But by the mid-1970s he had become more of a force on the country chart, where he had 16 Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hit “Hooked on Music,” between 19. Davis had only four Top 40 pop hit singles with Columbia. He had his first major hit with “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” two years later. He left Boots Enterprises in 1970, shortly after meeting the Columbia Records executive Clive Davis and signing a recording contract with the label. He also began publishing his own songs and persuading Presley and other artists to record them. Sinatra, he played on her studio recordings and in her stage shows. Davis’s experience with a childhood playmate, the 5-year-old son of one of his father’s Black co-workers - conveyed empathy and depth in speaking to racial inequities. “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” with lines like “I’ll just use you, then I’ll set you free” (about desiring only casual sex from a woman), smacked of male chauvinism.īy contrast, “In the Ghetto” - inspired by Mr. Davis in 1974, expressed a naïve optimism verging on schmaltz. Davis’s songwriting in the late 1960s and early ’70s was a product of that era, revealing a debt to both the sunny humanism of 1967’s Summer of Love and the candid sensuality of the sexual revolution that accompanied it.īuoyed by singalong choruses and a handclap beat, “Stop and Smell the Roses,” a Top 10 pop hit for Mr. Davis’s other projects over the last few years included collaborations with the country star Keith Urban and the singer Rivers Cuomo of the band Weezer.

Mars in 2012 was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. He also wrote “Young Girls” with the pop star Bruno Mars a version released by Mr.

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