Quincy Jones Interview

Quincy Jones, who is now seventy-seven years old, was interviewed in Sweden by Johnny Davis.

In the interview, Quincy said he used to call Michael “Smelly.”
Michael and Quincy made three albums together, ‘Off the Wall’ in 1979, ‘Thriller’ in 1982 and ‘Bad’ in 1987…”Then Michael fired me,” Quincy said. He had been pushing Michael towards hip-hop, but Michael had doubts saying that; “Quincy doesn’t understand the business any more.” The pair remained friends though until the end.

“I was in London when he sold out the ten concerts and then sold out forty more,” Quincy added. “He called me. He wanted to bring the kids over. But I was with Mohamed Al Fayed at his place. I said, ‘I’ll see you in Los Angeles,’ and that was the last time I talked to him.”

“Did you know he was in a bad way?” Davis asked.

“No, no,” he replied. “There was no way to know. There’s no way anybody could be blamed for what happened. Artists of that stature, they can do whatever they want. You’d have to monitor him 24/7 to know what’s going on.”

“What about the number of performances? Was it too many for him to cope with?” Davis then asked.

“I don’t know, man. It’s personal. So, so personal. There’s too many details. Unless you’re totally cognisant of everything, it’s hard to make a judgment.”

Source: Guardian.co.uk & MJWN