Clive Davis was inspired by country music's songwriting model
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Clive Davis with Brooks and Dunn in 2004. Photo: L. Busacca/WireImage via Getty Images
Nashville's music industry was closely linked to the career of iconic record executive Clive Davis, who died Monday at the age of 94.
Flashback: In a 2017 interview Nate conducted when he was at The Tennessean, Davis described how the Music Row machine influenced his approach.
- Earlier in his career, when he was in the rock world, most of the artists Davis worked with wrote their own songs.
- But in Nashville's country music industry, most artists were be paired with well-written songs from professional songwriters.
What he said: "I didn't explore what Nashville does so beautifully — which is finding songs through music publishers and professional songwriters for artists who don't write or need to collaborate — until I started Arista in 1975," Davis said.
Fun fact: His first experience employing the Nashville model was finding the No. 1 hit "Mandy" for Barry Manilow.
Zoom out: Davis' label, Arista, was a colossal success and he went on to become a music industry mogul who powered the careers of icons including Whitney Houston.
- Arista Nashville started in 1989.
The big picture: Alan Jackson was the first artist signed to Arista's country division. Many other country legends followed, including Brooks and Dunn, Pam Tillis and Carrie Underwood.
The bottom line: "The tradition of country music is very special," Davis said in 2017. "Fan Fair [which is now known as CMA Fest] was so unique and so eye-opening every time I came to Nashville. The attitude of the artists to mix with the fans and spend hours with them. The whole concept of Fan Fair was so unique.
💠Nate's thought bubble: I was relatively new to the music business beat in 2017 when I interviewed Mr. Davis in a penthouse hotel suite in Nashville. He was in town to promote a documentary about his life, based on his best-selling book.
- It was one of those interviews where the publicist cautioned me he had only a brief window, so I interrupted at one point to say I thought our time was up.
- Mr. Davis was so enthused talking about Nashville, we went way over the allotted time and ended up with a story where he gushed about his love of the city and of country music.