Michael Jackson-- From the Horse's Mouth

Ever since Michael Jackson's death, no one has been more importuned for commentary and interviews than Quincy Jones, Jackson's producer and partner on three albums, one of which, "Thriller," remains the biggest seller of all time. And nothing Quincy Jones has said anywhere else has the rawness and the lacerating candor of the interview he gave after Jackson's death to Details Magazine, of all places. It's especially blunt about Michael's relationship to his skin color and the drug addictions Jones witnessed, especially Ray Charles'. An excerpt:

Q: How have you been holding up since Michael Jackson's death?

A: Oh, man. It's surrealistic. I went to Shanghai for the movie festival over there-- I took Halle Berry--then went back to Luxembourg and in three days, I lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael. And Michael's thing is still surrealistic to me. I can't process it, man. I don't know how to process it. It's just unbelievable--him leaving before me. I can't believe it.

Q: How did you learn that he had died?

A: Well, everybody in the world called me. I got 500 e-mails. I've never seen anything like it in my life. At first they said they'd taken him to the hospital, then said he'd had a stroke or a heart attack--it just kept going back and forth and we didn't know what was really happening. And at first I thought he was just kind of freaked out by the coming concerts, because I was in London when they announced the 50 concerts and they sold out in four hours.......We'd see each other all the time, and I just can't believe he's not here.

Q: Have you been crying?

A: Oh, man, it's more than that. It's way more than that. It hurts my soul, man. It's just a lump down there.

Q: You were there to witness the strange evolution in Michael's appearance. Did you ever step in and say anything about it?

A: Oh we talked about it all the time. But he'd come up with "Man, I promise you I have this disease" and so forth and "I have a blister on my lungs" and all that kind of b.s. It's hard because Michae's a Virgo man--he's very set in his ways. You can't talk him out of it. Chemical peels and all that stuff.

Q: Did you believe him about the disease?

A: I don't believe in any of that bull----, no. No. Never. I've been around junkies and stuff all my life. I've heard every excuse. It's like smokers --"I only smoke when I drink" and all that stuff. But it's bull----. You're justifying something that's destructive to your existence. It's crazy. I mean, I came up with Ray Charles, man. You know, nobody gonna pull no wool over my eyes. He did heroin 20 years! Come on. And black coffee and gin for 40 years. But when he called me to come over and see him when he was in the hospital on his way out, man, he had emphysema, hepatitis C, cirrhosis of the liver and five malignant tumors. Please, man! I've been around this all my life. So it's hard for somebody to pull the wool over my eyes. But when somebody's hell bent on it, you can't stop 'em.

Q: It must've been so disturbing to see Michael's face turn into what it turned into.

A: It's ridiculous man! Chemical peels and all of it. I don't understand it. But he obviously didn't want to be black. 

--Jeff Simon

Comments

[BobbyCat]

It's refreshing to read some candid chat from Quincy Jones rather than the deification in the tabloid press.

In case anyone missed it, this piece by Mitch Albom appeared a few days ago:

Mitch Albom
Detroit Free Press

Michael Jackson left this world a week ago. But he hadn’t been living in it for a long time.

In fact, it’s hard to think of a celebrity who had less to do with the real world than Jackson. In the real world, you don’t have pet llamas or roller coasters in your backyard. In the real world, if you’re $400 million in debt, people aren’t still lending you money. In the real world, you don’t buy human bones, wear lipstick as a man or sleep with other people’s children in your bedroom.

Still, as soon as he died, Jackson — whom fans helped chase into his own private Neverland — was embraced as if he lived next door and inspired us every day.

The hypocrisy of the cable news mourning is hard to stomach. Seeing Al Sharpton laud Jackson as some major civil rights activist or Christie Hefner celebrate his amazing business acumen is bad enough. (If he were so smart, how come he was so broke?) But the whitewash of opinion being spouted by the public outdoes anything Jackson ever tried to do to his looks.

Days ago, when he was still alive, Jackson was perceived as a desperate, grotesque, off-the-radar, once-great performer turned weird, pathetic, possibly criminal and unable to sell records the way he once did.

A day later, he was a world-healer, a joy-spreader, a one-of-a-kind man of magic.

I know death has a way of aggrandizing life. But some of the same people mourning the King of Pop for the TV cameras didn’t do a whole lot for him while he was here.

I always felt sorry for Michael Jackson. We were born in the same year, and, like a lot of kids, I watched him grow up, sang his songs, tried some of his dance moves. But when I went to high school, he was playing nightclubs. When I went to college, he was touring the world. While I got married and found a home, he was wearing sunglasses and masks, had a dubious relationship with a woman to produce children, then cut her out of the picture.

Soon, all he had in common with the rest of us was breathing air and eating food. He loved Jackie Wilson and Diana Ross but his life was more like Elvis Presley’s. Elvis was a white man bringing black music to a white audience. Jackson was a black man bringing black music to a white audience. Elvis died young, bloated and surrounded by drug rumors. Jackson died young, skinny and surrounded by drug rumors. Neither could go anywhere. Both holed up in secluded mansions. Neither seemed very happy.

But Elvis chose show business as a man. Jackson, as a child, was pushed in front of the family singing group by a domineering father. There was no normalcy. Just records and screaming fans and, as Michael aged and altered his face, cameras and more cameras. It’s no surprise paparazzi already were gathered outside his rented home when the ambulance came for him. Earlier, the press had been outside another hospital, chewing on the details of Farrah Fawcett’s passing. Suddenly, it was as if all that media raced away from Fawcett’s death to chronicle Jackson’s. And that image tells you all you need to know about fame.

I won’t be a hypocrite and say sweet singing and dazzling dancing give you a free pass—especially if it involved abusing children. I will say it seemed almost predestined that he’d walk a strange path. But let’s be honest. Celebrating Jackson more in death than in life doesn’t honor him. If anything, calling him Wacko Jacko, chronicling his surgically enhanced face and making him a national joke, then weeping for TV cameras about how much we’ll miss him makes us seem, for the moment, even stranger than him.

Mitch Albom

[Mark]

Finally, MJ "Beat it". And what was that song, "Billie's jeans" all about anyway?