NEW YORK – Kenny G played a mournful sax solo, Jennifer Hudson's voice soared and Bruce Springsteen spoke glowingly at the funeral Monday for music legend Clive Davis, as pop royalty honored a man who championed so many of their careers.
Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys, Ja Rule and Stevie Wonder were among the other musical stars at the service. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Adrien Brody, Hoda Kotb and Gayle King were among the other notables.
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Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl said Davis would have been thrilled by the turnout. “Clive would have loved this,” she said. “He’d have been touched to have filled the house, thrilled by the superstars who have come to share tributes to him.”
The service was closed to the public but was livestreamed from Central Synagogue in Manhattan.
Davis, a record company lawyer who rose to become one of music’s most influential figures, launched the careers of numerous stars, including Whitney Houston, Springsteen, Keys and Kenny G, and influenced others such as Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.
Springsteen called him big, bombastic and brave. “He was born to run everything,” The Boss said. He remembered meeting him at age 22 in 1972, his anxiety rising. “I can’t wait to hear you,” Davis told him. After his audition, the executive simply said: “Welcome to Columbia Records."
"In those few words, he changed my life forever,” Springsteen said.
Davis died June 22 in his Manhattan apartment at the age of 94, a few weeks after he was hospitalized for an upper respiratory issue.
Buchdahl asked what song Davis most admired that was not something he had a hand in and was told “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” written by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg in 1938 for the film “The Wizard of Oz.” Buchdahl then sang a soaring version. “You have a home at Sony Music Classics,” joked Rob Stringer, the CEO of Sony Music Entertainment.
Warwick told a story about how Davis urged her to work with Manilow in the late 1970s, which she initially resisted. But Davis’ suggestion was fruitful: Their partnership, the album “Dionne,” went platinum and earned two Grammy Awards. “So Barry and I became very, very good friends that day,” she said to laughter.
Manilow recalled Davis urging him to record the rock song “Brandy,” written by Scott English and Richard Kerr. Manilow turned it into a love song and played it for Davis. “Just do that,” Davis told him. They renamed it “Mandy.” It went to No. 1. “He believed in me from the very beginning,” Manilow said.
Hudson sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and then grew emotional as she transitioned to “I Will Always Love You,” a hit for Houston. ”We love you, Clive" she said before getting a standing ovation.
While many record execs saw their influence wane as they grew older, Davis' seemed to grow. He breathed new life into the careers of established artists such as Aretha Franklin and Santana, and helped launch Keys and several early “American Idol” winners' careers, including Kelly Clarkson's.
Springsteen said a world had died with Davis' passing — the record executive-led top-down changemakers that also included such visionaries as Berry Gordy, Ahmet Ertegun, Mo Ostin and Jerry Wexler: “Men who defined, loved and sustained the record business.”
“There isn’t a day when I don’t sit on my big front porch in my big house, surrounded by my big cars with my big family, looking out over my big yard, and Clive doesn’t come somewhere whistling around the top of my brain,” Springsteen said.
Keys was in tears when she approached the podium and borrowed a handkerchief. “I'm actually not a crier. I'm in a strange place,” she told the crowd. She recalled being 15 when she first met Davis, running because she was late, and playing songs for him on a piano. “You saw something in me that I was just beginning to see in myself,” she read in a letter to Davis.
“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 are not alone.”
Davis is survived by his four children, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren. An instrumental version of Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” played as Davis coffin was carried out of the synagogue.