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Legendary record producer Clive Davis on the unique deal he gave Whitney Houston

Making and breaking records

Record exec Clive Davis. Don’t know him, then you’ve been under a fossil 600 years. So I asked him to explain what a record executive does.

Clive: “It begins with signing or appraising the audition of an artist.”

Cindy: Tell us of your early days with Whitney Houston.

“1983. Sweetwater’s Club in New York. Her first song was one I’d commissioned for a Muhammad Ali film but she found meaning that perhaps the composers never knew. I signed her to the key man clause I never gave another artist. That she could leave the company if I left. It proved the intensity of my commitment. Then, for two years, we performed in New York and LA. I was very conscious that I was making a special first album. Took two years to find the material for it.

“I set her on the road for seven consecutive No. 1 records. An all-time record. I treated it especially carefully. She became one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling 23 million worldwide. Never an argument. We were on the same wave from Day One.

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