Diane Warren paid tribute to music executive Clive Davis following news of his death on Monday at his home in New York City at the age of 94. The prolific songwriter, who has nine Number One songs and 33 Top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, mourned his passing and credited Davis for her success in the music industry, thanking the music mogul for always championing her work.
“Dear Clive, losing You today feels like losing my father,” Warren began in her heartfelt remembrance shared to social media. “Because you were always family to me. It was my Dad who believed in me in the very beginning, it was you who never stopped believing in me. By having so many of your artists record my songs, even the ones who didn’t want to. And there were a few of those.”
She continued, “I loved to play You songs and watch the look on your face when a song moved You. You really loved songs. And truly appreciated songwriters. You didnt look at fucking numbers and data, the only data that mattered to You was how it made you feel.” Warren counted herself among the “countless artists and songwriters” that owe everything to Davis and said, “I will always cherish our friendship. No one will ever come close to what You have achieved. No one. Ever.”
“Rest easy my dear friend, im sure there will be great voices to discover waiting for You in Heaven,” Warren said before ending her message with a nod to her 1996 hit “Because You Loved Me” performed by Celine Dion: “I love You and I’m everything I am because you loved me. Thank You for that.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, Warren spoke further about what separated Davis from many music executives today. “The crazy thing is he started as a lawyer. He wasn’t a trained music guy, and yet he possessed an ear — an innate talent — no one will ever have what he had. I got to witness it myself. I go play him a song, and just seeing him be so moved by hearing a song and having tears in his eyes, there’s nobody like that anymore,” she said. “A lot of today’s executives, they don’t listen, they look. They look at numbers. They look at Spotify streams, TikTok numbers, they look at all the shit that really doesn’t matter. All that matters is what makes you feel, what hits you in the heart.”
Davis, who served in the top spots of institutional record labels like Sony, Columbia, and Arista, guided artists to massive success throughout his extraordinary decades-long career. He played a pivotal role in the careers of a diverse group of now-iconic artists including Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Barry Manilow, the Grateful Dead, The Notorious B.I.G., Alicia Keys, and Kelly Clarkson.
