When I think back over more than four decades of friendship with Clive Davis, two moments always come to mind. In 1981, I was in a basement club on Baker Street in London to see a band I desperately wanted to sign: Haircut 100. The moment I saw Clive there, I knew they’d sign to Arista. I was introduced to him that night. As a young talent scout, I was completely intimidated.

A couple of years ago, I was in France and Allen Grubman invited me to lunch with Clive and his partner. It was an unforgettable afternoon, with Clive serving as an encyclopedic guide through the history of the music business, his years at CBS Records, the artists, the bets he made and why he made them. We never worked together, but I loved how he fused creative and commercial nous, setting the way for the modern music business.

My deepest, heartfelt condolences to his family, his four children and countless friends.

I remember distinctly one afternoon with Clive, Richard Perry, Arnold Stiefel and myself in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Richard and I had recorded a couple of tracks for the first Great American Songbook [album]. Clive didn’t like them and said, “They’re not right. I want it more Fred and Ginger” [as in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers]. Clive then stood up and started dancing around the room to make his point, then grabbed Arnold and made him his partner. So Richard and I followed suit and began dancing with each other around the room. Can you imagine four grown men dancing around the room with Clive shouting, “It must be more Fred and Ginger! It must be more Fred and Ginger!”

At around 6 p.m., when things quieted down, a few nights a week Clive would call me up to his office. We would listen to new music that came in, some mixes, edits or songs he was gathering for our artists. There would be a nice chunk of Jarlsberg cheese and some Carrs crackers. Occasionally, there would be Absolut Vodka in his freezer and maybe we would have a drink, but mostly we would play music and make some singles decisions and I would give him the lay of the land in radio and marketing, which I was responsible for at that time. We would laugh a lot, talk sports and then get back into listening and listening and listening more.

Those candid moments with him would help shape my outlook, my dedication to excellence, and for that and so much more, I am eternally grateful to Clive for his unyielding desire to win, but with an elegance and warmth that he had in abundance.

Clive never, ever put people in a box. He didn’t say to you, “Oh, you can’t do that because that’s not your job,” or, “Stay in your lane.” He tried to figure out what people’s strengths were, and he had you work within those strengths, which was an amazing learning experience. So if he thought I was the right person to give comments to a songwriter on a song, he would have me do it. He would hold the bar really high, and I would sit there and say, “My God, I can’t,” and most of us were like that: “I can’t possibly do that. What is he thinking?” And then you would accomplish it and you would go, “Oh, my God. He’s going to expect me to do it again.”

He expected so much of his people that he made you push yourself, because he pushed himself so much. People ask me sometimes, because I know there are so many different stories of Clive, “Did he really know what was going on with the business?” And the answer was yes. Every detail. He knew that it was better to leave some of this stuff to others, so that he could be the creative person that works with the artist. But he knew everything.”

Clive was different from the other suits for two reasons, both related — he actually cared about the artists that he worked with and Jerry didn’t have a problem with him.

Clive recognized that working with the Grateful Dead would be a new kind of challenge. He was known as a producer of hit songs, and when he signed us we said, “Hey, Clive, we don’t make hit pop records.” He laughed. We wanted everything our way. Clive came and made his case. He wanted to pick the songs and have a say in the production. But in the end, he felt that our way might just be the right way.

He told me once that we were his wild card, that his greatest challenge was to help the Grateful Dead make a hit. I think he relished the idea from the beginning. Soon after this, [Robert] Hunter and [Jerry] Garcia wrote “Touch of Grey.” We recorded it and Clive was delighted when he heard it. “The Grateful Dead has a hit!” he screamed running up and down the hallway at Arista. “They have a hit!”

I did a song for an 11-year-old artist, Stacy Lattisaw, called “Let Me Be Your Angel” that was climbing the charts, and before I knew it Clive was calling me, asking, “How did you learn to make a record like that? You might want to come do some work for me.” And that’s how it began. He was a real fan of music. When he got excited, when he latched on with his heart to something he loved, everyone was going to hear it. When he would give me songs, I knew if I came to him and put on what they needed to be hits, they would be heard everywhere. He would say, “Go to your mountain to meditate and bring back some hits.” He would fall in love with a demo. Even if there was a mistake, it would charm him and he would want that mistake to be kept.

He was extremely big-hearted. And he picked good people to work for him. The people who worked for him also had the fever. This guy Gerry Griffith [was the one] who called me first to get on Whitney Houston. I said, “But I’m on Aretha right now,” and he said, “You don’t want to miss this girl.” When I first met her in the studio, I recognized this enormous sound and control from this beautiful stellar woman at 19. Just incredible.

Clive of course played a seminal role in the story of Sony Music through two incredible chapters, and he is responsible for a huge part of the recorded legacy of the company permanently. Not only are many, many artists we represent continuously indebted to his service but so many staff members have been influenced and mentored by his deep love and respect for our company, which he carried right up until today. Our working lives are better for having had his constant presence in the aura and perception of Sony Music.

We joined forces well into his storied career. One could not wish for a greater friend or business partner. Our first test — and it was a big one — occurred in November 1999. Clive had been asked to have dinner with then-BMG Entertainment chairman Michael Dornemann and CEO Strauss Zelnick. They informed him that due to Bertelsmann’s mandatory retirement age, which at the time was 60, he was being replaced as CEO of Arista Records and “moved into a chairman’s role.” Clive was 66. Clive walked out of the dinner, and when he got back to his apartment, he called me with the news. He was completely blindsided. As he said that evening, “Ahmet [Ertegun, founder and chairman of Atlantic Records and one of Davis’ great rivals] is in his late 70s — I am a spring chicken as compared to him.” He was, as he put it, “at the peak of my powers.” Arista had released Carlos Santana’s Supernatural album in June 1999. The album would go on to sell over 30 million albums and win nine Grammy Awards. Clive was at his best.

We assembled a team of advisers, including Allen Grubman, Joel Katz and Fred Davis, who helped plan Clive’s next move. The end result of this upheaval was our launching J Records the next year. Our partner was Bertelsmann. Clive was on a mission. He called J Records an “instant major,” and with a $150 million war chest — one of the biggest investments in a new music entity at the time — we were competitive. We competed with all the major labels. Our first office was half a floor in the Waldorf Hotel Towers. We removed all the hotel furniture and installed office furniture. The only problem was that the Waldorf was the locale of choice for U.S. presidents and world leaders.

A few weeks after moving in, we were paid a visit by the U.S. Secret Service. Bill Clinton, who was the president at the time, was coming to New York and was going to be in residence on the floor above us. The Secret Service needed to perform a security sweep of our various rooms. They came in with several German shepherd sniffer dogs and asked us to leave the premises while they conducted their sweep. These dogs had a ferocious look about them and were quite intimidating. Clive and I were sitting at his makeshift desk, grappling with completing Alicia Keys’ debut album, Songs in A Minor. Clive calmly told the Secret Service agents that their German shepherds were disrupting important work, and could they come back tomorrow. They obeyed and came back later. Nothing could get in the way of the music. Not even the needs of the president of the United States of America. The artist always came first.