The famed US music industry executive and record producer Clive Davis has died aged 94, his family has confirmed.

He had recently been hospitalised with respiratory problems and was recovering at home.

“To the world, our father was the iconic music legend whose vision, instincts, and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives,” a statement on social media read. “He discovered, mentored, and championed the greatest artists in modern music history, leaving an indelible mark on culture that will endure for generations. To his family, Clive was Dad and Granddaddy, the steady presence at the center of our lives, the source of wisdom, strength, encouragement, and unconditional love.”

Davis signed many of the defining musicians of the 20th century, among them Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, Laura Nyro, Santana, Whitney Houston, Billy Joel and Aerosmith. He helmed the major record labels Columbia, Arista, Sony imprint J Records, the RCA Group and BMG North America, and at the time of his death had been chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment since 2018.

Davis was born on 4 April 1932 and raised in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighbourhood. After his parents died in quick succession while he was a teenager, Davis graduated from New York University College of Arts and Science with a degree in political science in 1953; three years later, he graduated from Harvard Law School. The loss of his parents put Davis in a precarious financial situation: if his grades dropped, he would lose his scholarships and have to sever his studies. “There’s no question that maintaining a work ethic became very much a part of my life and career,” he told Rolling Stone.

CBS subsidiary Columbia Records hired Davis from the law firm that represented the company, first as general counsel – during which he impressed his superiors by successfully renegotiating Bob Dylan’s contract – and then as administrative vice president and general manager in 1965. Within two years, he was president of the label, signing Donovan and – after a revelatory trip to the Monterey Pop festival – Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Santana.

“I learned on the spot,” Davis told Leaders magazine. “I accidentally discovered I had a totally unexpected and unexplained gift – ears. This was quite a surprise, but I could, and would, discover great all-time artists.”

Then mostly invested in middle-of-the-road pop, Broadway cast albums and classical music, CBS doubled its market share in three years after Davis pioneered the signing of rock acts. “Music was changing, and I had to really watch and observe and see how it all went,” he told NPR.

Of Springsteen, he told David Letterman: “I saw him as a real original, someone who was not just the new Bob Dylan or another Bob Dylan, that was the kiss of death in those days” – although he did encourage Springsteen to move around more on stage to cement the difference between them. Aerosmith memorialised the moment he pitched them at New York City venue Max’s Kansas City in their song No Surprize: “Old Clive Davis said he’s surely gonna make us a star / I’m gonna make you a star / Just the way you are.”

However, Davis wasn’t shy about pushing artists in the direction he thought best. He told the New York Times that Simon and Garfunkel were “aghast” that he selected Bridge Over Troubled Water to be the first single of their 1970 album of the same name. “Yes, it was a ballad; yes, it was lengthy,” he said. “But you’ve got to know when you have a home run. You can’t play everything by the rules.”

Davis’s ambition was noted early on. In his 1975 memoir, he claimed sole credit for the success of the aforementioned artists. He prided himself on never outbidding other labels for artists – he valued bonding over an authentic musical connection – and admitted to having a fear of failure. The two signings he always regretted missing out on, he said, were John Mellencamp and Meat Loaf.

Davis brought disco into CBS when he signed a distribution deal with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff to create Philadelphia International. “For me to find A&R men to do this would have been impossible,” Davis told Vibe in 1996. “The best way was to go to masters of hit-making to encourage them to sign artists. And of course they came through with Harold Melvin and Teddy Pendergrass, with Billy Paul, and the O’Jays.”

But he became embroiled in a scenario in which an employee with alleged mob ties claimed that CBS and Philly International had been involved with payola – the illegal practice of paying or in any other way bribing a radio station to play your song – and created false expense reports, including one that Davis had used company funds to pay for his son’s bar mitzvah. Davis was charged with six counts of tax evasion. He pleaded guilty on one count and was otherwise exonerated. Nonetheless, he was fired from CBS in 1973. Davis claimed the process was a “witch-hunt” conducted out of the company’s paranoia that, as a public broadcaster, its licence could be endangered.

In 1974, Davis founded Arista Records – named after his high school honour society – the label he would run until the year 2000. There he signed the likes of Aretha Franklin – overseeing a controversial move away from her more political work at Atlantic – Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, the Grateful Dead and Alicia Keys, and perhaps his most famous protege, Whitney Houston, whom he signed at 19 years old in 1983.

Davis mentored Houston, putting her on TV to perform two weeks after her signing, such was his pride in her, and was involved with all but one of her albums. But her vast pop success came at a price: her popularity with white audiences led to claims that she was “not Black enough” from Black music fans. “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.” Her ex-husband, Bobby Brown, also alleged that Davis forced Houston to suppress her rumoured relationship with her friend Robyn Crawford, a suggestion Davis dismissed as “crazy”.

Davis attempted an intervention in Houston’s life in 1997, in the wake of her non-fatal overdose and her notoriously turbulent relationship with Brown. She rallied to release one more successful album, 1998’s My Love Is Your Love, but spiralled in the next decade, and was hurt when Davis left Arista in 2000. Davis said that neither the 2017 documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me nor the 2018 documentary Whitney did her life justice. He is a producer on the forthcoming Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody, produced by Sony Pictures, in which he will be portrayed by Stanley Tucci.

At Arista, Davis developed a reputation as a ballbreaker, shaping artists’ images – and not always to their liking. Artists including Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester complained that they were not allowed to sing their own songs. He oversaw a comeback by Carly Simon, who commented on Davis’s ruthlessness. “His energy, his testosterone, all his hormones were ignited by having the biggest No 1 records,” she told the New York Times. “He is on the side of the winner at all costs, and the cost can be very high. The cost can be somebody’s career or somebody’s innateness.”

During his time at Arista, Davis also founded Arista Nashville, the label’s country arm; and – despite professing not to understand rap – LaFace Records with record executive LA Reid and producer Babyface, and Bad Boy Records with Sean Combs, AKA Puff Daddy.

But in 2000, he was ousted from Arista and replaced by Reid. Davis founded the label J Records, signing artists including Jazmine Sullivan, Rod Stewart and Maroon 5.

His controversial reputation was reignited thanks to a feud with Kelly Clarkson, the first winner of American Idol. She recalled that Davis called her a “shitty songwriter” over her 2004 single, Because of You – a Top 10 single in the US and the UK – an opinion Davis affirmed in his 2013 memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life. Clarkson responded in a blogpost: “Growing up is awesome because you learn you don’t have to cower to anyone – even Clive Davis.”

Davis won four Grammy awards as a producer on albums by Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson and Santana, and two of its industry awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s non-performers category in 2000 and funded the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.

In 2008 Davis was named chief creative officer for Sony BMG, later Sony Music Entertainment. His later-career projects included the Houston biopic and an eight-part series on Franklin for Disney+.

Davis is twice divorced and has four children. In his 2013 memoir, he came out as bisexual, later calling it “the most misunderstood sexual identity”, and said he had been in a relationship with a man since the end of his second marriage. In 2015, he was honoured by the Equality Forum as an icon of LGBT History Month.

He also retook the bar exam in 1996. “I wanted to bring up to date the fact that there should be no question mark on the record,” he told the New York Times, referencing the incident in which he lost his licence to practice law. “Plus, I love school and I love exams, and I had no problem doing it.”

In 2013, Davis told NPR that he had “never” tired of the music business. “Extending the careers of these iconic artists has been a source of great reward and fulfilment to me. If your health is good, if the report cards are good, you keep on doing it. And I love it.”