NEW YORK (AP) — No music executive has ever been so powerful as to become synonymous with the whole of the music industry itself. But if anyone came close, it was Clive Davis.The record company lawyer who became one of the music industry’s most powerful figures, launching or resurrecting the careers of such superstars as Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana and Alicia Keys, has died, it was announced Monday. He was 94.The greatest way to celebrate the “man with the golden ears,” as he was colloquially known, is to listen to the musicians and songs he was instrumental in turning into career artists and timeless hits, from starting his career at Columbia Records in the 1960s to today.Read on below and then listen to all 10 songs on The Associated Press’ Spotify playlist here.Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You” (1992)The story is the stuff of music industry legend. Apparently, Davis and producer David Foster fought bitterly over the arrangement for Whitney Houston’s all-time hit, a cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” Davis wanted the final version of the song to feature its iconic 40-second a cappella intro, an experiment suggested by Houston’s “Bodyguard” co-star Kevin Costner. Foster did not. Davis won out in the end.
10 songs to memorialize Clive Davis, the larger-than-life music executive
No music executive has ever been so powerful as to become synonymous with the whole of the music industry itself. But if anyone came close, it was Clive Davis.










