This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Schulhof, the 55-year-old founder and CEO of MUSQ Global Music Industry ETF based in New York City. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up with Clive. I went to school with his kids, and my dad was actually hired by him for a job early in his career. I’ll always remember he had this amazing apartment on the West Side that we’d go to every year to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from.
When I was growing up, Clive always shared amazing stories about the artists he worked with, and it really inspired me to join the industry. Although I never worked with him directly at record labels, I learned from him all along the way.
About a decade ago, he reached out to me to co-produce a documentary about his life, “The Soundtrack of Our Lives.” The film is now on Netflix.
Clive taught me that as long as you have drive, taste, and work ethic, you can work and succeed until the day you die. In his case, 94 years, Clive, God rest his soul, had the most incredible career in music from the day he was hired at Columbia Records (a subsidiary of CBS) to the day he died.
Clive taught me lessons that helped me in the music industry
I always admired that Clive was a real music man. Not only did he select amazing artists to work with, whether it was Carlos Santana or Whitney Houston, but he also knew how to select the right material to get each artist a hit.
When I started a private equity-backed music publishing company, I made it a priority to have great songs. Clive taught me that.
I’ll never forget, he also told me, “Having a hit song is like a three-legged stool. You need the song, the performance, and the production. You can’t miss anything there.” I’ve carried that into all of the companies I’ve worked for and in my entrepreneurial career in the music industry.
His attention to detail was out of this world
Working closely with Clive on his documentary showed me just how tremendous his work ethic was.
He truly wanted to capture the full history of every artist, and just when we thought we were done covering a subject, he’d go into much further detail. I think part of his attention to detail had to do with the fact that he was a lawyer by training.
That level of detail, whether it was being a lawyer, publisher, or documentarian, was a really inspiring quality that came across during my time growing up with him and working with him on the movie.
I got to see Clive a few weeks ago
On May 8, I hosted the Amplify Music Investment Summit, and I had Clive give one of the keynote speeches. He told all sorts of funny stories and was interviewed by his son, and it was wonderful.
It’s really great to hear Clive speak because he sounded and dressed like a very educated man from Europe, but then his Brooklyn-isms would come out, and you’d realize he’s just a man from the street who really succeeded with hard work.
Both of his parents died very young; he got through college and law school, worked his way up through hard work, and became a tremendous family and business man. Family was everything to him. He was as successful as a family man as he was a music executive.
One of my standout moments with him was his 2012 pre-Grammy party
Of course, Clive also threw amazing parties. I’ve never seen a room filled with so many successful celebrities and artists at once. I also witnessed some very difficult things at them.
One of his pre-Grammy parties took place on the day that Whitney Houston died, and rather than canceling the party, Clive carried on the show.
I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing: the way Clive brought together so much of the music industry on a night when so many people were weeping and in shock. It will go down as one of the greatest, most beautiful yet traumatic signs of resilience in life.
Clive’s legacy will live on
There’s no other executive I’ve worked with who’s touched nearly 70 years of music. His lessons to me were to trust my gut, use my taste, use my ears, work with great people, and get great material.
My heart goes out to Clive’s family. He was a very special man, and his legacy, music, and brilliance will live on for generations. What he did in the music industry can’t be done in 10 to 15 years. He did this over a lifetime, and it’s tremendous. I’m just lucky to be a small part of it.
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