Doug Davis | |
---|---|
Born | Douglas J. Davis March 6, 1974 New York City, US |
Education | Syracuse University (BA) Fordham Law School (JD) |
Occupation(s) | Entertainment lawyer and record producer |
Spouse | Jessie Muscio (m. 2019) |
Children | 2 |
Parent(s) | Clive Davis Janet Adelberg |
Website | davisfirm |
Douglas J. Davis (born March 6, 1974) is an American music industry executive, entertainment lawyer [1] and producer. He has won four Grammy Awards. [2]
Davis was born in New York City, the son of Clive Davis and Janet Adelberg Davis. Davis has three siblings: Fred, Lauren and Mitchell. [1] He attended The Town School and the Dwight School in New York. [1] Davis graduated from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University with a degree in political science, and from Fordham University School of Law with a Juris Doctor. [3] [4]
Davis is the founder and managing partner of The Davis Firm, PLLC, a music, entertainment and sports law firm. [5]
He is the executive producer of the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy gala. [6] [7] Davis has produced original music for Disney, Netflix, WWE (under the pseudonym, "def rebel"), Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures. [8] Davis was a licensed NBA player agent, [9] who negotiated Metta World Peace's agreement with the New York Knicks. [10] [11] In 2015, Davis, along with Roger Gastman, co-curated Work In Progress, an art gallery and marketplace event in Los Angeles. [12] In 2014–2015, Davis pursued the purchase of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks basketball team. [13]
Davis served as a producer of American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom by John Daversa Big Band Featuring 53 DACA recipients, which was released in September 2018. [14] The project received bipartisan support through endorsements from Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris and Lindsey Graham. [15] The album won three Grammys: Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album; Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella; and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. [16] In 2019, Davis served as a producer of Shoulder to Shoulder: A Centennial Tribute to Women's Suffrage by The Karrin Allyson Sextet, [17] and The Omni American Book Club by the Brian Lynch Big Band which won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. [18] Davis served as producer of Four Questions by Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra which won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. [19] [20] Davis served as producer of Fandango At The Wall In New York by Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra which won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. [21] [2] Davis served as executive producer of the Aretha Franklin memorial concert and TV special Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul which aired on CBS. [22]
In 2021, Davis produced New York's "We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert" in Central Park's Great Lawn for an estimated 60,000 people and global TV event broadcast by CNN in 200 countries and featured the performances of Andrea Bocelli, the New York Philharmonic, Jennifer Hudson, LL Cool J, Journey, Carlos Santana featuring Rob Thomas and others, [23] which celebrated the city's emergence from the pandemic. [24] [25]
Davis sits on the Board of Directors of the UJA-Federation, [26] the boards of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University [27] and Fuck Cancer. [28] Davis serves on the entertainment committee for the annual Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Gala [29] and has chaired fundraising events for the Drug Policy Alliance [30] and City of Hope National Medical Center. [31]
Davis was a founding board member of the Forum on Law, Culture & Society, a position he held for ten years. [32] In 2016, Billboard magazine named Davis to its list of top philanthropists in music. [33]
Davis appeared in Jeff Rabhan's book "Cool Jobs In The Music Business". [4] In 2012 The Hollywood Reporter called Davis's Twitter (@DJD) one of the "Top 5 Music Power" accounts. [34]
Since 2016, Billboard magazine has annually listed Davis one of the "top power lawyers" in music, [35] [36] [37] [38] since 2017 Best Lawyers in America has recognized Davis for Entertainment Law – Music. [39] Since 2018 Variety has named Davis in its Legal Impact issue [40] and in 2019 Davis was profiled by Super Lawyers for Entertainment & Sports. [41]
In 2018, Variety named Davis Lawyer of the Year at its annual Power Of Law event. [42]
Davis lives in New York City with stylist wife Jessie Davis and their daughters Billie and Cody in a townhouse originally built for Clement Clarke Moore. [43] In 2007, during an emergency appendectomy, Davis was found to have a carcinoid tumor. [44] Davis described the moment as one of dumb luck which could have led to a terminal condition that became an awakening [43] and the impetus for his philanthropic work. [33]
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, actress, film producer, and philanthropist. Known as "the Voice", she is one of the most awarded entertainers of all time and among the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales of over 220 million records worldwide. Houston is known for her crossover appeal on popular music charts that influenced the breaking down of racial barriers, the recording industry, and popular culture, as well as her powerful, soulful vocal performances, the popularization of using gospel singing techniques in pop music, and film production. In 2023, she was ranked second on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest singers of all time. Houston had 11 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and is the only artist to have seven consecutive number-one singles on the chart. She also enhanced her popularity by entering the film industry. Her accolades include eight Grammy Awards, 22 American Music Awards, two Emmy Awards, and 30 Guinness World Records. Houston's inductions include the Grammy Hall of Fame (twice), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, the BET Walk of Fame, the Soul Train Hall of Fame, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the New Jersey Hall of Fame, and the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.
