Quincy Jones’s scandalous remarks about The Beatles – and how Paul McCartney responded

Producer of artists including Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra infamously said he thought the Fab Four ‘the worst musicians in the world’ when he first met them

Quincy Jones was never one to shy away from voicing his opinion, whether on presidential candidate Donald Trump or on his friend and collaborator Michael Jackson.

Arguably the most notorious example was when the late producer gave an interview with New York Magazine in 2018, and shared his first impression of “no-playing motherf***ers”... The Beatles.

“They were the worst musicians in the world,” he said. “Paul [MCCartney] was the worst bass player I ever heard.”

He reserved particular venom for drummer Ringo Starr, with whom he recalled recording the song “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing” for Starr’s 1970 debut solo album, Sentimental Journey.

“Ringo had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldn’t get it,” Jones said.

“We said, ‘Mate, why don’t you get some lager and lime, some shepherd’s pie, and take an hour-and-a-half and relax a little bit.”

Quincy Jones made headlines for his remarks about The Beatles (Getty)

While Starr went away, Jones claimed that he snuck English jazz drummer Ronnie Verrell into the studio: “[He] came in for 15 minutes and tore it up. Ringo comes back and says [to George Martin], can you play it back for me one more time?

“So George did, and Ringo says: ‘That didn’t sound so bad,’” Jones remembered. “And I said: ‘Yeah, motherf***er, because it ain’t you.’ Great guy, though.”

Jones’s remarks caused uproar among music fans and made headlines around the world. A few months later, McCartney revealed to GQ that Jones had called him to suggest he was misrepresented in the interview: “Paul, I didn’t really say that thing – I don’t know what happened, man. I never said that. You know I love you guys!”

McCartney recalled his reply: “I said, ‘If you had said that, you know what I would have said? F*** you, Quincy Jones, you f***ing crazy motherf***er!’ So actually we just had a laugh. And he was like, ‘Oh Paul, you know I love you so much.’ ‘Yeah, I know you do, Quince.’”

Sir Paul McCartney appeared to brush off Jones’s inflammatory remarks (AFP via Getty Images)

The Beatles weren’t the only superstars Jones took aim at. In the same interview, the legendary producer called Jackson, with whom he worked on albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, “as machiavellian as they come”, criticising him for allegedly stealing “a lot of stuff” from fellow artists without paying them.

Jackson’s family took umbrage with Jones’s remarks, with one family member telling Page Six: “He must have the first stages of dementia.”

Joe Jackson said he believed Jones was “quite jealous of Michael because he’s never worked with someone with all of that talent”.

Jones claimed that he and Michael had been in a good place at the time of the pop star’s death, aged 50, in 2009. He died on 3 November 2024, aged 91.