“Thriller! Thriller night! And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike! You know it’s thriller! Thriller night! You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight.” If you grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, these words are probably ingrained somewhere in your mind next to where you’re storing other important information, such as the name of the villain in Die Hard and the capital of Maryland. They got into my head thanks to a laser disc version of the “Thriller” music video that I watched so many times growing up that by the time I was 7, I believed that Michael Jackson actually was a zombie-werewolf. Whatever the stories behind our attachments to the Thriller album might be, we all have one man, aside from Jackson, of course, to thank for it: Quincy Jones, its producer, who helped make Thriller the bestselling album of all time, among his many other astounding achievements during his storied seven-decade career in American music.
“Storied” is the apt word here because Jones’s life story and catalog of successes are so extraordinary that they read like the plot of a Dickens novel or an outline for a Steven Spielberg movie. From rags to riches, from growing up on the streets of Chicago to ascending to the upper echelons of the entertainment industry, Jones, who died on Nov. 3 at the age of 91, arguably did more to shape American pop music than any other figure outside of Michael Jackson himself.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933. He grew up in the notoriously crime-ridden South Side of Chicago and seemed destined for a life of delinquency and destitution until a fortuitous occurrence changed his life. One day, while breaking into a rec center with some fellow ruffians, he spotted a piano. Like Moses, who, while tending his father-in-law’s sheep in Midian, saw a burning bush, wandered toward it, and thereafter had his life, and the lives of the entire Israelite people, change forever, Jones wandered toward the piano as if drawn to it by a mysterious supernatural force. As he would later write in his autobiography, “I went up [to the piano], paused, stared, and then tinkled on it for a moment. That’s where I began to find peace. I was 11. I knew this was it for me. Forever.”
The piano led Jones to the trumpet, which led him to another serendipitous encounter, this time with a blind trumpeter named Ray Charles, and then to yet more providential meetings with influential ’50s-era musicians, such as Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton. It was Hampton who recognized Jones’s musical gifts and invited him, when Jones was only 15 years old, to join his band. Hampton’s wife insisted that Jones at least finish school before joining him on tour. The connections Jones would continue to make in the music world, along with his talent for composition and musical arrangement, helped him earn gigs conducting Count Basie’s band, arranging Frank Sinatra records, composing film soundtracks, and overseeing record companies.
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His next providential meeting took place in 1978 when he was working on the soundtrack of the movie musical The Wiz. Impressed with the actor who was playing the role of the Scarecrow, Jones told him that he’d like to produce his next album. Jones’s subsequent collaboration with this actor, a young singer named Michael Jackson, led to the albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, which sold nearly 100 million copies worldwide, made Jackson the “King of Pop,” and defined American popular music for the next three decades.
Jones’s remarkable litany of accomplishments — which included a record 80 Grammy nominations and 28 wins, two Oscars, an Emmy, and a bestselling book — allowed him to hobnob with some of the world’s most famous people, from movie stars and CEOs to presidents and popes. In one interview, in which his colorful, humorous personality shines through, too, Jones recounted the time that Bono took him to meet Pope John Paul II. “All the guys in the Vatican had these Vatican black shoes. [The Pope] had on some burgundy wingtips, man, with thin tan rib socks, man. We had to go and kiss his hand before we left. And when I kissed his hand, I looked down and saw those shoes and it just fell out of my mouth. I said, ‘Oh, my man’s got some pimp shoes on.’ And he heard me.” Commenting on his relationship with Bono, Jones said that when he would go to visit him in Dublin, “Bono makes me stay at his castle because Ireland is so racist. Bono’s my brother, man. He named his son after me.” When the interviewer followed up and asked, “Is U2 still making good music?” Jones shook his head — a loyal friend but an honest music critic to the end.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and the author, most recently, of Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America.