The Quincy Jones Vulture Interview

[penpusher]

You must have heard about this already, but if you didn't, there is this Quincy Jones Interview by David Marchese

The top dishes in this incredibly juicy article:

1. Michael Jackson thieved a bunch of music and didn't properly pay or even credit the writers.
2. Hillary Clinton was disliked for the secrets that she kept.
3. John F. Kennedy was killed by Chicago Mobsters associated with Frank Sinatra.
4. The Beatles were the worst musicians in the world. "Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don't even talk about it."
5. Paul Allen of Microsoft can play like Jimi Hendrix.
6. Donald Trump is " a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally — a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him."
7. Ivanka Trump dated Quincy.
8. Oprah Winfrey doesn't have the chops to be president.
9. Current Music isn't as good because the mentality of those making it aren't as good.
10. Bruno Mars, Chance The Rapper, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Mark Ronson are the best out there currently.
11. Marlon Brando had sex with James Baldwin, Richard Pryor and Marvin Gaye.

This leads to a whole lot of other questions that perhaps he's saving for a memoir. Questions like: Why didn't he stop MJ from stealing all that stuff? What secrets is Hillary keeping? How did the mob get Lee Harvey Oswald involved in the assassination of JFK and was Jack Ruby on their payroll? How did those dates with Ivanka go? Why didn't Q think of a single woman to name when it came to talented musicians? And then the Brando thing, which he probably couldn't answer in detail.

Finally, there was also this exchange:

Marchese: Are we in a better place as a country than we were when you started doing humanitarian work 50 years ago?

Jones: No. We’re the worst we’ve ever been, but that’s why we’re seeing people try and fix it. Feminism: Women are saying they’re not going to take it anymore. Racism: People are fighting it. God is pushing the bad in our face to make people fight back.

When I did my 30 Day Music Challenge and got to Day 27 on Grammy Day. I selected "We Are The World," the anthem for famine relief in Africa with that all star group of singers. And, of course, Quincy Jones was there as a producer (he's got a story about that in this interview, too).

But what I didn't share in my post at the time, was that I hadn't heard the song in several years, and I just started crying because it seemed like the atmosphere of the country is so different now than even then, and that we have to do so much more work just to get back to THAT place.

We have to keep fighting back.

Comments

[staxxy]

I had not heard about this interview. Wow... some of the things in this list have that flavor of "conspiracy theorist ravings" but Q being who he is, it is harder to swallow that this could be the case and that the most likely situation is these things are real.

I agree that its ridiculous he didnt name a single woman in the best of list.

Good lord, what an interview.

[penpusher]

The whole JFK thing has been really disturbing to me. I have never seen anything that definitively indicates that this was anyone other than Oswald acting alone and I even wrote a note to that effect in the guest book at the JFK Memorial formerly the Texas Book Depository in Dallas when I visited there.

To me, while the mob may have wanted Kennedy dead, for whatever reasons they might have, and they might have wanted to flaunt their power to people who were trying to control them, most of all the FBI, it is just as likely that they simply claimed to have executed this execution just to bolster their profile, since no one could prove they DIDN'T do it. So I'm still not convinced, even if Q says it's true.

There's also the question of what "dated" means when it came to Ivanka. Were they seeing each other professionally, socially or something more intimate? Again, info not stated is info unclear.

And then there's the Bill Cosby thing. But that's a whole other thing.

[halfshellvenus]

But what I didn't share in my post at the time, was that I hadn't heard the song in several years, and I just started crying because it seemed like the atmosphere of the country is so different now than even then, and that we have to do so much more work just to get back to THAT place.

Because we accepted and believed that goodness and a desire to help our fellow human beings was obvious and unquestionable, and we COULD make the world better by trying.

There is such a self-centered "F*-- you all!" vibe to the world right now. Most of it seems to be running riot here at home, but the Brexit vote was along those same lines.

When people start to publicly tout selfishness, we really HAVE lost ground. And it's hard not to be disheartened by our current state.

[penpusher]

Thanks for sharing these thoughts.

Inn a way, I know that the country couldn't have changed as much as this over the 33 years since that song was recorded. Or maybe it really has?