Music producer and Ahmet Ertegun Award recipient Quincy Jones attends the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame 2013 Inductees announcement at Nokia Theatre L.A.
Kevin Winter/Getty Pictures
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Kevin Winter/Getty Pictures
Music producer and Ahmet Ertegun Award recipient Quincy Jones attends the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame 2013 Inductees announcement at Nokia Theatre L.A.
Kevin Winter/Getty Pictures
Quincy Jones, the famed music producer who helped artists dominate well-liked music for half a century, has died.
His publicist says he handed away peacefully at his house in California. He was 91 years outdated.
NPR’s Walter Ray Watson described Jones’ expertise as one which produced music that hooked ears, warmed hearts and moved toes to bop.
Together with Michael Jackson, he broke open the pop music world with manufacturing on songs like Dangerous, Billie Jean, and Rock with You. His contributions had greater than 100 million data offered, together with Thriller, the perfect promoting album of all time.
It could be onerous to think about now, however document execs doubted whether or not Quincy Jones was the best match to provide Michael Jackson’s debut as a solo grownup artist.
An unlikely success story
Born Quincy Delight Jones Jr., he was the son of a Chicago carpenter and a housewife mom, who sang church songs at house.
Jones confronted gang violence as a toddler of the Nice Melancholy. And at age 10, his household moved to Seattle, the place his dad joined the conflict effort, working in a shipyard.
“Gangsters. Lot of them are gangsters. Again within the thirties, it was all I ever noticed with machine weapons,” was how he described his Chicago neighborhood rising up in a 2008 interview with NPR’s Michele Norris.
As a child, he was a ringleader of mischief. And someday with a bunch of boys, he focused a roomful of freshly baked pies at a rec heart. They broke in, ate all of the pies. Then Jones opened a door.
“And I noticed – within the shadows, I noticed a piano. Then I nearly closed the door, after which one thing deep inside me stated, ‘Open the door once more.’ And I went again into the room and slowly went over to that piano, and I felt the goose bumps and the whole lot.”
That modified his life, he stated. By highschool, Jones picked up the trumpet. Quickly after, he gained a lifelong good friend in a blind 16-year-old pianist named Ray Charles.
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A musical superpower
Jones was nonetheless a youngster when he was employed by legendary vibraphonist and band chief Lionel Hampton. His abilities opened the door, and his expertise took him in all places.
After producing and scouting for among the greatest expertise within the business, Mercury Data promoted Quincy Jones to an govt, a primary for a Black man at a significant document label. His tastes and instincts led him to domesticate among the greatest hits and artists of the previous many years.
Take heed to the complete episode of Take into account This to listen to Watson element the extraordinary life and accomplishments of Jones.
This episode was produced by Marc Rivers and Noah Caldwell. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Patrick Jarenwattananon. Our govt producer is Sami Yenigun.