Clarence Avant, 'Godfather of Black Music,' dies at 92

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, 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 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.

Avant’s influence extended to sports. He helped running back Jim Brown transition from football to acting and produced a prime-time 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.

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.

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.”