About the 2026 Inductees,  Timothy Pernell wrote:
Clive Davis died Monday, leaving behind a complicated legacy - one that included him promoting and distributing lots of talent of various genres (especially R&B) to extreme commercial highs and another that saw him as an "exploiter" of said talent. Here are the artists he worked with that eventually got in the RRHOF (those he cultivated and those he reenergized past glories of, and some he tried to but ultimately failed):
1987: Aretha Franklin (an artist for Arista at the time of her historic induction; she was enjoying her biggest commercial success since the late 60s with albums like "Who's Zoomin' Who" and "Aretha 86", adding in a synthesized pop-rock sound into her trademark soul style, echoing what had happened with Tina Turner)
1993: Sly and the Family Stone (one of the acts Davis promoted when he was president of CBS Records - Sly recorded for the Epic subsidiary - the history between Davis and Sly was a complicated mess. By the time the act was inducted into the RRHOF, Sly had become a famous eccentric recluse, years away from his late 1960s and early 1970s commercial heights)
1994: The Grateful Dead (despite already being a successful act on Warner Bros. Records for a number of years and then signing albums on their own label, by the time their contract was sold off to Arista in 1976, the group was in need of a resurgence according to Clive and under his tutelage, the group enjoyed a series of hit albums, which culminated with the release of 1987's "In the Dark" and its hit single "Touch of Grey", which brought the legendary rock band their first top ten pop hit, their peak before founder Jerry Garcia's tragic 1995 death. Luckily Garcia was still around to smell the roses when the Grateful Dead was inducted in 1994.)
1995: Janis Joplin (another act he cultivated while at Columbia; it was Davis that saw Janis as a solo star away from her group Big Brother and the Holding Company and played an impact on Janis eventually leaving the group where she forged on a brief solo career that ended prematurely with her death at 27 in 1970 but also led to one of the first successful posthumous albums with "Pearl")
1998: Santana (the group had a long fruitful partnership with Clive going back to the late 60s when Clive was president of CBS, after the group signed with Arista, Clive assembled an all-star team of producers and artists such as Wyclef Jean and Rob Thomas to create their best-selling work "Supernatural".)
1999: Bruce Springsteen (though Clive left by the time "The Boss" became an iconic rocker, it was through Clive that Bruce got in the RRHOF, a fact that Bruce would remember. Bruce joined the long list of artists to praise Mr. Davis after his death Monday.)
2000: Earth, Wind & Fire (much like BRUUUUUUCE, the legendary Chicago funk and soul outfit also benefited from getting signed by Davis. Clive was gone by the time the band began finding success around 1974.)
2001: Aerosmith (one of the final acts Davis signed to Columbia before his departure at the end of 1973, the Boston rockers immediately found success afterwards and occasionally mentioned Clive by name on some of their songs)
2004: Prince** (another legend whose work with Davis deserves an asterisk in a similar way to Santana but almost in the reverse; Davis tried to revive Prince's career upon signing him in 1999 but Prince being Prince played mostly by his rules and as a result, while "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" was his first gold-certified album since 1996's "Emancipation", it was far from the success Clive hoped to have as he did with the then-current releases of Whitney Houston's and Santana's "comeback" albums.)
2005: The O'Jays (though they didn't work closely with Clive, it was Clive who distributed the group's label Philadelphia International through CBS. "Backstabbers" and "Love Train", probably the group's most iconic recordings, were released while Davis was still king of CBS. Ironically the group is the only Philadelphia International act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while other acts such as Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass and Patti LaBelle have yet to get in.)
2007: Patti Smith (she made a little history as the first act who signed with Arista as a "new artist" to be inducted into the RRHOF - though it infamously took her seven attempts. It was Patti who inducted Clive into the RRHOF - after a tabloid-plagued Whitney Houston failed to show up due to mysterious circumstances.)
2009: Run-DMC** (the group were already legends by the time Clive acquired their label Profile Records and promised to make them commercially relevant to the current trends of mainstream hip-hop and rap rock but "Crown Royal" was the catalyst to him getting fired from Arista indicating "The Music Man" had lost his Midas touch - though his work on J Records proved they were wrong in that assessment.)
2012: Donovan (one of Clive's first acts he signed along with Sly and the Family Stone on CBS, he also helped to cultivate into a major rock success story.)
2016: Chicago (the group almost immediately found success after signing in 1968 leading to a series of commercially successful albums during and after Davis' tenure in CBS.)
2020: Whitney Houston (Clive's most famous signee instantly became one of the most successful recording artists in history as soon as she released her landmark 1985 self-titled debut, building from there. For 15 years, Houston was flawless under Davis' tutelage in a way few artists ever were (only one that had a similar flawless career was Mariah Carey), though it wasn't without some controversy. Whitney was one of the few that remained loyal to Clive even after he was kicked out of Arista - though he'd return in 2004 once L.A. Reid struggled to make anyone who wasn't Usher and Avril Lavigne successful, through her tragic (and to me mysterious and questionable) 2012 death, which was controversial after Clive literally kept his pre-Grammy party going. Still, Davis made countless interviews calling Whitney a "musical genius" up until his passing.)
2022: Carly Simon (much like Aretha, Santana and the Grateful Dead, Carly was another legend whose career Clive revived in the 80s.)
2024: Dionne Warwick (after the Grateful Dead, Dionne was another 60s legend whose career was revived by Clive after signing with him in 1979. Her rendition of "I'll Never Love This Way Again" earned her a new fan base as did 1982's "Heartbreaker" and 1985's iconic "That's What Friends Are For".)
2026: Luther Vandross (another legendary career that was flagging by the time he signed with Clive - this time to J Records. Luther was actually one of the first acts signed there in 2000 though his first J album (the self titled effort) wouldn't come out until 2001. But it led to him reaching the top 40 on the pop charts for the first time since 1994 and his first platinum album since 1996's "Your Secret Love" - ironically his sole 1998 Virgin album, "I Know", only managed a gold certification, the only Luther release to do so. Luther enjoyed a number one double platinum album with "Dance with My Father" while the title track was a successful crossover hit, albeit this was accomplished after Luther suffered a massive stroke that he never fully recovered from, later dying in 2005.)
** - acts whose careers failed to get reignited by Clive
So that's 18 acts, including 16 who enjoyed successful careers with Clive, including seven Arista acts, eight Columbia acts and one from J Records.
One Arista act that might never ever see a RRHOF induction despite his successful career is Barry Manilow lol |
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