Billboard has been covering and interviewing the late Clive Davis since the 1960s, near the start of his storied career — resulting in no shortage of incredible insight from the highly-influential executive.
Whether he was sharing his thoughts on the current state of the industry or foreseeing its future, Davis was always willing to let us in on what he was thinking — or more often than not, plotting.
Below, revisit some of his best quotes dating back to 2000, at which point he was already 40 years into his career.
On His Start In the Music Business
From a May 2000 Q&A celebrating Arista’s 25th anniversary, while Davis was still president
“It was all fate. There was to be an opening that was to be filled from the Roseman Colin law firm. It was an unusual opportunity for someone three years into practice. I was given an opportunity to join the legal department of Columbia Records and then be chief attorney within a year. This happened out of the blue. It was nothing that was thought of, nothing planned. It was just an unusual opportunity that, when Harvey Schein, who had come from the Roseman firm as well and was to make his mark in the international sector for many years at Columbia Records, offered me that job. So I had no grand design. I just took it because it seemed like a strong career opportunity, and I had no idea where it was going to lead me.”
On His Approach To Starting New Ventures
From a September 2000 news article announcing a joint venture between Davis’ J Records and Wyclef Jeans’ Clef records
“I never deal with quotas… I’ll go where reaction and instinct take me.”
On Embracing New Technology
From a February 2005 interview ahead of the 47th Grammy Awards, where BMG artists Usher and Alicia Keys were nominated eight times each
“I concentrate, for one, on the music. It’s all in the creativity of trying to come up with new, talented artists, and breaking them is what has been so gratifying for us… As far as technology goes, as long as we are vigilant in the enforcement of our rights, the digital revolution is only going to take music to a great audience in the future, and I’m all in favor of that.”
On Investing in the Music Industry’s Future Leaders
From a May 2007 commentary in Billboard about his first class of graduates from the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music
“In short, my idea was to create a unique educational platform for future generations of creative entrepreneurs in popular music. In 2003, we officially opened the doors to the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music… This May, the program graduated its first group of students… I invite you to turn your attention to this first class of graduates and to future ones. As they enter the work force, I encourage you, our music industry, to embrace them and consider them part of our rich and exciting community.”
On If a Grammy Win Matters
From a February 2008 interview on how Grammy awards can fuel album sales
“It’s a prestigious award, but in terms of being really meaningful, a memorable performance from the point of view of sales or career impact, it’s got to be more than just winning an award. It’s got to be either multiple awards, where it’s tantamount to a sweep, or it’s winning an award or two, coupled with one of those performances that creates substantial word-of-mouth at the water cooler the next day.”
On The Importance of the Hot 100
From a September 2008 report on how the Hot 100 became a standard for song success 50 years in
“There’s no question there was always focused, laser-beam attention to where we stood on the Billboard Hot 100. You knew that it was a matter of objective criteria, and you knew that it deserved its reputation as the most respected chart. It had credibility, authority and objective criteria to meet.”
On What It Takes To Be a Visionary
From a February 2014 Power 100 interview when Billboard renamed its Music Visionary Award to the Clive Davis Visionary Award
“Using the word ‘visionary’ as it applies to executives, there’s a difference between very skilled, very able, very talented, very dedicated executives that you want on your team, and a small number of them who have those qualities and the quality of leadership as well. The executives with the quality of being able to anticipate where music was going, and be a part of formulating strategies and plans to cope with where the music business was going, those are the people who could be visionaries.”
On Aretha Franklin’s Impact
From a December 2014 conversation on Aretha Franklin when she was honored with Billboard’s Women in Music Icon award
“I can’t think of anyone who owns a song the way Aretha does. When she performed at Bill Clinton’s 1993 presidential inauguration, she chose ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from Les Miserables, and at the song’s high point, unexpectedly changed the lyric to ‘I had a dream’ to reference Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even when she sings another artist’s work — like Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ — she hits the highs and the lows in a way that makes the song her own. That’s why the great Otis Redding conceded that Aretha had made his ‘Respect’ her signature song. That’s why Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics is a concept album, not a covers album. And that’s why centuries from now, when people are studying the music of our time, they will still be talking about Aretha Franklin.”
On the One Artist He Hoped Would Attend His Pre-Grammy Gala
From a February 2015 oral history of Davis’ influential and legendary pre-Grammy gala, which at that time had been going for 40 years
“Michael Jackson seriously wanted to attend the party. For two, three years, we would discuss who he would sit with and he would send his security team to do walkthroughs. One year I had the O’Jays performing, and Michael said, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see them! They better do “Backstabbers”!’ But he was in heavy litigation during this time, and his lawyers didn’t really allow him out in public. At the last minute, he always couldn’t come.”
On Nashville
From a March 2017 interview about Davis’ interest in Nashville and country music from early in his career
“I’m not sure Nashville has to be understood by the rest of America. It has been a wonderful source of music for decades and decades and decades, with originality and creative input from writers that create a distinctive brand of Americana. It’s quite different — not quite as international as pop music, but I don’t think Nashville has to worry about the rest of the country.”
On the Need To Keep Proving Yourself
From an October 2017 interview about the documentary Soundtrack of Our Lives
“Right now, the big voice is missing from music. There are great voices out there; we’ve just got to get the right material for them. It’s a gradual process, but it’s exciting. They’re not going to play my records because I signed Janis Joplin — you have to prove yourself every time. But that sure beats the alternative of doing nothing.”
