“It’s a special night,” Frankie Valli said as guests waited in line to get into the Beverly Hilton ballroom. He wasn’t lying. Clive Davis’ Annual Pre-Grammy celebration is special—and long. The evening began about an hour late, as it took forever to get the legion of stars to take their seats and serve dinner.
But it also started with a bang, with Gayle King introducing a video from former president Barack Obama. “Clive is a force of nature,” Obama said of the evening’s host. “He knew that great music can come from anywhere and be enjoyed by audiences everywhere. All it needs is a champion. At a time when Black artists struggled to find distribution, Clive signed Gamble and Huff, helping bring the sound of Philadelphia to the world and inspiring thousands of Black artists.”
Davis presided over the event both figuratively and physically, sitting at a table on the stage. Between each performance, he talked about the icons in the room. At 91, he knows every legend in music; he also had a teleprompter placed within his line of sight to help with those he didn’t know as intimately, feeding Davis statistics about artists like Alex Warren, Sombr, and MGK. At times, the night could be a bit long-winded: Davis would go off script, and there arewerea lot of performers for him to introduce. Recording Academy President Harvey Mason Jr. helped move things along, and definitely seems to belive that brevity is the soul of wit—at least when introducing acts and executives to the stage. He was the yin to Davis’ long-winded yen.
The biggest applause of the night went to Joni Mitchell and Don Lemon, who both received shout-outs from Davis. Mitchell sat at a table with Brandi Carlile, and the crowd leapt to their feet when Davis revealed the folk legend was in the room. Later in the night, Davis introduced Lemon, recently released after being charged for allegedly violating federal law for protesting in Minnesota. Lemon stood up as the crowd gave him a standing ovation.
The real highlight of the night is the performances. Best new artist nominee Olivia Dean sang “Man I Need;” Jennifer Hudson sang a cover of Roberta Flack’s “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” and Art Garfunkel performed “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Davis puts together the lineup meticulously, and explains the reasoning behind choosing every singer before they go up on the stage. He also assembles a killer guest list; this year’s included Lana Del Rey, producer Jack Antonoff, Tyla, and Teyana Taylor. The night also celebrated songwriter Bernie Taupin and Ozzy Osborne with tribute performances. Osborne’s family was in the audience to watch. The founders of Republic Records, Avery and Monte Lippman, received the Icon Award as well.
