He Missed the NBA and Built a Music Empire | Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr.

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Before Harvey Mason Jr. became the CEO of the Recording Academy and a legendary music producer who worked with Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson, he was a college basketball player at the University of Arizona headed to the NBA. Then a torn ACL ended his career in one awkward landing, leaving him watching soap operas in a dorm room, depressed and driving around Tucson pitching jingles to Chinese buffets and brake shops. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the Grammy executive sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the man who believed in him when he was still figuring out who he was: Clive Davis, the legendary music mogul who put him in a room with Aretha Franklin and changed everything. Harvey opens up about the day he walked into Clive's bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, nervous and blown away by the flowers and the speakers and the man who had signed his father as an artist decades earlier. He talks about playing I Like Them Girls for Clive, watching him close his eyes and nod his head, and getting the yes that gave him a confidence boost he didn't know he needed. He shares what it was like to produce Aretha's vocals, pushing her so hard she sent a furious letter to Clive saying Harvey wasn't the right producer, only to send him flowers the next day after hearing the recording and calling it one of her favorite vocals ever. He reflects on recording Whitney Houston for seven hours when she'd only promised him 15 minutes, convincing her to keep going by saying his only job was to make fans say that's the best Whitney Houston song I've ever heard. There's also a raw reflection on belief, identity, and what it means to be pushed. Harvey talks about his father, drummer Harvey Mason Sr., who believed so fiercely in him that it became both a gift and a weight, and how that shaped the way he raised his own kids. He opens up about playing for Coach Lute Olson at Arizona, feeling like Olson didn't believe in him for years, and only realizing decades later that the harde