A large collection of superstars, powerful music executives and other friends and family came together for Clive Davis’ funeral in New York on Monday morning, remembering Davis in emotional tributes as a music obsessive and champion of artists who architected the modern record business.
Many of the biggest artists most synonymous with Clive Davis’ career — Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Barry Manilow, Jennifer Hudson, Kenny G and Alicia Keys — all honored the mogul a week after he died at the age of 94. Kenny G opened the funeral, which took place at Central Synagogue in Midtown Manhattan, playing a clarinet solo, while during the middle of the service, Hudson sang covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” The rest of the musicians gave emotional eulogies.
Dionne Warwick, who was the first speaker after Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” recalling Clive Davis’ family saying it was a song he wished he produced. Warwick recalled how Clive Davis had pursued her while she was between record deals, while she was considering leaving the record industry altogether.
“You may be willing to give the business up, but the business isn’t willing to give you up,” she remembered Clive Davis saying. She then made an acronym out of Clive Davis’ full name, saying “Clive” itself stood for “Completely loyal, incredibly valuable and everlasting.”
“He was always asking, ‘Where’s my Dionne?’ Well, I’m here today, Clive, for you,” she said. “I’ll always be here for you.”
As Manilow opened during his speech: “A few months ago, surgeons removed a piece of my lung. Last week, I lost a piece of my heart.”
Manilow remembered the early days working with Clive Davis, recalling how the mogul implored him to cover the song “Brandy,” and how he didn’t think it was a fit for him. He showed Clive Davis the recording, which they both agreed was “terrible.” Manilow showed Clive Davis some softer takes he did of the song, and Clive Davis told him to “just do that,” which gave way to “Mandy,” Manilow’s first No. 1 hit.
“He would show me a song; I would turn it down; we would argue; I would rearrange it; I would record it,” Manilow said of their dynamic. “This went on for nearly 50 years. He believed in me from the very beginning.”
Clive Davis was Manilow’s guide to the end, as the singer recalled the mogul pushing him on an album idea as recently as three weeks ago, calling him “twice, three times a day” about the concept.
“I’m going to miss him. Who am I going to argue with?” Manilow joked. “Oh, Clive, I wish we could do it all again. Thanks for everything, my friend.”
Keys followed Hudson’s performance, taking the stage in tears, her back facing the crowd as she spent a few moments collecting herself before reading a letter she addressed to “to the man who believed first.”
“You saw the music that was still sleeping inside me, waiting for someone with the wisdom and the courage to call it forward,” Keys said. “In a world that so often reduces art to commerce and genius to product, you held the line. You reminded me again and again that what we were doing was about truth and legacy and about the human heart reaching out to another human heart and saying you’re not alone.”
Davis’ sons, Fred and Doug Davis, gave their own eulogies as well, with Fred Davis remembering the earliest days of his father’s ascent as he ran CBS Records, sitting in his father’s office on the yellow carpeting as his father had him read the lyrics to “Blinded by the Light.” He recalled his father’s firing from Columbia and determination to start Arista, then decades later “the tenacity of a 67-year-old man who refused to go down, refused to retire,” as he started J Records instead.
“But most importantly,” Fred Davis said, “from my perspective, his love of being a dad. He was the best. And notwithstanding any of the incredible accomplishments, that is what I will remember him for the most.”
Doug Davis, 12 years younger than Fred Davis, recalled that Clive Davis wasn’t around as often during his childhood, with the executive often out late at concerts, artists’ showcases and traveling the world. He recalled growing closer with his father in adulthood, working with him in the industry and helping him plan his legendary pre-Grammy parties. He said Clive Davis spent his final days with his family, saying that “we were with him, loving him, laughing with him.”
“He was not the kind of dad who would throw a ball with you in the backyard, but he was the kind of dad who made sure to take a 13-year-old to see Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis and Sammy Davis Jr. at the Greek Theatre,” Doug Davis said. “He was not the kind of dad to wake up early to drive you to school, but he was the kind of dad who kept me up really late on a school night to make sure I was at that legendary Whitney Houston showcase at Sweetwater’s.”
Doug Davis read a note from Paul Simon, who couldn’t attend the funeral because he’s on tour.
“With his loss, now I wish that we could have spent more time together, more time comfortable in each other’s company, conversation that was always interesting, ranging from music to family to politics and back to music,” Simon wrote. Simon said Clive Davis and a few others were supposed to attend his upcoming July concert at Forest Hills Stadium, and with Clive Davis gone, “I’ll be singing for everyone, but in my heart, I’ll be dedicating the night to the man in the empty seat, dead center in the 10th row.”
Sony Music Group CEO Rob Stringer spoke, too, saying the record company — home to all the labels Clive Davis spearheaded in his career — was his “second home.”
“I can tell everybody here today quite easily that he will never be forgotten at Sony Music, because so much of the bedrock of incredible music in our company bears his hallmark,” Stringer said. “Whilst we may not be changing the company’s name to Clive Davis Music, which he might quite’ve liked, we’ll honor his name as the great music man he was.”
Springsteen was the last person to speak, opening his eulogy by calling Davis “the most humble man in the music business,” drawing laughs from the crowd.
“Not really. Clive Davis was big and bombastic and brave and full of ideas,” Springsteen said. “He was born to run everything.”
Springsteen remembered coming to Clive Davis’ office in New York in 1972, where he played him a couple of songs with just his guitar, with Clive Davis promptly telling him “Welcome to Columbia Records.” Springsteen recalled that as the “golden moment” of his career.
“It’s the moment, the one where, if you’re talented, if you’re lucky enough, it comes but once in your life,” Springsteen said. “If the right man is listening to you from across that big desk. For me, now and forever, Clive Davis was that right man.”
After the speeches, Clive Davis’ family guided his casket out together as they left for a private burial. Fittingly for a man so defined by music, a string quartet saw him off for his final rest, playing Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” as he made his way down the aisle out the doors, with “Born to Run” playing next as they left.
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