Producer Pharrell Williams has contributed to the soundtrack of the movie. Pharrell has dropped “Letter to My Godfather,” a track that will appear on the soundtrack. The song, which features Pharrell crooning with autotune, has production from the Neptunes — meaning P hooked up with partner Chad Hugo again.
Jacqueline Avant and Clarence Avant attend Netflix world premiere of “THE BLACK GODFATHER at the Paramount Theater on June 3, 2019 in Los Angeles.
Quincy Jones, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, Jimmy Kimmel & more attend screening of Netflix documentary, which debuts Friday.
Industry audiences can often be a tough crowd. But if the overwhelmingly thumbs-up reaction to Netflix’s world premiere of The Black Godfather on Monday night is any indication, the documentary will have a successful must-see run when it bows on the streaming network Friday and in limited theatrical release in Los Angeles and New York on the same date.
That’s because the multi-faceted career and life story of music industry veteran Clarence Avant — nicknamed the “Godfather of Black Music” — is a rollicking, two-hour ride from start to finish. Frequently laugh-out-loud funny, the documentary also doesn’t shy away from low points in Avant’s remarkable journey from high school dropout to artist manager, label executive, radio broadcaster, music publisher, powerhouse negotiator, social activist/philanthropist and Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee.
Well-known chapters in Avant’s colorful career are documented in the film, like his mentorship of the hitmaking songwriting/production duos Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds as well as Sony/ATV chairman/CEO Jon Platt (who named one of his twin sons after Avant). Hearing promise in the songs of an airplane assembly worker by the name of Bill Withers. Avant’s later stint as chairman of Motown Records.
But other relatively unknown stories resonate even more — like how Avant came up with the name Sussex for his record label by asking himself what do people want? Success and sex. How he stopped ABC from launching Dick Clark’s would-be rival to Don Cornelius’ popular Soul Train franchise. Defying convention back in the day by signing white guitarist Dennis Coffey to his label and managing Argentine pianist-composer Lalo Schifrin. Nearly losing his home following a severe business downturn. Giving image marketing advice to record-setting baseball legend Hank Aaron. And Avant’s legendary proclivity for cursing people out at any given moment to drive home a lesson or point of view. But the through line in everything that Avant achieved has remained consistent: to foster the next generation of black executives, artists, songwriter/producers, politicians and business entrepreneurs.
Helping the notoriously publicity-shy Avant tell his story (“I don’t make speeches, I make deals,” he says at one point) is a diverse array of artists, music industry executives, politicians, ex-presidents, close friends and family members — several of whom get very personal and emotional as they acknowledge their respect and love for the business-savvy raconteur. Beyond those aforementioned above, we’re talking names like Quincy Jones, Snoop Dogg, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Universal chief Lucian Grainge, The Azoff Company chairman/CEO Irving Azoff, football legend Jim Brown, boxing icon Muhammad Ali, diplomat/civil rights activist Andrew Young and former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The documentary plays out like a 2.0 version of the game “six degrees of separation,” because it’s quite unbelievable the many people that Avant has touched in his lifetime. In fact, one of the oft-repeated refrains echoed by those recalling their first encounters with Avant: “Who the fuck is this guy?!” As someone notes later in the documentary, “His job was to move us forward.”
Many of those featured in the documentary — and more — turned out for the world premiere at the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles. Spotted in the theater and later at the post-screening reception: Quincy Jones, Jamie Foxx, Sean Combs, Queen Latifah, Pharrell Williams, Ava DuVernay, Jam & Lewis, L.A. & Babyface, Norman Lear, Jimmy Kimmel, Vince Vaughn, Hank Aaron, Andrew Young, Courteney Cox and Jennifer Anniston, to name a few. And several were overheard saying that they learned things they’d never known about Avant after watching the film. Host for the evening was Netflix chief content officer and Avant’s son-in-law Ted Sarandos.
The Black Godfather, produced by Avant’s daughter Nicole Avant and directed by Reginald Hudlin, opens with Withers succinctly assessing Avant’s skill set: “He puts people together and they do what they do.” And it ends with Avant declaring, “I’ve lived a good life. If I wake up tomorrow as Warren Buffett, I’d have a better life.” To say more about what happens in between would be giving away the store. Everyone needs to watch Avant’s inspirational story and quiet power unfold for themselves.
You may have never heard of Clarence Avant, but this enigmatic manager, producer and record executive has touched the lives of a wide array of people you have heard of: Bill Withers, Hank Aaron, Barack Obama.
In his new Netflix documentary ‘The Black Godfather,’ director Reginald Hudlin lines up all those people and many more to reveal the behind-the-scenes story of Avant, now 88 years old.
