Looking for the Magic (New York City, the '70s and the Rise of Arista Records)

This history of Arista Records, from its 1960s roots in Bell Records through the transformative success of Whitney Houston in the mid-'80s, tells the story of a record label, its visionary leader, Clive Davis, and the artists and genres it embraced and promoted: Barry Manilow, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, the Kinks and many others.

Author Mitchell Cohen, a well-known music journalist who served as an A&R executive at Arista, interviewed dozens of artists and former colleagues to produce this detailed and thoughtful account of how Arista Records reflected its place and time: New York in the 1970s and early 1980s.

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