Clive Davis did not invent the Bay Area sound, but he did something almost as consequential: He heard it early, understood its power and helped carry it into the mainstream.
Davis, the towering record executive who died Monday, June 22, at 94, built one of the most influential careers in modern pop music by betting on voices and movements before they had been fully absorbed by the industry. His roster would eventually include Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart.
- Related:Clive Davis, music industry starmaker, has died at 94
But one of the great turning points of his life came in Northern California, at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival.
Davis arrived at Monterey as the polished head of Columbia Records, a label still better known for Broadway cast albums, jazz, classical music and traditional pop than for the psychedelic rock surging out of San Francisco. He left with a new understanding of what American popular music was becoming…