Black PR Wire’s June Power Profiler: Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones is a musical performer, producer, arranger, and composer. With over 70 years in the entertainment industry, he is considered one of the greatest minds in music and television history.

Jones was born in Chicago and reared in Bremerton, Washington, where he studied the trumpet and worked locally with the then-unknown pianist-singer Ray Charles. His musical studies continued at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1961, Jones joined Mercury Records as an artists-and-repertoire, and, in 1964, he was named vice president, becoming one of the first African Americans to hold a top executive position at a major American record label. In 1963, Jones won the first of his many Grammy Awards for his Count Basie arrangement of “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Jones produced hundreds of records for Mercury but gained global acclaim for his production of “We Are the World,” the bestselling single of all time, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the bestselling album of all time.

In 1985, Jones co-produced Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple,” which won 11 Oscar nominations, introduced Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey to film audiences and marked his debut as a film producer.

In 1990, Jones formed Quincy Jones Entertainment (QJE), a co-venture with Time Warner, Inc. Jones served as CEO and chairman and produced NBC Television’s Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and UPN’s In the House and Fox Television’s Mad TV. Jones was also the publisher and founder of VIBE Magazine.

Jones was married and divorced three times. He is a doting father to seven children, Rashida, Kidada, Kenya, Quincy, Jolie Levie, Martina, and Rachel.

Throughout his life, Jones has received many accolades. Jones had received the most nominations for a Grammy Award of all time, with 80 nominations throughout his career, winning 28. Jones has also received an Emmy Award for the theme music he wrote for the television miniseries Roots. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001 and the National Medal of Arts in 2010. In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Courtesy of Black PR Wire