arts & entertainment
The Man With
Golden Ears
In his new memoir, Clive Davis shares tales
of his five-decade career in the music business.
Curt Schleier
I Special to the Jewish News
T
he "big surprise" in music impre-
sario Clive Davis' recently pub-
lished 551-page autobiography,
The Soundtrack of My Life (Simon and
Schuster), comes more than 500 pages in:
He is bisexual. Davis quickly follows with
a less surprising reveal: His first long-term
gay relationship — it lasted 13 years —
was with a doctor.
"I obviously couldn't escape the profes-
sion all Jews put on a pedestal:' he writes.
Those unfamiliar with Davis should
know that he, probably more than any
other person, is responsible for the
soundtrack of your life. He discovered
such hallowed artists as Billy Joel, Bruce
Springsteen, Aerosmith, Barry Manilow,
Whitney Houston, Kenny G, Patti Smith
and Alicia Keys, among others, and
championed and helped enhance the
careers of artists such as Aretha Franklin,
Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Simon and
Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart
and Jennifer Hudson, to name just a few.
In a very ironic way, it all happened
because he is Jewish.
Davis was born in Brooklyn, where both
of his parents died when he was a teen-
ager. He lived with an aunt and married
sister and won full scholarships to New
York University and Harvard Law School.
Then he went out to look for work.
seasoned creative music industry exec,
One of his first stops was a top "white-
either.
shoe" law firm. The person who con-
But a colleague invited him to attend
ducted the interview was called outside,
the first Monterey International Pop
giving Davis an opportunity to glance at
Music Festival, held in June 1967. It was
the interviewer's notepad. It said Davis
there that he had an epiphany: "I found
had a great record and the
myself unwittingly in the
interview went well, but
midst of a musical and
the interviewer wasn't sure
social revolution:' he said.
the applicant was "'right'
"That festival changed the
for the firm."
rest of my life."
Davis interpreted the
There, he first heard
word "right" to mean
Janis Joplin, lead singer
that "perhaps as a Jew, I
of Big Brother and the
wouldn't fit in."
Holding Company. Davis
Davis subsequently
bought Big Brother's
found work with a Jewish
contract and eventually
firm that had CBS and its
launched Janis on her
subsidiaries — including
brief career as a singles
Columbia Records — as a
act. Over the next several
client. An alumnus of the
months, he signed Blood
As often happens with
firm, Harvey Shein, was
Sweat & Tears, Santana
Jews, I got hungry for
the label's chief counsel.
and Laura Nyro, among
coffee and cake," Clive
About to be promoted,
others."
Davis writes about going
he was searching for a
"These acts helped
to a little Manhattan coffee
replacement. He found
change the face of
shop and running into
one in Davis.
Columbia and gave me
John
Lennon.
"If it wasn't for that, I
the confidence to believe
never in a million years
that I have a natural gift
would have thought to go into music as
that I never knew I had and was totally
a profession:' Davis said in a telephone
unexplored," writes Davis.
interview. After seven years, he was
That gift led him to subsequently
appointed the company's president. While found Arista (named for the high school
he wasn't a fish out of water, he wasn't a
honor society) and J Records. Currently
CLIVE
DAVIS
A Tale Of Art
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
A
aron Posner, early in his play-
writing-directing career, asked
for an appointment with novel-
ist Chaim Potok to get advice on adapting
material for the stage. He left with per-
mission to adapt Potok's own work.
Years after winning approval to adapt
Potok's The Chosen from book to stage,
Posner was granted similar approval for
My Name Is Asher Lev, a work about a
talented painter struggling to balance his
individualism with the Chasidic lifestyle
important to his family.
The more recent play, now having an
extended run in New York, is debuting
May 1-19 at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre
at the Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield, where The Chosen was pre-
76
April 25 • 2013
Paul Simon, Clive Davis and Miles Davis at an Anti-
Defamation League Luncheon, 1970
Davis, who turned 81 this month, is
chief creative officer of Sony Music
Entertainment.
The 50-plus years he has spent in the
record industry have given him a sizable
treasure trove of anecdotes, all expertly
retold.
He paid Andy Warhol $5,000 to paint
an album cover of Aretha Franklin
and liked it so much he asked Warhol
how much he'd charge for the painting.
Warhol gave him a price of $25,000, the
same he was charging another artist for
the original of a cover portrait. Davis
asked if he could get a credit for the five
grand, and Warhol said he'd look into it
but never got back to him.
Davis saw the painting recently hang-
ing on the wall of a fancy Manhattan res-
taurant. He asked how much the painting
was worth. The response: $3.7 million.
"I lost my appetite and, good and hos-
pitable as the restaurant is, I have diffi-
culty going back there he writes.
Then there is the Manilow situation.
Manilow fancied himself a songwriter
and wanted to perform only his own
material. Davis considered Manilow more
an entertainer and felt he didn't produce
enough quality material to make hit
albums.
Davis brought him songs — first
"Mandy," later "I Write the Songs," among
others — that became major hits for
Consumed with the desire to paint,
a young Chasid struggles to maintain tradition.
sented in 2003.
at the Signature Theatre in
My Name Is Asher Lev
Virginia.
will encore Aug. 8-Sept.
"If it's not, in some way,
8 at the Performance
the viewer's story in terms
Network Theatre in Ann
of separation from family
Arbor. Directed by David
and community because of
Magidson, JET artistic
some proclivity, it's a very
director, the play fea-
interesting and inspiring
tures Mitchell Koory in
story, giving insight into
the title role, with John
a dynamic not otherwise
Seibert as the men in the
understood by that viewer."
play and Naz Edwards in
Posner, in his late 40s,
the women's roles.
grew up in Oregon and
"This is a truly brilliant Mitchell Koory plays the
started acting in elementary
story worth telling:' says
title character in My Name school at a time when he
Posner in a phone inter-
first saw Fiddler on the Roof
is Asher Lev at JET.
view from Washington,
and soon made his mother
D.C., where he soon will
take him back to see it over
open his adaptation of Anton Chekhov's
and over again.
The Seagull after recently directing The
An interest in directing surfaced in
Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown
college as he earned a bachelor's degree
in performance studies at Northwestern
University in Illinois before pursu-
ing a master's in directing at Southern
Methodist University in Texas.
Posner got to know the late novelist
during the 1990s in Philadelphia, where
the playwright-director co-founded the
Arden Theatre Company, serving as artis-
tic director and resident director before
moving on to other theaters and freelance
projects.
"Stories attracted me to theater:' says
Posner, whose father, Michael Posner, did
graduate work in cognitive neuroscience
at the University of Michigan.
"When I found there was a way to tell
stories on stage, acting them out and re-
imagining them, that seemed good to me.
I've worked at a third of the major profes-
sional theaters in the country as director
or playwright."