He Tore His ACL.
He Sold Jingles.
Then Clive Davis Called.

The Harvey Mason Jr. Story

The Person Who Believed In Me  ·  Hosted by David Begnaud

"Harvey Mason Jr. played in the Final Four, tore his ACL, and spent a year watching soap operas trying to figure out his life. Then he wrote a jingle for a brake shop. Then a song found its way to Clive Davis in a Beverly Hills bungalow - and one man's belief set the course of everything that followed."

- David Begnaud

The Bungalow and the Yes That Changed Everything.

Clive Davis held his meetings at the Beverly Hills Hotel, always in the same bungalow. Harvey Mason Jr. had never been to the Beverly Hills Hotel. He didn't know what a bungalow was. He walked in at around thirty-two or thirty-three years old - nervous, overwhelmed by the exquisite landscaping, the flowers, the table full of snacks, the big speakers - and was told to play some music. In that room, one man had the power to put you in the game or tell you to keep working.

One thing you needed to know about Clive: you didn't just play him music. You handed him printed lyrics. He read along while he listened. Harvey watched him close his eyes. Start nodding. Start smiling. Start tapping what Harvey described as his big Clive Davis fingers. The song was "I Like Them Girls," eventually recorded by Tyrese. It was the first song Harvey and his writing partner had ever written together. Clive loved it and wanted to be in business with them. That was the beginning of a thirty-year relationship.

There was a deeper twist to the story. Clive Davis had also once believed in Harvey's father - legendary jazz drummer Harvey Mason Sr. - signing him to an artist deal at Arista Records after seeing him play a session and telling him: you should make a record. Harvey Sr. had resisted; he was a drummer, not a singer. Clive insisted. And decades later, he did the same thing for the son.

▶ Watch on YouTube: The bungalow meeting and Clive says yes - ~4:57

Aretha Didn't Feel It At First. Then She Sent Flowers.

Clive didn't put Harvey in front of Aretha Franklin immediately. He had to earn it. First came the younger artists - Tyrese, then the American Idol wave: Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia. And then, over time, the legends. When Clive trusted him to go work with Aretha, Harvey flew to Detroit. He wasn't thinking about how excited he was to be there. He was thinking: how do I get the best out of this artist? That was always the job. Not the credit. The vocal.

The interaction was respectful, but contentious. Harvey pushed. Aretha pushed back. She had been doing this for decades before some thirty-something producer showed up in her session telling her to try something different. She finished the song. Harvey flew home to LA, mixed it, and sent her the CD. She wrote to Clive: Harvey pushed me too hard, I haven't even listened to the CD because it's cracked, and I don't think he's the right producer for me. Harvey sent her a new one. She listened. The next day, a bouquet of flowers arrived. Attached was a note: that's one of my favorite vocals I've ever recorded.

He still keeps the photo of himself and Aretha standing next to those flowers. They went on to record together for years - right up to her final recording. What unlocked it, Harvey said, was the moment she understood he had no agenda other than making her great. Not building his own brand. Not drawing attention to himself. Serving her.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Aretha, the cracked CD, and the flowers - ~9:01

Whitney Said You Have Me for 15 Minutes. Seven Hours Later, She Was Still Singing.

Whitney Houston came in and announced she would sing the song once and leave. Fifteen minutes, one pass, done. Harvey watched her sing it and said: that was so incredible. I can't believe how great that was. Can you do me one favor? There's one little section we're missing. Just one more time. She said no. He said I know it can be better. Just one more pass. She agreed to sing to the first chorus only. He let her get there, then said: Whitney, I think you can do the second verse better. She said: Harvey, you're negotiating with me.

What eventually worked was telling her the truth: his only job was to make the fans listen to the song and say, that's the best Whitney Houston I've ever heard. That's what I want for you. She believed him. She worked with him. They recorded that song for seven hours instead of fifteen minutes. It was, Harvey said, a real breakthrough - and built a relationship that lasted to the end of her life. He recorded her last vocal the day before she passed away.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Whitney, the negotiation, and seven hours - ~13:59

Seventy Offers. The Final Four. Coach Lute Olson's Bar.

