Section B·Page 12
The University Daily Kansan
I
Thursday, September 16, 1999
Music
Arista's Davis continues 'all-timer' star streak
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Clive Davis has a knack.
He can smell talent a mile away and when he does, watch out world.
Davis, the 65-year-old president and founder of Arista Records, has helped launch the careers of Whitney Houston, Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Springsteen and scores of others.
"I signed Patti Smith, the great Renaissance woman. I signed Lou Reed. I signed the Grateful Dead," says Davis, casually recalling some of his major coups while sitting at his desk in his midtown Manhattan office.
It's not that he's trying to brag. It's simply his matter-of-fact way of explaining his ability to seize onto what he calls the "all-timers" — artists like Billy Joel and Janis Joplin, who he also signed, by the way.
"I wait to be turned on," Davis says. "If I'm not turned on in seven months, I'll sign nobody. I mean, I don't have a quota of who I sign. I've got to feel it."
Davis has been feeling it for more than three decades — first, as a top executive and president at CBS Records, and then as the head of Arista Records, which he started after leaving CBS 25 years ago.
The label's current top acts — Houston, McLachlan, Monica — along with new stars like soul singer Deborah Cox and rhythm and blues quartet Next — are largely responsible for the label's $245 million in sales, as well as, of course, Davis, who is involved in every aspect of a record's production, from studio to release.
Davis remains not only a major player, but a trend setter who signed trailblazers like Sean "Puffy" Combs and producers L.A. Reid and Babyface before they became superstars.
He has also helped revitalize lagging careers. Aretha Franklin lately has flourished at Arista after a few years on a downward spiral, and Santana's latest release, Supernatural, has hit Billboard's top 10 and produced a hit with "Smooth." The Artist Formerly Known as Prince may be looking for Davis to help tweak his sagging commercial appeal — he just signed to Arista in August, his first deal with a record label since 1996.
"I think the thing that makes Clive stand out is his love of talent and his love of music," says Reid, who together with Babyface signed a deal with Arista to develop LaFace Records 10 years ago. The label is now home to such multiplatinum acts as TLC, Toni Braxton and Usher.
"He's probably the most thorough executive that we've ever met. He's involved in the process from beginning to end, and I think that's what makes him special."
Davis has been a co-producer of many albums,
including Whitney Houston's latest platinum effort, Your Love Is My Love. Davis, who signed the 36-year-old singer to Arista when she was just 19, helped arrange collaborations between Houston and Fugees' sensations Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. He also worked with Houston to pick the songs on the album. The result is perhaps Houston's most critically acclaimed album of her career.
"I have been her executive producer and creative partner since day one. I screen all her material and she and I pick it. We're very much a creative partnership. Whitney and I," Davis says.
Davis, a New York City native who lost both his parents at an early age, put himself through law school and started working at CBS Records as a lawyer in 1960. He rose to become president of the company in 1967 — even though he had no musical background. That forced him to take a crash course in the record business — from show music to rock.
"The first artist I ever signed was Janis Joplin. I felt my way," he recalled, recounting when he first saw the rock legend at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He also saw budding singer/songwriter Laura Nyro, and snapped her up as well.
"I learned from that experience, and by coincidence, I came home, I went to a small club in the village, and I saw a group in formation that was quite innovative, brilliant — that group turned out to be Blood. Sweat and Tears."
He signed them, too, and then came Santana, Billy Joel, Aerosmith and Springsteen. With so much success, Davis was on top of the world.
But he came crashing down in 1973, when the record label accused him of mismanagement of funds, and he was fired. Although Davis says he was later cleared, it wasn't the end of his problems; he later was indicted on tax evasion charges, pleaded guilty to one count and had to pay a $10,000 fine.
Davis rebounded from the scandal with a vengeance. A year after his departure from CBS, he started the Arista label, with backing from Columbia Pictures, and CBS records.
"I think a combination of getting payment of $1 million from them and the ultimate exoneration of any problems that were charged never really cure the pain of something that occurred that was unjust, but you learn in life to move on," he said.
