So he starts telling Beatle stories.<\/p>\n
Yup, he knew McCartney back in ’62, in London.\u00c2\u00a0 He and Lennon couldn’t write for shit.\u00c2\u00a0 Credit George Martin for teaching them how.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Irving Green could have had the first album, but he didn’t want it!\u00c2\u00a0 Who was interested in a band that couldn’t write its own material!<\/p>\n
Well, that Vee-Jay album didn’t sell until after "Meet The Beatles", when "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was embellished in the national consciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why the band made it.\u00c2\u00a0 They wrote great songs.<\/p>\n
Not that the Beatles were sure they were going to break through in America.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, they’d flopped in Paris.\u00c2\u00a0 Quincy was sitting with the band and Brian Epstein in a hotel in New York, betting whether they were going to break through here or not.<\/p>\n
My jaw was dropping.<\/p>\n
But we started with Frank.\u00c2\u00a0 The Chairman of the Board.\u00c2\u00a0 How if they had a meeting, Frank not only showed up on time, he showed up EARLY!\u00c2\u00a0 Quincy learned to rehearse the band before.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Frank would do one take and leave, saying he nailed it.\u00c2\u00a0 Q would complain the band hadn’t yet gelled, but Sinatra didn’t give a shit, he was out the door.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the time Frank nailed it in TV rehearsal and refused to come back for the show.\u00c2\u00a0 They had to use the rehearsal tape on air!<\/p>\n
Every time I see Quincy Jones he tells me he’s gonna have me and Shawn Fanning up to his house.<\/p>\n
Today was the day.<\/p>\n
I haven’t driven that high up in Bel Air in ages.\u00c2\u00a0 Since back in the seventies, when I moved to L.A. and explored the entire city.<\/p>\n
After breaking through the gate, I was confronted with a compound.\u00c2\u00a0 And when security let me inside, I walked into a screening room with a window that not only revealed the entire westside, but miles of the Pacific Ocean.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what you made the money for.\u00c2\u00a0 To wake up to a view like this would be a dream.\u00c2\u00a0 One a middle class boy from Fairfield, Connecticut could not even fathom.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I went to college with the guy whose father founded Jolly Green Giant, even the scion of Murray the K, but it’s a long way from Middlebury, Vermont to Quincy Jones’ inner sanctum.<\/p>\n
Just like it’s a long way from Chicago to Seattle to L.A. for Q.<\/p>\n
He stayed in Paris for five years.\u00c2\u00a0 They respected jazz musicians there.\u00c2\u00a0 He almost renounced his citizenship.<\/p>\n
But then he went on to work for Mercury Records, recording "It’s My Party" with Lesley Gore.\u00c2\u00a0 Running into Phil Spector at an event, hearing how the boy genius was going to put out a "Party" track Q left the shindig, went back to the office, pressed up demos and shipped ’em.\u00c2\u00a0 And the track was a hit so fast he didn’t have time to convince Lesley to change her last name, which he so desired.<\/p>\n
Then came Michael Jackson…<\/p>\n
The original idea was to get Stevie Wonder to write "We Are The World".\u00c2\u00a0 But Stevie isn’t as punctual as Frank Sinatra.\u00c2\u00a0 MJ had the song ready.<\/p>\n
As for breaking the color barrier on MTV?\u00c2\u00a0 Walter Yetnikoff takes credit, but Q says that story’s wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 They were all in Acapulco, at the Warner house.\u00c2\u00a0 This was before Warner divested its interest in the music television channel.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Ross put it to Bob Pittman.\u00c2\u00a0 Why wasn’t there black music on MTV?<\/p>\n
Then the phone call came.\u00c2\u00a0 They were going with "Billie Jean".<\/p>\n
And the rest is history.<\/p>\n
Michael didn’t want the intro to "Thriller", he kept saying he couldn’t dance to it!<\/p>\n
They kept the five original songs and got rid of the four worst and replaced them with four more of the eight hundred submitted.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how "Human Nature" made the record.<\/p>\n
As for Michael?\u00c2\u00a0 Once he got on the cover of "People" without doing an interview, after they dedicated a complete issue to him right thereafter, he was a changed man.\u00c2\u00a0 Fame spooks you.\u00c2\u00a0 You want it, but can you handle it?<\/p>\n
But fame doesn’t come to everybody.<\/p>\n
Q asked us who did "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin On".<\/p>\n
