Of the many pop stars christened by the record industry titan Clive Davis, none may be more closely associated with him than Whitney Houston. Their working relationship of nearly three decades resulted in huge successes, but their story was also complex, the subject of much debate, and it ended in tragedy.
Davis, who died on Monday at the age of 94, signed Bruce Springsteen, nurtured Barry Manilow and helped reinvent Aretha Franklin.
But it was Houston, whom he signed in 1983 when she was 19, after seeing her perform at an Upper West Side club, whose career he almost solely steered to worldwide superstardom.
Before she even went into the studio, Davis personally introduced her on “The Merv Griffin Show” as the inheritor of the mantle of pop-gospel singing, The New York Times reported in 1985.
“If you ever saw her live, it was so overpowering,” Davis later told People. “Never has a voice so effortlessly or emotionally been able to bring the songs home.”
In Houston, Davis recognized the potential of a powerful mezzo-soprano as an instrument to reshape modern pop music. He signed her to Arista Records but did not rush out an album. Instead, he took years to sync her song selections and music producers in meticulously guiding her 1985 debut album.
Houston’s sophomore album, “Whitney,” released two years later, cemented her juggernaut status. Davis paired Houston with the producer David Foster, and the pair flourished.
Her stature grew even more with the release of the single “I Will Always Love You” in 1992. Houston’s version of the Dolly Parton song became the best-selling single ever by a female artist. Davis insisted that the track begin with Houston’s 40-second a cappella intro, after a suggestion by her “Bodyguard” co-star Kevin Costner.
“Yes, there were several calls from radio to our promotion staff, advocating changing the beginning,” Davis told Billboard. “But, frankly, this was a classic.”
The song spent a record-breaking 14 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, beating the mark set by Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road.”
In painstakingly curating Whitney’s image as “America’s Sweetheart,” Davis sought to maximize her crossover appeal. In the 2017 documentary “Whitney: Can I Be Me,” a former Arista employee said that recorded material from Houston that was “too Black-sounding” had been “sent back.”
Those efforts may have ostracized Houston’s Black audience.
Critics and some Black radio stations argued that she had strayed from the tradition of R & B soul and gospel music. In the late 1980s, audience members booed when Houston’s name was announced at the Soul Train Music Awards.
“It bothered her and me,” Davis told Vibe. “I mean, Whitney is a Black woman. It’s silly and shallow, the criticism you get when you cross over.”
It was after Houston’s death in 2012, at 48, that critiques of Davis’s role in her life became most prominent. After years of public struggles with addiction, she was found submerged in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton after a drug overdose. Efforts to revive her failed, and she died just hours before Davis’s annual gala at the hotel, a Grammys staple that he began in 1976. The party went on as planned.
Davis paid tribute to Houston at its beginning. “By now you have all learned of the unspeakably tragic news of our beloved Whitney’s passing,” he said. “I don’t have to mask my emotion in front of a room full of so many dear friends.”
Many questioned why Davis elected to hold the party while her body remained at the hotel and mourning attendees milled around in shock. On CNN, the singer-songwriter Chaka Khan called the decision “complete insanity.”
Houston’s death prompted interest in Davis’s knowledge of the singer’s battle with addiction. In 1997, after Houston suffered a severe overdose, Davis convened an intervention at his home.
In March 2000, Houston did not perform at the Academy Awards after delivering a poor rehearsal. A statement from Arista said she had a sore throat. Davis, in his 2013 memoir, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” wrote that he had insisted Houston attend rehabilitation after the episode but had been rebuffed.
“She told me point-blank — politely, but in no uncertain terms — that whatever was going on with her was a personal matter and she had it under control,” he wrote.
In the 2017 documentary, several former colleagues speculated that Houston’s sexuality may have contributed to her addiction. Houston denied being gay, but her friend and creative director, Robyn Crawford, wrote in a 2019 memoir, “A Song for You: My Life With Whitney Houston,” that the two had engaged in a romantic relationship.
Houston’s former husband, Bobby Brown, wrote in his own book, “Every Little Step” (2016), that Houston struggled with her sexuality and with the need to maintain her public image.
Referring to “the people around her, like Clive Davis and her family,” Brown wrote: “They couldn’t let Whitney live the life she wanted to live; they insisted that she be perfect, that she be someone she wasn’t. That’s why they wanted Robyn out of Whitney’s life.”
For her part, Houston described Davis as a “dad in a lot of ways” during an interview in 2004 that the pair gave to Entertainment Tonight. They had forged a lasting partnership as the architect and the archetype.
After her death, Davis championed her legacy, and in 2022, he co-produced the Houston biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”
