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Nikki Haskell, Davis friend “since the 70s,” told us the one-time Columbia Records boss was getting ready to go to a concert when doctors “told him to go to a hospital instead,” a few weeks ago. Still, she says, “Nobody [had] more life than he has… There’s no one more fabulous than he is.”
And nothing epitomized fabulous, as Haskell put it, more than his annual pre-Grammy parties. It’s been the main event – before the main event – since he launched the bash in 1975. In 2014, the Grammys labeled the event the second -most-coveted ticket in town. “Davis is nothing short of a living legend in the music industry, and his parties have become legendary as the most star-studded and excitement-packed of VIP bashes,” the academy said at the time.
“Through the years, an array of A-lists talents have performed at these events, turning the celebrations into the ultimate, intimate, ‘insider,’ concerts,” it added.
Discovering artists such as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston, and Alicia Keys, among others, is how he helped create the soundtrack of generations – and how the music industry came to know him as “the man with the golden ears.”
But it was the great American songbook of the early 20th century that really inspired Davis’ tastes, his friend of 15 years, former New York Post critic, Michael Riedel, told us.
“He loved Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin and Cole Porter… His sensibility was, he knew music was changing. His mentor was Goddard Lieberson,” Riedel said of the composer who ran Columbia Records from 1956 to 1976.
Davis eventually became the president of Columbia Records, where he established himself as a music mogul by 35. It was there, where he signed a young Bruce Springsteen. In a statement to Page Six, Springsteen called Davis a “great record man and close friend.”
