Knowing How It Will Play in Peoria : Pop music: Arista Records President Clive Davis has shown a knack for picking winners. The hits will be heard in a CBS special tonight.

“He has the ears of middle America.”

That’s the way Don Ienner, president of Columbia Records, explains the success and longevity of his former boss, Arista Records President Clive Davis.

Those who tune in tonight’s television special, “That’s What Friends Are For,” will see just what Ienner means. The show, which airs at 9 p.m. on CBS-TV (Channels 2, 8), commemorates Arista’s 15th anniversary and features performances by such pop stars as Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, Taylor Dayne, Lisa Stansfield and Milli Vanilli.

Few of these performers have become critical favorites (British newcomer Stansfield being a notable exception), but all have enjoyed huge success. The various acts on the special have tallied 50 Top 10 hits on Arista.

Ienner, who was Davis’ No. 2 executive before shifting to Columbia last year, amplified on his “middle America” comment in a recent interview.

“The thing is that he really loves these songs,” he said by phone from his office in New York. “When (Dayne’s) ‘I’ll Always Love You’ or (Houston’s) ‘Greatest Love of All’ or (Manilow’s) ‘I Write the Songs’ comes on the radio, some people think they’re schmaltzy, but Clive genuinely loves them. . . . He has better Tin Pan Alley ears than anybody.”

Davis, 55, understands that the remark is meant as a compliment, but he is uncomfortable with the idea of being known as the man with his finger on the pulse of middle America.

“I’m proud of what I did with Manilow,” Davis said in an interview in his favorite bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I love what I’m doing with Whitney and Taylor and Aretha (Franklin) and Dionne (Warwick).

“But I’m also proud that an idiosyncratic, intelligent, cerebral kind of group like the Grateful Dead has chosen to spend 12 years on Arista and that Patti Smith has come back to us. I’ve also loved working with the Kinks and Lou Reed and Graham Parker.”

Davis’ concern is that Arista’s success with high-visibility pop stars has overshadowed the company’s rock signings--which have also included the Alan Parsons Project, Al Stewart and the Allman Brothers Band.

But Davis’ distaste for the “middle America” tag seemed to go beyond company image and positioning.

“That phrase has a connotation somewhat like pabulum,” Davis added. ‘It connotes something bland and somewhat sterile. It’s stultifying. I’m not the Osmond Brothers or Lawrence Welk.”

Bland is one thing the Brooklyn native has never been called.

Davis is arguably the most colorful executive in the business. Bright, brash and witty, he is alternately lauded for his keen commercial instincts and ridiculed for what some see as an oversized ego.

Joe Smith, president and CEO of Capitol-EMI Music, spoke highly of Davis in a recent interview. “We all have a lot of fun with Clive and kid him about his ego, but there’s no denying that he’s one of the three or four best executives in the business,” Smith said.

“Clive has amazing ambition and tremendous drive and always seems to be putting himself on trial, and as a result he stays active and interested.”

On the matter of his ego, Davis said that he is simply misunderstood.

“Whenever I mention all the acts that I have signed and discovered, it’s interpreted in some quarters as egotistical,” he said. “But my signings are my creative credentials. The list of artists that I’ve signed is as important creatively to me as a list of songs is to a composer. It’s like when an artist sits down at a piano and says, ‘And then I wrote.’ But nobody ever takes it that way.”

The “That’s What Friends Are For” special, titled after Warwick’s Grammy-winning 1985 single on Arista, was taped March 17 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. As with the single, net proceeds from the special are going to AIDS charities, specifically the New York-based Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the country’s first and largest AIDS service organization. Davis said that the Radio City concert generated $1.8 million and that CBS paid an additional $1.2 million for broadcast rights.

Davis first became a record company president in 1966 at CBS’ Columbia Records. Over the course of the next seven years, he signed such powerhouse rock acts as Janis Joplin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Santana, Pink Floyd and Billy Joel.

The executive was fired in May of 1973, allegedly for misappropriating $94,000 in company funds. Davis, who was later exonerated of the principal allegations, has always maintained that he was the victim of a power struggle at CBS. The company ended up giving Davis $1 million to start Arista, which hit No. 1 with its first release, Manilow’s “Mandy” in January of 1975.

Capitol-EMI’s Smith said that he admired the way Davis rebuilt his career. “What he has managed to do with his label has been nothing short of brilliant,” Smith said. “He stepped into a situation with no catalogue sales or major stars on the label. He had to build that.”

Davis, who is twice divorced but remains close to his four grown children, works hard to stay current. He devours all of the music trade papers as well as Rolling Stone and Great Britain’s Music Week. And he routinely listens to staff-prepared cassette tapes that include every record that’s breaking onto the music charts.

Feisty and animated for most of the interview, Davis suddenly became reflective when discussing the need to keep abreast of the latest pop trends.

“I know that I could go over the hill at any time,” he said quietly. “I’m not cocky or arrogant enough (to think otherwise). That’s why I make a point to keep listening to the new sounds. I see those colleagues or peers that I observe to have gone over the hill. They’re the ones that haven’t kept their ears fresh.”

Davis said that the he has given no thought to retiring--or to kicking himself up to chairman of Arista and letting someone else run the show.

“I love music,” he said, before screening the TV special in his bungalow for Manilow and other guests. “It’s both exciting and creatively fulfilling and I have every plan to continue with it. I get as much pleasure from new artists breaking as I ever did. Knock wood, I’ve been blessed with good energy and strength. I don’t feel overtaxed. I don’t feel myself slowing down. I still think of myself as 31.”