Move on he did. During the years, Davis used his eye for talent to build the company from a young upstart to one of the industry's formidable labels, and did so by staying true to his vision — signing "all-timers."
"The challenge is to pick artists that are going to be long lasting artists and not just fads of the moment," he said, rattling off a list of Arista's roster. "I mean, Alan Jackson is an all-timer. Brooks & Dunn are all-timers. I mean, on the LaFace front, with L.A. and Babyface. TLC started with Kris Kross. Who's around? It'S TLC."
New Releases
Coming out of the same college town that produced R.E.M. and the B-52s, Widespread Panic has built a devoted following by emulating a West Coast band also known for extended jams, both live and in the studio, and experimental stylings.
Til The Medicine Takes Widespread Panic
But on Til the Medicine Takes, the band once hailed as the next Grateful Dead refocuses itself and its songs to make itself more appealing to pop audiences already familiar with its Athens, Ga. brethren — with frustratingly mixed results.
Make no mistake, the sound — a cross between the Southern rock of the '70s and psychedelia of the '60s — will be familiar to longtime "Spreadheads." But while each tune is shortened to manageable lengths, the album is certainly no hit-single factory.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, as shown on "Climb to Safety." With its harmony, power-chord hook and ragged electric piano, the tale of a scary train ride is the closest Widespread Panic can come to a Top 40 sound while retaining its distinctive style.
But in an attempt to become more approachable by listeners at large, the band brings in some outside help, including veteran producer John Keane and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and there is just a sense of something getting lost in the process.
At least Widespread Panic can't be faulted for trying something new. How many 10-minute jams can you listen to on one record, anyway?
Rough Harvest John Mellencamp
Call this John Mellencamp's attempt at an "Unplugged" album. Rough Harvest appears on the surface to be a throwaway project and an attempt to cash in on the craze started by the acoustic-style MTV performance show.
But instead, the record gives new depths to the work of one of the most prolific artists of the last two decades.
Using stripped-down arrangements, Mellencamp revisits some of the best songs of the latter stages of his career, with the few years he's added also giving needed depth to such socially challenging songs as "Love and Happiness" and "Jackie Brown."
And the gravel in his voice — the result of a lot of hard touring and even harder living in his early days — doesn't do any harm to "Minutes to Memories," a tale of an old man telling his life story on a bus ride through the Midwest, or "Human Wheels," which gets a dose of humanity missing in the original studio version.
The lineer notes say this is the kind of music Mellencamp and his crack band play when they just want to play music. Perhaps they should play this way all the time.
-The Associated Press
Country Music Awards
The Country Music Awards will be presented Sept. 22 in a ceremony broadcast live on CBS. Here's a rundown of some of the nominations.
ENTERTAINER: Garth Brooks, Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, Gear Strait, Shania Twain.
FEMALE VOCALIST: Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Jo Dee Messina, Shanna Twinat, Trisha Yearwood.
MALE VOCALIST: Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Steve Warner.
Strait has won this award for the past three years.
Gill won it from 1991-95. Jackson missed his best time to win it because of the domination of the other two.
SINGLE: "Amazed, Loneastar; "Choices; George Jones; "Don't Laugh at Me," Mark Wills; "Please Remember Me," Tim McGraw; "Wide Open Spaces," Dixie Chicks.
ALBUM: "A Place in the Sun," Tim McGraw; "Always Never the Same," George Strait; "The Key," Vince Gill; "Two Teardrops," Steve Wariner; "Where Your
Road Leads," Trisha Yearwood.
HORIZON AWARD [for career progress]: Kenny Chesney, Sara Evans, Jo Dee Messina, The Wilkinsons, Chely Wright.
VOCAL GROUP: Alabama, Diamond Rio, Dixie Chicks,
Lonestar, The Wilkinsons.
MUSIC VIDEO: "Don't Laugh at Me," Mark Wills; "How Forever Feels," Kenny Chesney; "I'll Go On Loving You," Alan Jackson; "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me," Faith Hill with Tim McGraw; "Wide Open Spaces," Dixie Chicks.
-The Associated Press
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