Quincy Jones Interview

Words of wisdom from a genius. All true.

@czarivey

How can you deny something so obvious? Michael Jackson was a great performer but his work is heavily influenced (lifted) from others

Just listen to Donna Summers work at that time (also produced by Quincy). Michael Jackson lifted stuff from her and also stole from countless others including Hall and Oates “No Can Do” (baseline is the one on Billie Jean).

http://www.tmz.com/2018/02/09/michael-jackson-billie-jean-backup-singer-donna-summer-state-of-indepe...

QED

Beatles were clearly not great individual technical musicians but extremely talented song writers (especially together) with some good production talent behind them (the fifth Beatle). Nobody went to see the Beatles for the musicianship - they could not hold a candle to the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Knopfler, Clapton, Jeff Beck, Elton John and the list goes on and on.

Beatles were like Bowie - great song writers - great melodies and highly innovative pushing their art in new directions...

I can see why professional musicians like Quincy can be frustrated by the self taught. Tom Petty could not even read music and he wrote countless hits and like the Beatles nobody went to see Tom play his guitar although Mike Campbell was supremely competent.

Thx Bdp24 for sharing I must listen more to Big Pink so far I didn’t get into them in any way even having listened extensively.

Just to be clear on above post, I have nothing but total admiration for the hard working talented band of The Beatles  - just not my go to group for technical musical jaw-dropping prowess in fact far from it - rather ho hum on that dimension.

Ok since we are talking Beatles. What about Lennon’s violent behaviour towards women? Did he get that from his Dad? And how did the Beatles manage to hide this ugly aspect and maintain their image and fan base. I guess personal life was much more hidden from the public in those days.