Five musicians Quincy Jones hated
If there ever was a personified backbone to the modern music industry as we know it, it would be Quincy Jones. The Chicago native was the prime definition of an all-around entertainment virtuoso, simultaneously treading the boards of music, film, theatre, and technology with such effortless aplomb that he almost made the gargantuan list of achievements he conquered in his lifetime look like a normal day at the office.
Jones was, of course, prolific in everything he did. He had to be – because he wouldn’t have produced some of the pop songbook’s greatest hits without an unerring sharpness which kept his eye on the beat of every changing second of the sonic world. But the flipside of this was that he also equally wouldn’t hold back when it came to voicing his distaste for who, in his eyes, wasn’t cutting it in the music industry.
Some of his abrasions on other artists were near-fatal, to say the least. The point was that Jones was a pop music maestro; the allure of the charts was the prize he always chased, and he had relatively little time for other genres and exports as a result. Across 50 years in which musical fads changed dramatically, however, this wasn’t always to his approval, and it meant that although they may have been some of the biggest artists in the world, Jones had a fair amount of ill will toward rock acts and the entire genre at large.
In this sense, despite the fact that to some, pop and rock have a lot of interchangeable factors, for Jones, the two entities were entirely different, with the electric frills and screeching highs of the latter never quite managing to win him over. Although his picks of the most hated musicians may seem mind-boggling, it is a strong lesson in knowing your brand. Jones was never all that interested in blitzing guitars and breakneck hedonism, and if there was anyone who knew exactly what they stood for in all their work, it was him.
Five musicians Quincy Jones hated:
Michael Jackson
But if Bono ever had doubts about his relationship with Jones being two-faced, he could at least be assured that he wasn’t hated as much as one of the pop producer’s most prolific protégés, in the form of the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. But indeed, despite being the driving force behind some of the singer’s most era-defining efforts, including Thriller and Off the Wall, Jones’ personal character reference on Jackson was less than glowing, reminding everyone that he was never so jaded as to not put some of his biggest exports in their place.
In many ways, time was the ultimate truth serum in bringing Jones to realise his honest feelings, as some years after Jackson’s death, the producer admitted that “He [Jackson] was as Machiavellian as they come.”
Expanding on this somewhat unflattering description, Jones later added: “Michael stole a lot of stuff,” meaning that although he created some of the greatest pop hits of the 1970s and ‘80s, in reality, Jackson may not have been quite the ingenious visionary the world painted him to be.
Jimi Hendrix
Jones’s ire for rock music in general was well-known, but even then, it’s hard to imagine him dismissing the guitarist who is roundly considered one of the greatest to ever walk the Earth. Yet this is precisely the route down which the music mogul channelled his feelings towards Jimi Hendrix. Egotistically or not, Jones’ opinion on the six-string genius was led down a negative path after he believed that Hendrix was simply scared of his wrath.
Jones was reminded of his dislike of the guitarist in a 2018 interview when he discussed why he doesn’t approve of music festivals, claiming, “Who knew what Woodstock would turn out to be? Jimi Hendrix was out there fucking up the national anthem.” But this memory then led him on to reveal the opportunity that never was, when Hendrix backed out of appearing on Jones’ album Gula Matari.
“He was supposed to play on my album, and he chickened out,” Jones sneered. “He was nervous to play with Toots Thielemans, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Roland Kirk — those are some scary motherfuckers. The cats on my records were the baddest cats in the world and Hendrix didn’t want to play with them.”
Elvis Presley
As far as sonic titans go, Elvis Presley was in a pretty unparalleled league, and for a figure with a career so prolific as Jones, you would be forgiven for thinking that the pair would have been a match made in heaven in bringing new musical visions to the world. But on the occasions when Jones would cross paths with Presley, his impression of the King of Rock and Roll wasn’t exactly positive, which put a sour taste in his mouth forever.
It was not least because Jones felt as though Presley simply couldn’t sing, but this was only further enforced by a striking memory of the two forces colliding in the 1950s. In a 2021 interview, he recalled: “I was writing for [orchestra leader] Tommy Dorsey, oh God, back then in the ’50s. And Elvis came in, and Tommy said, ‘I don’t want to play with him.’ He was a racist mother — I’m going to shut up now,” Jones claimed about Presley. “But every time I saw Elvis, he was being coached by [songwriter] Otis Blackwell, telling him how to sing.” If nothing else, Jones could always be relied upon for telling it how it was – and in Presley’s case, the truth came down like a sledgehammer.
U2
Jones’ relationship with U2 was rather convoluted, to say the least, as although he couldn’t claim to be a fan of the Dublin band’s music, he did still have a massive soft spot for frontman Bono, the friendship with whom spanned across both his professional and personal spheres. It was good to see the producer was so forthright, however, as possibly only he could navigate such an awkward conversation in admitting to his close confidant that he thought his band’s music wasn’t hitting the mark.
In a 2018 interview with Vulture, Jones reflected on this dichotomy by saying: “I love Bono with all my heart, but there’s too much pressure on the band. He’s doing good work all over the world. Working with him and Bob Geldof on debt relief was one of the greatest things I ever did. It’s up there with ‘We Are the World’.”
So, as much as he thought the wayside better left his music, the pop producer could never fault Bono’s charitable spirit, which, in many ways, outweighed the negatives.
The Beatles
Perhaps the most famous victims of Jones’ sharp-tongued dismissals were The Beatles – a band who, in the eyes of the rest of the world, could never be beaten, but for the pop producer, were merely small fry. Indeed, he even went so far as to claim the Fab Four were among “some of the worst musicians [he’d] ever heard,” a contested fact for the vast majority of other industry moguls, but a view that Jones stuck steadfastly to, even though it may not have won him any popularity.
Blasting the band as a bunch of “no-playing motherfuckers” before hitting Paul McCartney specifically in the jugular with the insult that he was “the worst player I ever heard,” Jones’ negative feelings were only further set into stone when he somehow came to work with George Harrison on his 1970 solo effort Sentimental Journey. Drafting in another drummer to sit behind the kit, Harrison was pleasantly surprised by the beat that was produced, only for Jones to retort: “Yeah, motherfucker because it ain’t you.”