On Whitney Houston
From a November 2017 interview about the 25th anniversary of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” hitting No. 1 on the Hot 100
“Yes, there were several calls from radio to our promotion staff, advocating changing the beginning,” he says about the long introduction to the track. “But, frankly, this was a classic. … You’ve got to know the exception to the rule.”
On Making His Pre-Grammy Gala Guest List
From a January 2018 interview discussing who gets invited to his pre-Grammy gala
“Well, to get a plus one, you’ve gotta be Lucian Grainge. You’ve gotta be Rob Stringer. It’s very tough to get a plus one. Obviously it comes down to common sense.”
On The One Artist He Wished He Had Worked With More
From a February 2019 interview alongside Brandi Carlile, talking about artists he wished he worked with
“One regret was Prince. We got together for one album, but I was really only the distributor. He had finished and it was quite a unique experience. We went around the country trying to expose his music that wouldn’t get radio play and wanted to show how unique he was as an artist. I haven’t had too much time to feel deprived of working with many artists, but I’m certainly a great admirer of artists like Mary J Blige, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles and McCartney now. I signed Springsteen when he was young, and my strongest regret is probably that I didn’t spend his entire career with him. We’re still friends, and I saw him on Broadway. He’s such a rare, unique person and normally doesn’t do backstage, but if I’m there he’ll never forget me.”
On the Performance That Most Changed His Life
From an August 2021 interview about the Welcome Back NYC concert he helped form after the COVID pandemic
“I will have to say that personally, the most life-affecting performance came from the first artist I ever signed, and that was Janis Joplin. I did get an epiphany then. I had no idea that when I became head of Columbia Records that I would even personally sign an artist. We were in the midst of a cultural, social and music revolution. I’m sitting there being so viscerally, physically, emotionally affected by this performer who I had never heard of. I was just determined that I would sign her, and it turned out I had to buy out her contract. Certainly making that decision after seeing that electrifying performance was the most influential and personally important result of a concert appearance in my life.”
Davis recounted the full story of signing Joplin in September 2019, which can be found here.
On Staying Sharp, and Open, At 90
From a March 2022 interview about turning 90 and his journey with bisexuality
“I still listen to every song or album that makes the top 20. I love to observe, and to see music changing. But I’m very gratified that the overall perspective at the moment is that music is returning to a rightful place. There was such a serious risk when Napster came out that people would be expecting for music to be free and robbing the creatives, whether artists, writers or producers, of their livelihoods. To see revenues up again, to see music through Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube, reaching much higher levels every year — students at the school that I endowed in my name at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts would ask, “Is this a career worth having?” 10 years ago. But nobody asks that now. Music labels are healthy, and the industry keeps going up. It’s still a wonderful career for those who love it and love music.”
“The extent of bisexuality as we move into the future, I think, is going to be found to be so much greater than it is. It’s all totally perfect, and it’s whatever you want to do and whatever describes your sexuality. There’s still so much to do and so far to go, but to see the youth of today often choosing the person rather than the gender, and for more people to understand others with fluidity, openness and non-automatic rejection — the progress that has been made is substantial.”
On the State of Hip-Hop
From a February 2023 interview responding to what excites him in music right now
“What hip-hop has become. My concern was and has been that hip-hop has so dominated not only its own genre but Top 40, that I worry where the next Bob Dylan, where the next Bruce Springsteen is going to come from. I wonder where the next Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston is. It’s not easy, even for the biggest voices that are around, although I’m encouraged by what’s happening with SZA and Jazmine Sullivan and a few others. As I see hip-hop broadening its vision and combining with R&B or seeing artists of pop and folk and rock broaden their horizons, I’m seeing a broadening of musical influence. But we’ve got to make sure as exciting as Kendrick Lamar and Drake are and as wonderful as hip-hop stars are, that we don’t narrow the breadth of what contemporary music is all about.”
On His Post-Grammy Gala Ritual
From a February 2023 interview about what he does immediately after hosting his pre-Grammy gala
“We go to the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel and do the postmortem. You know, when you have a party, whether it be a wedding or another event, that you want the postmortem to review what happened and get the reactions. You want to stew about it, gossip about it, enjoy it…You know what’s surprising, and it happens every year, and maybe that’s why it’s lasted as long, is every year in a heartfelt, honest way, the postmortem is, ‘This was the best party ever.’”
On His Favorite Pre-Grammy Gala
From a January 2025 interview about 50 years of his pre-Grammy gala
“At the height of Arista Records, there was a short-lived attempt to stop my earning capacity, which had been very considerable. I had to leave Arista and form J Records, which would mean I would no longer be working with Whitney Houston or Santana, 30 years after signing him initially. That was the only year [2000] I had only two artists perform: Santana on the birth of Supernatural [the massive hit album Arista released in 1999] and Whitney Houston. The emotion I felt with her singing ‘I Believe in You and Me’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ to me can never be duplicated.”
On Identifying Hit Songs
From a May 2026 conversation with his son Fred at a conference in New York
“There is another quality that goes into identifying hit songs and hit artists that you can’t reduce to black and white. I can say, make sure there’s an emotional impact from the lyrics that is meaningful, significant, and make sure you can sing that chorus. That melody is ringing in your ear. That is the clinical, dictionary method, but that doesn’t describe what happens to my body when I hear the unusual, the unique and special.”
