Clive Davis
2015 Icon

Record Producer

b. April 4, 1932

“To call me anything other than bisexual would be inaccurate.”

Clive Davis is a record producer who has won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was the president of Columbia Records from 1967 to 1973 before founding Arista Records in 1975. He created J Records in 2000 and is currently the chief creative officer at Sony Music Entertainment.

Davis is best known for launching the careers of Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Carlos Santana, Jennifer Hudson and Whitney Houston. At Arista, Houston became one of the best-selling artists in music history. Over the years, Davis also signed notables like Janis Joplin, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Aerosmith, helping to establish rock, pop and folk trends in the music industry for decades.

In 2013 Davis publicly came out as bisexual in his autobiography, “The Soundtrack of My Life.”

In the book, he admits to having his first sexual experience with a man in the 1970s. “Was I nervous? Absolutely,” he writes. “Did the heavens open up? No. But it was satisfying.”