Clarence Avant, the beloved recording trade insider whose work as an govt, label proprietor, dealmaker and mentor earned him the nickname the “Godfather of Black Music,” has died. He was 92.
Avant died Sunday at his house in Los Angeles, his household introduced in an announcement. His loss of life got here 20 months after his spouse of 54 years, philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, was shot and killed by an intruder of their Beverly Hills house within the early morning hours of Dec. 1, 2021.
Survivors embody their daughter, Nicole Avant, a producer, former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and the spouse of Netflix co-CEO and chief content material officer Ted Sarandos, and their son, Alexander, a producer (Dad Cease Embarrassing Me!) and expertise rep.
“Clarence leaves behind a loving household and a sea of associates and associates which have modified the world and can proceed to vary the world for generations to return,” the Avant/Sarandos household mentioned. “The enjoyment of his legacy eases the sorrow of our loss.”
Avant managed Sarah Vaughan, Jimmy Smith, Lalo Schifrin and Freddie Hubbard and brokered the sale of Stax Data within the Nineteen Sixties; found and signed “Ain’t No Sunshine” singer Invoice Withers within the ’70s; co-promoted “Dangerous,” Michael Jackson’s first solo world tour, within the ’80s; and served as Motown’s chairman of the board within the ’90s after its sale to PolyGram.
By way of the many years, Avant suggested numerous producers, executives and artists, amongst them Quincy Jones, David Geffen, Jay-Z, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Pharrell Williams, Whitney Houston, Antonio “L.A.” Reid, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Lionel Richie, Jimmy Iovine, Irving Azoff, Reginald Hudlin, Sylvia Rhone, Queen Latifah, Jheryl Busby, Jon Platt, Sean Combs, Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx.
“He’s a instructor, he’s a grasp communicator, he’s the proper marriage between avenue sense and customary sense,” Richie mentioned when Avant acquired the Ahmet Ertegun Award from the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2021. “What he did for us, the little children of the Afro American group, he introduced us some understanding of what the music enterprise was all about.”
Stated Jones in 2016 at Avant’s Hollywood Stroll of Fame ceremony: “He’s at all times advised me the rattling fact in all elements of my life. He’s additionally been the silent architect of so many offers it might make your head spin. He will get issues carried out however doesn’t beat his chest or search for credit score.”
Avant was the topic of the Netflix documentary The Black Godfather (2019), directed by Hudlin and produced by his daughter. He was an lively political fundraiser, and Barack Obama, Invoice Clinton and Andrew Younger categorical their admiration for him within the movie.
His story “is vital to me not simply because it’s my father, nevertheless it’s a narrative of civic engagement, social activism and the ability of giving again. I need folks to be impressed to assist others and share the blessing,” Nicole Avant advised The Hollywood Reporter on the movie’s premiere. “Typically actual energy is behind the scenes, serving to folks obtain their desires.”
“He places folks collectively, they usually do what they do,” Withers mentioned within the documentary. “How do you place collectively a life from realizing folks? I’ve by no means seen him with a software.”
The oldest of eight youngsters, Clarence Alexander Avant was born on Feb. 25, 1931, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Raised by a single mom, Gertrude, a home employee, he dropped out of Dudley Excessive College at 16 and moved to New Jersey.
Avant started his profession in music by managing a lounge owned by jazz musician Teddy Powell in Newark, New Jersey. Early on, he represented blues artist Little Willie John, jazz organist Jimmy Smith and jazz producer Creed Taylor and was mentored by Louis Armstrong’s music supervisor, the mob-connected Joseph Glaser.
Clarence Avant was flanked by Jimmy Jam (left) and Terry Lewis when he acquired his star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in October 2016.
Michael Tran/FilmMagic
Avant partnered with rock ‘n’ roll producer Tom Wilson within the Wilson Group, moved to Los Angeles to work with Schifrin of Mission: Not possible and Mannix fame and helped arrange the MGM Data-backed Enterprise Data, the primary three way partnership between a Black-owned music firm and a significant report label.
For Stax, Avant negotiated the 1968 deal that noticed it acquired by Gulf & Western. A 12 months later, he launched Sussex Data (named for fulfillment and intercourse); its secure of artists included Withers, a onetime plane mechanic, and Detroit singer-songwriter Rodriguez (Trying to find Sugar Man).
Additionally within the ’70s, Avant based KAGB-FM (Avant Garde Broadcasting), one of many first Black-owned radio stations within the U.S., and launched Tabu Data, which did properly with the S.O.S. Band, Cherrelle, Alexander O’Neal and Jam & Lewis as songwriters and producers.
Avant repped Edmonds and Reid in reference to the 1989 launch of the three way partnership between their labels, LaFace Data and Arista Data, that despatched Toni Braxton and different artists on their method.
Avant additionally guided Jim Brown‘s transition from the NFL to performing, helped Hank Aaron notice his endorsement potential after he broke Babe Ruth’s house run report and persuaded ABC to drop plans for a Dick Clark-produced dance present that might have competed with Soul Practice.
He did his work behind the scenes and shunned publicity. “I don’t make speeches, I make offers,” he typically mentioned.
As a producer, his credit included the Douglas Turner Ward play The Reckoning for the Negro Ensemble Firm in 1969 and the 1973 documentary Save the Kids, which featured live performance performances by Withers, Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, The Jackson 5 and extra.
He operated his Inside Music Group and Avant Garde Music publishing corporations till they had been bought in 2018 to Common Music Group.
Williams in an announcement referred to as Avant “a visionary and a transcendent spirit. He’s the last word instance of what change seems to be like, what architecting change seems to be like, and what the success of change seems to be like.
“He stared adversity within the face in climates and situations that weren’t welcoming to those that appeared like him. However by way of his expertise and relentless spirit within the pursuit to be one of the best of one of the best, he garnered the help and friendship of people that in any other case wouldn’t look in our route. He confirmed them what we may be, what we are able to do, and the way rather more we are able to all obtain should you give us alternative.”
In 2007, Avant acquired the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP. A 12 months later, he accepted the Recording Academy’s Trustees Award, given to these whose careers (outdoors of performing) have made “vital contributions” to music.
“In the event you don’t ask, you don’t get,” he says within the Black Godfather documentary. “Life is about one factor — numbers — nothing else. What did Tina Turner say? ‘What’s love obtained to do with it?’ Not a fucking factor, man. That’s why I inform folks, ‘Life begins with a quantity and ends with a quantity.’”