This week on The Business, Hudlin explains how he got all of them to sit for interviews for a doc that drops June 7th on Netflix, possibly because Avant’s daughter is married to Ted Sarandos.
“Here’s a guy who is involved in everything you know, that you like and care about–the music you like and politicians you may vote for and athletes you support, but you don’t know who he is,” Hudlin told us about Avant.
As a child, Avant ran away from his North Carolina home after trying to poison his abusive step-father. Though he had only made it to the ninth-grade, he began managing nightclubs in New Jersey, and before long was in business with a growing roster of musicians. He moved to LA, where he ran record labels and became a power player in political fundraising.
Hudlin, the director of ‘The Black Godfather,’ is himself a multi-hyphenate: director, producer, writer, and one-time executive as the first head of BET. When he joined us in the studio to talk about his new film, we also talked about his own career, which kicked off in 1990 with ‘House Party,’ a Sundance hit that started as a short film at Harvard.
Clarence Avant in the documentary “The Black Godfather.” (Netflix)
If your currency as a documentary subject lay in the number of heavyweights taking time to sing your praises on camera with twinkles in each one’s eyes, then music industry executive Clarence Avant may be, like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the richest man in town.
A poor kid from Depression-era North Carolina who rose to become a behind-the-scenes titan of managing, dealmaking and problem-solving across the spectrum of black entertainment — from a previous era’s jazz and soul royalty to today’s R&B/rap empires, with sports and politics thrown in for good measure — Avant is the no-nonsense power broker at the center of Reginald Hudlin’s affectionate, illuminating biodoc named for his showbiz moniker, “The Black Godfather.” The living embodiment of that wily line from David Mamet’s mob comedy “Things Change” — “he’s the guy behind the guy … behind the guy” — the revered but limelight-shunning octogenarian comes in for a rollicking, heartfelt series of testimonials from the likes of Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy, Hank Aaron, Andrew Young, David Geffen, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, amongst dozens and dozens of others.
Whether his name is familiar to you or not, Avant’s reach and reputation, despite his aversion to being the center of attention, is the stuff of anecdotal gold, especially when the personality behind it is like that of the blunt, profane, wise uncle who suffers no fools yet radiates compassion. (Plenty of interviewees smile warmly at the honor of being colorfully chewed out by Avant.) After two hours of stories that paint an indelible portrait of cagey black entrepreneurship and honest mentoring — one grateful recipient of Avant’s personal advice named his first child after him — it’s hard not to imagine a cut of “The Black Godfather” out there that’s five hours long, and perhaps just as entertaining.
The unsaid details alone surrounding Avant’s music-rep beginnings in the ‘60s New York jazz scene under the tutelage of mob-connected Joe Glaser — legendary manager of Louis Armstrong — suggest a fascinating historical narrative on their own. Avant shepherded Jimmy Smith and Lalo Schifrin to storied careers, but when the latter’s desire to do film work took Avant to Hollywood, the sight of a black man handling a white artist was eye-opening, to say the least. In no time, mogul Lew Wasserman was a valuable friend and colleague.
Avant would come to build labels (Sussex, Tabu) that nurtured artists Bill Withers, Sixto Rodriguez, the SOS Band and Cherelle. He cultivated Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis as producer/kingmakers (by first telling them they weren’t asking for enough money), established the first black-owned radio station, raised funds for causes and candidates, and advised Jones, Snoop Dogg, L.A. Reid and Babyface at crossroads moments.
But the real magic lay in Avant’s back-channel efforts to get a racially entrenched industry to see the true worth of black talent — in one instance, not just producing a prime-time special that would help transition Muhammad Ali from retiring boxing star to beloved entertainment figure, but insisting that the network hire a black director for it. When Aaron neared his record-breaking 715th homer, Avant saw an opportunity to get the reserved athlete a then-unheard-of sponsorship deal from Coca-Cola (with a brazen opening pitch line to its president that, as retold here, is a spit-take-worthy classic).
Much is humorously made by myriad interviewees of the mystery surrounding Avant’s compensation for his wheeling and dealing, if there ever was any (athlete-turned-actor Jim Brown jokes he was never entirely clear what Avant’s title was). Rather, the feeling Hudlin and producer Nicole Avant, Clarence’s daughter, want to leave you with is of a fiercely engaged protector who talked a good game about getting paid — “Life is all about numbers,” Avant says on camera frequently — but whose personal reward was obviously creating a web of friends and talent who grasped the meaning of working hard, earning their due and giving back. Avant’s skin color is one aspect of his inspiring story, for sure, but the heart inside “The Black Godfather” — and the ways an honorable soul with personal power can effect meaningful change — spins its own joyful melody.
‘The Black Godfather’
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Playing: Starts June 7, Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; also available on Netflix
