Clarence Avant, ‘Godfather of Black Music’ and benefactor of athletes and politicians, dies at 92
NEW YORK (AP) — Clarence Avant, the judicious manager, entrepreneur, facilitator and adviser who helped launch or guide the careers of Quincy Jones, Bill Withers and many others and came to be known as “The Godfather of Black Music,” has died. He was 92.
Avant, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, according to a family statement released Monday morning.
Avant’s achievements were both public and behind the scenes, as a name in the credits, or a name behind the names. Born in a segregated hospital in North Carolina, he became a man of lasting and wide-ranging influence, in part by minding two pieces of advice from an early mentor, the music manager Joe Glaser: Never let on how much you know, and ask for as much money as possible, “without stuttering.”
He broke in as a manager in the 1950s, with such clients as singers Sarah Vaughan and Little Willie John and composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the theme to “Mission: Impossible.” In the 1970s he was an early patron of Black-owned radio stations and, in the 1990s, headed Motown after founder Berry Gordy Jr. sold the company.
He also started such labels as Sussex (a hybrid of two Avant passions — success and sex) and Tabu, with artists including Withers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the S.O.S Band and an obscure singer-songwriter, Sixto Rodriquez, who decades later became famous through the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugarman.”
Other work took place more quietly. Avant brokered the sale of Stax Records to Gulf and Western in 1968, after being recruited by Stax executive Al Bell as a bridge between the entertainment and business industries. He raised money for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, helped Michael Jackson organize his first solo tour and advised Narada Michael Walden, L.A. Reid and Babyface and other younger admirers.
“Everyone in this business has been by Clarence’s desk, if they’re smart,” Quincy Jones liked to say of him.
“Clarence leaves behind a loving family and a sea of friends and associates that have changed the world and will continue to change the world for generations to come. The joy of his legacy eases the sorrow of our loss,” said the statement, which was released by Avant’s son Alex, daughter Nicole and her husband, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Avant’s influence extended to sports. He helped running back Jim Brown transition from football to acting and produced a primetime television special for Muhammad Ali. When baseball great Henry Aaron was on the verge of surpassing Babe Ruth as the game’s home run champion, in 1974, Avant made sure that Aaron received the kind of lucrative commercial deals often elusive for Black athletes, starting with a personal demand to the president of Coca-Cola.
Aaron would later tell The Undefeated that everything he had become was “because of Clarence Avant.”
Avant met Jacqueline Gray, a model at the time, at an Ebony Fashion Fair in mid-1960s and married her in 1967. They had two children: Music producer-manager Alexander Devore and Nicole Avant, the former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and, along with Sarandos, a major fundraiser for Obama. Besides his Rock Hall induction, his honors included two honorary Grammys, an NAACP Image Award and a BET entrepreneur award.
In 2021, Jacqueline Avant was murdered in their Beverly Hills home, her death mourned by Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson among others. Nicole Avant would credit her mother, who became a prominent philanthropist, with bringing to Clarence Avant and other family members “the love and passion and importance of the arts and culture and entertainment.”
Born in 1931, Clarence Avant spent his early years in Greensboro, North Carolina, one of eight children raised by a single mother, and he dropped out of high school to move north. A friend from North Carolina helped him find work managing a lounge in Newark, New Jersey, and he soon got to know Glaser, whose clients ranged from Louis Armstrong to Barbra Streisand, not to mention Al Capone. Through Glaser, Avant found himself in places where Black people rarely had been permitted.
“Mr. Glaser would have me go with him to these dog shows,” Avant told Variety in 2016. “And you’ve got to imagine I was the only Black person at the goddamn dog show. He also had these 16 seats behind the visiting dugout at Yankee Stadium, and whenever he’d take me I would try to walk to the back row, and he’d grab me and say, ‘Goddamn it, sit your ass up here with me.’”
Avant became especially close to Jones, their bond formed through a missed record deal. It was the early 1960s, and Jones was a vice president at Mercury Records, one of the industry’s few Black executives. Avant was representing jazz musician Jimmy Smith and had heard that Mercury recently signed Dizzy Gillespie for $100,000. For Smith, Avant aimed much higher, closer to half a million.
“Are you smoking Kool-Aid?” Jones would remember saying to Avant, who then negotiated with Verve Records.
“He went and got the deal,” Jones, whose collaborations with Avant would include the TV series “Heart and Soul” and the feature film “Stalingrad,” told Billboard in 2006. “I respected him for that.”
As he rose in the entertainment industry, Avant became more active politically. He was an early supporter of Tom Bradley, the first Black mayor of Los Angeles, and served as executive producer of “Save the Children,” a 1973 documentary about a concert fundraiser for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s “Operation PUSH.” Three years earlier, when he learned that the civil rights leader Andrew Young was running for Congress, in Georgia, he gave him a call.
“He said, ‘In Georgia, you’re running for Congress?’” Young later told CNN. “He said, ‘Well, if you’re crazy enough to run, I’m crazy enough to help you.’”
Avant, whom Young had never met, offered to bring in Isaac Hayes and other entertainers for a benefit and arrange for it to be held at the baseball stadium in Atlanta.
Young had forgotten about their conversation when, a month later, signs promoting the show appeared around town.
“We had about 30,000 people in the pouring down rain,” Young said. “And he never sent us a bill.”