After I said Jerry Lee Lewis, he told me he cut the song with Big Maybelle two years before!<\/p>\n
And after talking about the racial divide, the two radio formats, one for white and one for black, about ultimately cutting the same song with both the black and white acts, Q returned to his main mantra.\u00c2\u00a0 How no one knows.\u00c2\u00a0 The history, where everything came from.<\/p>\n
They don’t know about Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane.<\/p>\n
But they also don’t know that certain rap terms come from bebop.\u00c2\u00a0 "Homey"?\u00c2\u00a0 Been around for decades!<\/p>\n
That’s one of Q’s goals.\u00c2\u00a0 To educate our populace on the widest played music in the world, American music.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got a million projects.\u00c2\u00a0 But he also wants to tie this educational mission in with his new album.<\/p>\n
That’s why we were there.\u00c2\u00a0 To brainstorm marketing ideas for this compilation of Q songs done by today’s stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody from Justin Timberlake, who championed the idea, to Robin Thicke to Amy Winehouse to Eminem.\u00c2\u00a0 How do we get the word out?\u00c2\u00a0 How do we reinvent the business so people pay for music?\u00c2\u00a0 How do we educate people along the way?<\/p>\n
I made them watch the video from Tom Petty’s Superhighway Tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Done so well, imagine being able to purchase Q’s new album before it’s released and getting all these bonus features.\u00c2\u00a0 Videos not only about the making of the album, but the musical history Q loves so.<\/p>\n
Shawn Fanning blew my mind.\u00c2\u00a0 The record business pariah talked about the power of gaming.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how you get into the mind of the younger generation. Allow them to earn badges, let them feel good about achieving something!<\/p>\n
One thing Shawn said was truly brilliant.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to quantify our discovery, our dedication.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine being able to prove that you were into the band early, before your friends, before everybody else.\u00c2\u00a0 The Web allows this.\u00c2\u00a0 That statistic can be registered!<\/p>\n
A lot of great ideas were brought up.\u00c2\u00a0 And Q’s got the power to not only get things done, but get people’s attention.<\/p>\n
But what blew my mind was the stories.\u00c2\u00a0 In many cases, the truth as opposed to the legend.\u00c2\u00a0 But also filling in gaps that in some cases I didn’t even know existed.<\/p>\n
Q seems to know everybody.\u00c2\u00a0 From heads of state to musicians way out of his genre.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he puts 500,000 air miles under his belt every year.\u00c2\u00a0 He gets around, he’s got his finger on the pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to make a difference.\u00c2\u00a0 And along the way, he charms you, he makes friends, you bond to him.<\/p>\n
I mean I’m sitting there with an interior dialogue in my brain, asking myself, why is he telling me all this?\u00c2\u00a0 Little Bobby Lefsetz.\u00c2\u00a0 Can I really be that important?<\/p>\n
Well, Q made me feel that way.<\/p>\n
It was one of those crowning moments.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only in Hollywood, but music.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve dedicated my life to listening.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s like Geraldo Rivera opened a vault, one that I didn’t believe I had access to, one that I wasn’t really convinced existed, and all this information came tumbling out.\u00c2\u00a0 Not via hearsay, but from a guy who was truly there.\u00c2\u00a0 Snorting speed with Ray Charles.\u00c2\u00a0 Making music with Donna Summer on her way from the clubs to Jesus.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a bystander, but a player.<\/p>\n
A guy who Paul McCartney invites for dinner who brings his own Tabasco sauce, to add some spice to the Beatle’s vegetarian concoctions.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, Paul told Q he had something special for him.\u00c2\u00a0 Beef?\u00c2\u00a0 From the surrounding cows?\u00c2\u00a0 No, Paul revealed a huge hunk of tofu!\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
You shoulda been there.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like "Rolling Stone" came alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Like you were backstage at the concert hall, the radio station and MTV all at once.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t get any better than this.
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