Yahoo Lifestyle Quincy Jones, Grammy-Winning Titan of the Music Industry, Dead at 91
Legendary music producer and composer Quincy Jones, who amassed 28 Grammy Award wins across his multi-decade career, died on Sunday at the age of 91.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the Jones family said in a statement obtained by our sister site Variety. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him. He is truly one of a kind and we will miss him dearly; we take comfort and immense pride in knowing that the love and joy, that were the essence of his being, was shared with the world through all that he created. Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity.”
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A cause of death has not been disclosed.
In his 70-plus years in the entertainment industry, Jones was best known for his work as a record producer, namely his collaboration with pop icon Michael Jackson; Jones produced three of Jackson’s most successful releases with the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. Jones also notably worked with performers such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Donna Summer and Little Richard, to name but a few, and he co-produced the memorable 1985 charity single “We Are the World.”
Jones’ musical influence extended into film and television, too. Over the years, he collected seven Oscar nominations for the scores and original songs he contributed to In Cold Blood, Banning, For Love of Ivy, The Wiz and The Color Purple. Though he didn’t take home any trophies for those films, he received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995 — making him the honor’s first Black recipient — and will posthumously receive an honorary Oscar at the Academy’s Governors Awards on Sunday, Nov. 17.
For the small screen, Jones composed the theme songs for shows including Sanford and Son, Ironside and The Bill Cosby Show. He also served as an executive producer on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air — as well as its current reboot Bel-Air on Peacock — and hosted a 1990 episode of Saturday Night Live.
Among Jones’ many other accomplishments were a Grammy Legend Award in 1991, a Tony Award nomination in 2006 for The Color Purple and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
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