Jones' publicist, Arnold Robinson, says he died Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family.Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson's historic"Thriller" album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91.
“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.”
“They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood. “We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”
On “We are the World” alone, performers included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “P.Y.T – and had songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.”