In general, in this pandemic year, we lost control in time, throwing out the announced routines and watching a few minutes go by while others seem to drag on and on. And yet Clive Davis remains unperturbed. The 88-year-old music executive’s celebrated pre-Grammy party, which he hosted on Saturday night virtually, lasted a whopping five hours – almost as long as his face-to-face counterpart. Davis, however, traded the usual ballroom aperitifs, champagne flutes and gossip from the side of the room for a potpourri of homemade artist performances, interviews and decades-old reminiscences.
In times outside Covid, Davis’s annual party gathers hundreds of artists in gowns and tuxedos, music executives, politicians and other well-known names running the Beverly Hilton hotel on the eve of the Grammy Awards for presentations, giveaways and conversations galore. This year, the online party – which will be followed by a second show in the spring due to the Grammy changing its original date from January to March – was part of a music showcase, part of dinner, part excavation of the box of Davis’ career memories. The program was broadcast to an invite-only group of industry members at Moment House, a beginner live streaming platform supported by investors like Scooter Braun, Troy Carter and Jared Leto; “Backstage”, a smaller subset of 200 VIP guests joined in a Zoom group, some choosing to wear formal clothes, others wrapped in blankets and T-shirts.
Absent were improvised jokes and scattered moments of drama on stage. (Last year’s in-person gala, which took place amid the abrupt and controversial dismissal of CEO Deborah Dugan by the Recording Academy, was a little more confusing.) But Saturday’s show drew dozens of artists to individual conversations: Rapper improved his lasting emotional connection to his hometown, Chicago; John Legend addressed the political and social conflict of the past few months; Bruce Springsteen reminisced about his early years before he started making music (“I was kind of crazy”) and Rickey Minor paid tribute to Aretha Franklin. Legend sang with a grand piano mounted right in front of his five Grammy awards, while Jennifer Hudson sang “Amazing Grace” in a studio. The public celebrities in the live broadcast shook their heads, voicing their favorite lines and spread out in home libraries or on designer sofas with glasses of their favorite drink in their hands.
“I know we can be in the 45% tax range here,” said Jamie Foxx during his presentation, talking to the group through a studio set up inside his home, in response to a question from Clive about how to keep his momentum going. a number of different entertainment industries. “But we were all knocking on someone’s door with a mixtape once. I am still the starving artist. I go there hungry. “
Merck Mercuriadis, Carl Bernstein, Nile Rodgers, D-Nice, Tyra Banks, Dionne Warwick, Quincy Jones, Rob Thomas, Keith Urban, Rob Stringer, Kathy Griffin, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Jack Antonoff and Sir Lucian Grainge were among them entering and leaving the Zoom VIP room, which, unfortunately, had the chat feature disabled. (We can only imagine the conversations that, say, Diddy and House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi would have had there.) During the long night, Dan Smyers of Dan + Shay cuddled up on a couch with several dogs, while Joni Mitchell could be. seen sipping a generous glass of white wine, dressed in black.
When it came to introducing speakers and performers, Davis had no shortage of material to take advantage of: he has a musical career punctuated by C-suite titles at Arista Records, RCA, BMC and Sony Music, carries four Grammys as a producer and personally signed or coached a superstars league that includes Billy Joel, Janis Joplin, Aerosmith and Santana. At the opening of Saturday’s show, Davis made a point of noting that his pre-Grammy gala is attended by “heads of all major record labels in the United States” – and also that he would bring a series of figures that have shaped entire generations of music, such as Berry Gordy and Carole King. “I know I’m using a lot of superlatives tonight, but what can you do when you’re dealing with old artists at their best?” Davis said.
Davis spun a roll of his favorite live historical performances – weaving clips of Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston at the 1994 American Music Awards, the Bee Gees playing “Stayin ‘Alive” in a breathtaking arena, a young Jay-Z and Alicia Keys serenading the night air in New York’s Times Square with “Empire State of Mind” (Alicia, in the live broadcast, reflected on the partnership with Jay: “Music is like a homecoming – when we play together, it’s simply easy ”) and Aretha Franklin singing so perfectly“ Natural Woman ”in 2015 that it brought audience members, including Barack Obama to tears (Clive’s 2021 commentary on the performance:“ If you don’t get the shivers out of it, you should check carefully if there is a pulse. “)
Harvey Mason Jr., who was the acting CEO of the Recording Academy last year since Dugan left, joined Clive on stage at the end of the show to comment on the unique influence of the annual pre-Grammy party. While Saturday’s event raised funds for the Recording Academy’s MusiCares charity, the next March show will be dedicated to the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Davis said Variety last week, invitations to the two shows totaled about 2,000 each, as opposed to about 1,000 participants in the face-to-face precedents.
“Watch the March 13 invitation,” Davis promised in Saturday’s closing speech. “Frankly, I can’t wait to be with you again.” If the well-choreographed show seemed tense at times, its artificiality was also an inevitable juxtaposition against the dark and strange present moment, as well as a testament to Hollywood’s dedication to continuing its own island rites and rituals. At midnight – the exact five-hour mark of the show – Davis closed the stream with an old Beyoncé clip, keeping the court with synchronized dancers in matching golden costumes, regaling a happy pre-pandemic crowd somewhere, sometime less tense, with “Single women”.