Harvey Mason Jr. grew up in Southern California, led the state in scoring in high school, and had seventy scholarship offers before choosing the University of Arizona. The deciding factor was Coach Lute Olson - partly for the TV exposure, partly because Olson had come into the family's living room and absolutely charmed his parents. Harvey committed as a junior in high school and Olson kept showing up to his games through his entire senior year - after Harvey had already signed. Harvey said: maybe he was enjoying it, maybe he was doing it to show support, maybe he was in LA recruiting other kids and just came to make sure I knew he cared.

At Arizona, Harvey arrived as a highly recruited star and immediately got humbled. He came off the bench, played inconsistently, and spent years frustrated by a coach who seemed to see something in him that he wasn't showing. In the moment, Harvey read it as a lack of belief. He used it as fuel. He practiced harder to prove the coach wrong. It took him twenty years - literally two decades - to understand what Olson was actually doing. His bar of excellence was higher than Harvey's. He wasn't refusing to believe. He was refusing to settle.

The team made it to the Final Four in 1988. Harvey wrote years later about his teammate Steve Kerr - how Kerr called out players for sleeping on a bus between games, saying: how can you be sleeping on the way to a game? We should be thinking, studying the scouting report. It was one of the first times Harvey saw what it looked like to hold yourself to a completely different standard of preparation.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Recruiting, Lute Olson, and the Final Four - ~20:41

The Torn ACL. The Soap Operas. The Jingle for a Brake Shop.

It ended on an abrupt landing. Harvey jumped for a shot, came down wrong, and tore his ACL. After years of waking up at dawn, dribbling home from school, working out every day, pointing everything toward a career in basketball - it was over in one moment. He spent the next year in Tucson watching soap operas, barely able to move, trying to figure out what he was now. All of his self-worth had been built around basketball. Every last bit of it.

The thing that got him through was a small keyboard sitting in his dorm room. In his depression, in his uncertainty, he sat down and made music. It was the only thing that made him feel okay. He wrote songs. He kept writing. Then his girlfriend - who would become his first wife - told him she worked at an ad agency that needed music. Why not take what you're doing out of despair and turn it into a jingle about a brake store? He wrote one. They paid him seven hundred dollars. He was shocked. He thought: maybe there's a future here.

That led to Harvey driving around Tucson in his car - burger places, Chinese buffets, gyms - pitching local businesses on radio jingles. He sold a ton of them. He was writing every day. And suddenly, he wasn't depressed anymore. He wasn't thinking about basketball. He was thinking about the next step, and then the step after that. Because that's what Coach Olson and Steve Kerr had wired into him: you don't just make cool songs. You think ten moves ahead.

▶ Watch on YouTube: The torn ACL, the depression, and the jingles - ~28:39

When Someone's Pushing You That Hard, That IS Belief.

Before Harvey left, he said something very profound. He turned to the camera and gave the lesson he had clearly been waiting to say. When you're in the moment of somebody believing in you, sometimes it doesn't feel like belief. Sometimes it feels like doubt. Sometimes it feels like the person in front of you doesn't trust you at all.

When somebody is pushing you and challenging you and asking you to be better and expecting more from you - maybe you can consider that the ultimate sign of belief. Because if they didn't believe in you, you probably wouldn't be in that situation, and they definitely wouldn't be challenging you. He said: I didn't see it at the time. You see it after. But I hate for people to go through life feeling like they weren't believed in - when actually there was somebody right there the whole time, believing in them, pushing them, maybe getting mad at them, maybe giving them a swat on the back. That, he said, is the ultimate form of belief.

It is what Clive Davis did in the bungalow. It is what Lute Olson did in practice. It is what Harvey Mason Sr. did running up and down the aisles of basketball stadiums and telling every room his son walked into: this one is special. And it is what Harvey Mason Jr. now tries to do for the people he mentors - staff members, young artists, anyone who comes to him with music or business questions or something they can't name yet. He tries to make sure they feel it. So they don't have to wait twenty years.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Harvey's closing message on belief - ~1:02:42

Stories like Harvey's are what we do.

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