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."