In 1943, when Jones was ten, his family moved to Bremerton, Washington, where his father got a wartime job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Elvera and Quincy Senior had three more children together through 1950, after they had moved to the Northwest: Jeanette, Margie and Richard, now a judge in Seattle, making a total of eight in the family. Jones’ stepmother, Elvera, had three children of her own: Waymond, who became a friend of the young Quincy, Theresa and Katherine. His father obtained a divorce and remarried. When the boys were young, their mother suffered from a schizophrenic breakdown and was committed to a mental institution. Lucy Jackson recalled that after he heard her that one day, she could not get him off her piano if she tried. When he was five or six, Jackson played stride piano next door, and he would always listen through the walls. Quincy was introduced to music by his mother, who always sang religious songs, and by his next door neighbor Lucy Jackson. Quincy had a younger brother, Lloyd, later an engineer for the Seattle station, KOMO-TV he died in 1998. Jones later discovered that his paternal grandfather was Welsh. Sarah was a bank officer and apartment complex manager. They had gone to Chicago as part of the Great Migration out of the South. His father was a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter from Kentucky his paternal grandmother was an ex-slave in Louisville. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African-American with seven nominations each.īorn on the South Side of Chicago, to Sarah Frances (née Wells) (1903-1999) and Quincy Delightt Jones, Sr (1895-1971). He is also the first African-American to win the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. Jones is also the first (and so far, only) African-American to be nominated as a producer in the category of Best Picture (in 1986, for The Color Purple).
That same year, he became the first African-American nominated twice in the same year when he was nominated for Best Original Score (for In Cold Blood). In 1968, Jones along with his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans nominated for an Academy Award in the “Best Original Song” category. He is best known as the producer of two of the top-selling records of all time: the album Thriller, by pop icon Michael Jackson, and the charity song “We Are the World”. (born March 14, 1933) is an American music impresario, musical arranger, record producer, and film composer.ĭuring 50 years in the entertainment industry Jones’ work has earned him more than 70 Grammy Award nominations, more than 25 Grammy Awards, and a Grammy Legends Award in 1991.