![]() ![]() In 2021, Jacqueline Avant was murdered in their Beverly Hills home, her death mourned by Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson among others. Besides his Rock Hall induction, his honors included two honorary Grammys, an NAACP Image Award and a BET entrepreneur award. ambassador to the Bahamas and, along with her husband, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, a major fundraiser for Obama. They had two children: Music producer-manager Alexander Devore and Nicole Avant, the former U.S. 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.Īaron would later tell The Undefeated that everything he had become was “because of Clarence Avant.”Īvant met Jacqueline Gray, a model at the time, at an Ebony Fashion Fair in mid-1960s and married her in 1967. He helped running back Jim Brown transition from football to acting and produced a primetime television special for Muhammad Ali. “Everyone in this business has been by Clarence’s desk, if they’re smart,” Quincy Jones liked to say of him.Īvant’s influence extended to sports. Reid and Babyface and other younger admirers. He raised money for Obama and Bill Clinton, helped Michael Jackson organize his first solo tour and advised Narada Michael Walden, L.A. ![]() 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 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.” (Rodriquez died last week). Sometimes called “The Godfather of Black Music,” 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. ![]()
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