Music icon Quincy Jones said that seeing jazz musician Billie Holiday on heroin schooled him on the ills of drug abuse. Jones recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his long career in the entertainment industry and noted that seeing Holiday under the influence helped him keep his distance from the drug.
Jones met Holiday when he was a 14-year-old musician. Holiday’s musical director, Bobby Tucker, hired Jones and a friend to play on stage with her at the Eagle’s Auditorium in Seattle. The two boys were “awestruck” by Lady Day, so much so that they forgot to play when she entered the stage.
“Oh my God, stay away from heroin,” he said. “She could barely get to the stage, man. She could barely walk on the stage, but Bobby Tucker was like my brother. He eventually became the music director for Billie. When she came out, we were so awestruck by her, we forgot to play the horn. He said, ‘Goddammit, read the music, man. Play the horns!’ We were 14 years old. Come on, man. Billie Holiday.”
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Jones has a library of stories about the many famous people he’s met over his 88-year life. He joked that his daughters began calling him “LL QJ,” which stands for “Loose Lips Quincy Jones,” after he revealed that Marlon Brando had sex with Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye and James Baldwin.
“He’d f*ck a mailbox,” Jones said of Brando.
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The legendary Jones also told THR that Elvis Presley was racist.
“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. But every time I saw Elvis, he was being coached by [Don’t Be Cruel songwriter] Otis Blackwell, telling him how to sing,” Jones said.
The super producer met pop-music icon Michael Jackson at the house of Sammy Davis Jr. when Jackson was just twelve years old. He would produce three of Jackson’s albums, “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad.” Jones said that Jackson was a perfectionist who always did his homework.
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The legend’s next move is to write a book about his life, “I’m tired of watching the internet with all the little hiccups and flaws in information,” he said.
“Get it right. Just tell the truth, you know?”
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