Michael Jackson was the biggest artist of the 1980s, but producer Quincy Jones said he was extremely shy in his personal life. Jones worked with Jackson on three of his albums, Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad. They had a good working relationship, but Jones said Jackson still wasn’t entirely comfortable around him. When he needed to sing, he had to do it while hiding behind a couch in a dark room.
Michael Jackson had a hard time singing to Quincy Jones
After collaborating on The Wiz, Jones produced Jackson’s album Off the Wall. He said he loved the experience.
“I pulled my ‘A-team’ crew together, anchored by Rod Temperton, one of the best songwriters who has ever lived, and we embarked on making Off the Wall,” Jones wrote for the LA Times after Jackson’s death. “I simply loved working with Michael.”
While they had a solid working relationship, Jackson was still painfully shy around him. He’d been working as a singer since childhood, but still couldn’t look at Jones — or have Jones look at him — while he rehearsed.
“He was so shy he’d sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat there with my hands over my eyes with the lights off,” Jones wrote. “We tried all kinds of tricks that I’d learned over the years to help him with his artistic growth, like dropping keys just a minor third to give him flexibility and a more mature range in the upper and lower registers, and more than a few tempo changes.”
Eddie Murphy also recalled the singer’s shyness
In the 1980s, Jackson and Eddie Murphy attended a movie party at Sammy Davis Jr.’s home. Davis was screening the film Cocoon, which Jackson struggled to view. He was hiding behind a door as it played.
“It was too many people in the room,” Murphy said in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. “He was hiding behind the door. He said, ‘Eddie, come!’”
Confused, Murphy walked over to Jackson and asked, “What the f***, yo?”
Jackson responded with, “It’s so many people in there!”
Quincy Jones said he and Michael Jackson ran the 1980s
Jones said that while he liked working with Jackson on Off the Wall, he had no idea that it would perform as well as it did.
“Anyone who tells you that they knew a record was going to be a big hit is a flat-out liar,” Jones wrote. “We had no idea Off the Wall was going to be as successful as it was, but we were thrilled. Michael had moved from the realm of bubble-gum pop and planted his flag square in the heart of the musical pulse of the ‘80s, but what came next, I don’t think any of us were ready for.”
With their next collaboration on Thriller, Jackson became the biggest artist in the world. Jones felt that their work together made them legends in the 1980s.
“He was the biggest entertainer on the planet,” Jones wrote. “Followed [Thriller] up with Bad and the collective on ‘We Are the World,’ we all made history together. We owned the ‘80s and our souls would be connected forever.”
