-idol status in the U.S. Repackaging songs from the band’s first few U.K. albums and releasing them in America as a self-titled compilation, Davis helped propel Bay City Rollers to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the shout-along smash “Saturday Night” in early 1976. — J.L.

Before Dark Side of the Moon came out on Capitol Records and catapulted Pink Floyd to global success, the band and their management, unhappy with Capitol, had been shopping around for another deal. Davis saw Floyd’s potential to explode and signed them to Columbia; though he would be ousted from Columbia before they released their first LP on the label (1975’s Wish You Were Here), he was part of bringing them to the label they would call home up through their swan song in 2014, earning four Billboard 200 No. 1 studio albums for the label well after his exit. — J.L.

Jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis had already enjoyed massive success when he began working with Clive Davis at Columbia Records in the late 1960s, but when Clive came in, the label boss helped Miles reach a different audience. In late 1969, Clive contacted Bill Graham, the popular rock concert promoter, saying that Miles was “breaking out of his jazz bag,” adding “the ‘underground’” rock scene “is ready for Miles.” From there, the trio worked together to put together Miles Davis at Fillmore, a live album recorded at the iconic theater in San Francisco. Carlos Santana later described the record as “the sound of the Black Panthers. It was the sound of Vietnam. It was the sound of the protesting and the beatings and the shootings.” — K.R.

Aretha Franklin first recorded for Columbia Records — but it was before Clive Davis came to run the label. “But that was not hit material. There was no personal connection between us then,” Davis told Billboard in 2016. Franklin’s career really hit its stride under her next contract with Atlantic. “Each incredible hit that she had with Jerry Wexler and Atlantic was very meaningful because I was aware … Columbia had her [first],” Davis said. Then, in the late 1970s, Davis bonded with Franklin again over dinner in Los Angeles. “The first time I met her [was when] she called after I had founded Arista,” Davis told Billboard in 2016. “She was working with producers who didn’t quite have the right handle on the material.” So Davis stepped in to help.

After signing to Arista in the 1980s, Franklin’s career made a comeback with “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves,” a collab with Eurythmics, and “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me),” a duet with George Michael. In 2018, after her passing, Davis explained to The Guardian why he signed Franklin in the ’80s, saying: “I liked the idea of working with someone as formidable as Aretha, and as a singer, I knew no one could beat her. I also knew absolutely that she should still be relevant.” — K.R.

After her manager David Geffen set up an audition for her with Davis, Laura Nyro signed to Columbia and released the influential Eli and the Thirteenth Confession album in 1968. A groundbreaking singer-songwriter who inspired others but didn’t catch on at radio, Nyro would see her songs find chart success when performed by other artists, such as The 5^th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Barbra Streisand. – J.L.