WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Clive Davis, the pioneering American music executive who made megastars of Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Carrie Underwood and many others during half a century of shaping modern music, died Monday at age 94, US media reported.

The industry A-lister and onetime boss of Columbia Records, who embraced genres from rock & roll to early hip-hop and pop, was recently hospitalised with respiratory problems, according to a New York Times report.

The Davis family confirmed his death.