25 Years of #1 Hits: Arista Records' Anniversary Celebration' Set To Air As NBC-TV Special on May 15th

Whitney Houston, Santana, Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox, LFO, Kenny G, Barry Manilow, Monica, Deborah Cox, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Alan Jackson, and Brooks & Dunn set to appear; other special all-star collaborations tba


NEW YORK, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- As Arista Records continues to celebrate the greatest six months of sales in the company's history -- in excess of $300 million for the 6-month period ending December 31st -- the company has announced the first wave of artists set to perform on the upcoming NBC-TV special, "25 Years of #1 Hits: Arista Records' Anniversary Celebration," including Whitney Houston, Santana, Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox, LFO, Kenny G, Barry Manilow, Monica, Deborah Cox, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Alan Jackson, and Brooks & Dunn. Produced by dick clark productions, the special will tape at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 10th and will air during the sweeps on May 15th, 8-10:00 p.m. (EST, check local listings). Additional artists will be announced in the weeks ahead.

Arista Records was founded by Clive Davis in 1975 and named after his high school honor society. The label boasts a core roster of performers who have been with the company for more than a decade: Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Kenny G, Sarah McLachlan, Eurythmics, Alan Jackson, and the Grateful Dead Family. Into the '90s the roster has grown to include Monica, Deborah Cox, Lisa Stansfield, Brooks & Dunn, Ace Of Base, Next, LFO, and Santana; as well as Atlanta-based LaFace Records (TLC, Toni Braxton, OutKast, Usher) and entrepreneur Sean "Puffy" Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment (Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, 112, Mase).

Santana, Whitney Houston, Sarah McLachlan, LFO, Kenny G, Monica, Deborah Cox, Alan Jackson, and Brooks & Dunn represent some of the industry's biggest successes of 1999. Santana earned 11 Grammy nominations and is at the top of every year-end poll as the story of 1999. Supernatural, their first #1 album since 1971, produced by Clive Davis and Carlos Santana, has been certified 7-times RIAA platinum -- and with its return to the #1 position in January 2000, became the only album in history to hit #1 in two millennia. Its first single, "Smooth," co-written by and featuring Rob Thomas of matchbox 20, the first #1 single of Santana's career, was also Soundscan's longest-running #1 pop single of 1999, at 12 consecutive weeks.

Whitney Houston collected seven Grammy nominations this year for My Love Is Your Love, produced by Clive Davis and Whitney Houston, her first non-soundtrack related studio album in eight years, certified double-platinum in the U.S. with international sales of more than 8 million copies. Three- time Grammy nominee Sarah McLachlan released the first live solo album of her career in 1999, the double-platinum Mirrorball. Its top 15 pop hit, "I Will Remember You," is the only live song on Billboard's year-end list of the top Hot 100 singles of 1999.

Carly Simon, whose most recent albums include Letters Never Sent (1994) and Film Noir (1997), is in the process of completing a new studio album, due for release later this year. After taking her leave of Eurythmics in 1989, Annie Lennox released her RIAA double-platinum solo debut album in 1992, Diva (with "Why" and "Walking On Broken Glass"); followed by the platinum Medusa in 1995 (with "No More I Love You's"). Last year she reunited with partner Dave Stewart on Peace, the first new Eurythmics album in a decade, which yielded the #1 Dance single, "Seventeen Again."

Monica, who holds the record as the youngest artist in history to have two consecutive #1 hits on the Billboard R&B chart (which she achieved in 1995), has had an extraordinary 18 months -- with her double-platinum second album The Boy Is Mine yielding three consecutive #1 R&B and #1 pop platinum hits, "Angel Of Mine," "The First Night" and the Grammy-winning "The Boy Is Mine," her duet with Brandy. Another record-holder is Deborah Cox, whose platinum hit "Nobody's Supposed To Be Here" (from her platinum second album One Wish) became the longest-running #1 single in modern R&B chart history when it hit 14 consecutive weeks in February.

Arista founding artist Barry Manilow's most recent studio album is Manilow Sings Sinatra, a stunning tribute which he co-produced with Phil Ramone in 1998. Kenny G, the biggest-selling instrumental artist of all time, whose Arista albums total more than 40x-platinum, hurdled past double-platinum with Faith -- A Holiday Album, (featuring "Auld Lang Syne (The Millennium Mix),") long-awaited follow-up to 1994's 8x-platinum Miracles -- The Holiday Album. Also during 1999, Kenny's RIAA gold Classics In The Key Of G spent more than 20 weeks at #1 on the Contemporary Jazz chart; follow-up to 1997's double-platinum Greatest Hits, which held the #1 spot for 44 weeks.

Arista Nashville's Alan Jackson (the first artist signed to the country label in 1989) is riding the top 10 with his 11th consecutive RIAA platinum album, Under the Influence, featuring the top 10 single, "Pop A Top." Brooks & Dunn, who followed in 1991, are headed for their 7th consecutive platinum album with Tight Rope, featuring the top 20 hit, "Beer Thirty."


For further information please visit the Website at http://www.arista.com

SOURCE Arista Records

CO: Arista Records