From Elvis to Donna to Stevie: how hit-making legend Quincy Jones created superstars and changed pop history
Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davies, Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick … the powerhouse producer made magical music with everyone who was anyone. We pay tribute to the genius of ‘the Dude’
Over the course of 91 years, Quincy Jones did pretty much everything you could do in the entertainment industry. He was a musician, arranger, composer, solo artist, record company executive, mogul, entrepreneur and a producer not just of music but of films and TV – and, as was noted in Chris Heath’s extraordinary, headline-grabbing 2018 profile piece Quincy Jones Has a Story About That, he had known everyone. “The ghetto Gump”, as he called himself, referring to Forrest, was the thread that linked Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis to Dr Dre and the Weeknd; a musician who’d appeared with Elvis Presley and Amy Winehouse, Count Basie and Bono, Nat King Cole and Young Thug; the man who had a credit on Sinatra At the Sands and Harry’s House by Harry Styles.
It’s a résumé unlike any other. How did he achieve it? He was clearly driven, perhaps as the result of a difficult childhood. Born on the gang-ridden South Side of Chicago during the Great Depression, Jones wandered into “the wrong neighbourhood” aged seven, was stabbed through the hand with a switchblade and attacked with an icepick. His mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Jones spent time living with his grandmother in Kentucky in such poverty that he claimed they survived by eating rats. Then his father moved the family to Washington and remarried, to a woman Jones said was physically abusive.
Continue reading...Topics
-
From the archives: Music legend Quincy Jones
Top stories - CBS News - 8 hours ago -
The music hits that Quincy Jones helped create
Top stories - CBS News - 11 hours ago -
Music legend Quincy Jones dies at 91
Top stories - CBS News - 18 hours ago -
Quincy Jones: From 'street rat' to music mastermind
Top stories - BBC News - 13 hours ago -
Quincy Jones: The songs that showcase his musical brilliance
Top stories - BBC News - 18 hours ago -
USWNT icon Megan Rapinoe, WNBA legend Sue Bird reveal how modern women's sports have changed for athletes
Sports - CBS Sports - 6 days ago -
PHOTO COLLECTION: Quincy Jones
Entertainment - ABC News - 20 hours ago
More from The Guardian
-
US election 2024 live updates: Trump launches insults at final rally as Harris ends campaign promising to ‘get to work’
World - The Guardian - 27 minutes ago -
Americans head to polls with historic election on a knife edge
World - The Guardian - 47 minutes ago -
Nostalgic Trump wheels out the hits at what could be an end-of-season finale
World - The Guardian - 2 hours ago -
US presidential election updates: Campaigning ends with celebrity endorsements, and Nate Silver’s forecast
World - The Guardian - 1 hour ago -
Reformist clerics imply Iran should back two-state solution for Israel and Palestine
World - The Guardian - 2 hours ago
Latest in World
-
Russian rocket launches Iranian satellites into orbit as Moscow and Tehran expand ties
World - ABC News - 13 minutes ago -
Boeing workers vote to end strike; markets brace for US election – business live
World - The Guardian - 23 minutes ago -
US election 2024 live updates: Trump launches insults at final rally as Harris ends campaign promising to ‘get to work’
World - The Guardian - 27 minutes ago -
Saudi oil giant Aramco posts third-quarter profits of $27.5 billion, down 15% from a year earlier
World - ABC News - 44 minutes ago -
Americans head to polls with historic election on a knife edge
World - The Guardian - 47 minutes ago