Clive Davis's three-legged-stool lesson guided my music career

I grew up with Clive Davis: we went to school with his children, my father worked for him early in his career, and we spent holidays at his West Side apartment watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. His stories about the artists he worked with inspired me to enter the music business.

About a decade ago he asked me to co-produce the documentary The Soundtrack of Our Lives, now on Netflix. One lesson that stayed with me was his idea of a hit as a three-legged stool—you need the song, the performance, and the production—and I made securing great songs a priority in the publishing company I later helped build.

Working with Clive on the film highlighted his extraordinary work ethic and attention to detail, qualities rooted in his training as a lawyer. He wanted the full history of every artist, and often pushed farther into detail when others thought a topic was finished.

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