Aretha Louise Franklin was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the "Queen of Soul", Rolling Stone twice named her as the greatest singer of all time.
Clive Jay Davis is an American record producer, A&R executive, record executive, and lawyer. He has won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a non-performer, in 2000.
William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He has worked with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonists Wayne Shorter and David Sanborn, among others. He was the main songwriter and producer on three of Davis' albums: Tutu (1986), Music from Siesta (1987), and Amandla (1989). His collaboration with Vandross was especially close; he co-produced and served as the arranger for most of Vandross' albums, and he and Vandross co-wrote many of Vandross' songs, including the hits "I Really Didn't Mean It", "Any Love", "Power of Love/Love Power" and "Don't Want to Be a Fool". He also co-wrote the 1988 single "Da Butt" for Experience Unlimited.
Arista Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously a division of BMG Entertainment, the North American division of German conglomerate Bertelsmann. Founded in November 1974 by Clive Davis and deactivated in 2011, Arista was re-established in 2018. Along with RCA Records, Columbia Records, and Epic Records, it is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered to have been one of the foremost pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
Antonio Marquis "L.A." Reid is an American record executive, A&R representative, and record producer. He has served as the chairman and CEO of Epic Records and The Island Def Jam Music Group, as well as the president and CEO of Arista Records. He co-founded the record label Hitco Entertainment in 2017, which was sold to Concord in 2022.
Patrice Louise Rushen is an American jazz pianist and R&B singer. She is also a composer, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and music director.
Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill was a Cuban composer, arranger, and conductor, best known for his work in the Latin idiom, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz or "Cubop", although he also composed traditional jazz pieces and even symphonic works.
A Rose Is Still a Rose is the thirty-fourth studio album by American recording artist Aretha Franklin. It was released on March 24, 1998, by Arista Records. Conceived after a longer hiatus and a complete departure from her previous studio album What You See Is What You Sweat (1991), the album includes influences of 1990s hip hop as well as modern-day contemporary R&B and soul music. Throughout the project, Franklin worked with many famed hip hop producers and rappers, such as Lauryn Hill, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Jermaine Dupri, and Daryl Simmons. With the latter acts producing most of the album, A Rose Is Still a Rose deviated from the adult contemporary sound of Franklin's older work.
Neil R. Portnow is an American music industry executive who served as the chairman and CEO of The Recording Academy and MusiCares from 2002 to 2019. Prior to that, Portnow was the vice-president of the West Coast division of Jive Records and Arista Records.
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So Damn Happy is the thirty-fifth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin. Her first studio album in five years. The album featured the Grammy Award-winning track "Wonderful", a single co-written and produced by Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence and G Syier Hawkins Brown.
Jim Anderson is a recording engineer and Producer of acoustic music in the recording, radio, television, and film industries.
Christopher Normand Taylor is a Canadian music industry lawyer and Grammy Award winning record label executive.
Robert Adrian Stringer is a British music industry executive. He is served as the chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment since 2017. He is also a director of Luton Town F.C.
Peter Edge is an English-American record executive. He is the chairman and CEO of RCA Records.
Kabir Sehgal is an American author, composer, producer, navy officer, military veteran, investment banker, and financial executive. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of twelve books. He has also won five Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards as a record producer. He was previously a vice president at JPMorgan Chase and worked at First Data Corporation.
American Dreamers: Voices of Hope, Music of Freedom is a studio album by the John Daversa Big Band and produced by Kabir Sehgal and Doug Davis, released on September 21, 2018. The album was recorded with more than 50 singers and musicians who entered America as children. Daversa intended the album as a message to politicians to protect immigrants. The album has been described as "invigorating" and "one of, if not the most, important musical statements across several genres this year aimed at bringing unity and healing divisiveness".
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