Quncy Jones calls Beatles "worst musicians in the world," Microsoft's Paul Allen "just like Hendrix"
In a new interview, he gave a particularly unfavorable description of how he felt when he first heard the band. Speaking to Vulture, Jones recalled that "they were the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing motherfuckers. Paul [McCartney] was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo [Starr]? Don’t even talk about it."
Jones also talked about his role arranging "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" for Starr's 1970 solo album Sentimental Journey. "I remember once we were in the studio with George Martin," he said, "and Ringo had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldn’t get it. 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?' So he did, and we called Ronnie Verrell, a jazz drummer. Ronnie came in for 15 minutes and tore it up. Ringo comes back and says, 'George, can you play it back for me one more time?' So George did, and Ringo says, 'That didn’t sound so bad.' And I said, 'Yeah, motherfucker, because it ain’t you.' Great guy, though."
Still, Jones admitted that he's a fan of Cream ("They could play"
and noted that Microsoft founder Paul Allen "sings and plays just like Jimi Hendrix. ... I went on a trip on his yacht, and he had David Crosby, Joe Walsh, Sean Lennon — all those crazy motherfuckers. Then on the last two days, Stevie Wonder came on with his band and made Paul come up and play with him — he’s good, man."
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/quincy-jones-beatles/
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Little Feat (more recent incarnation--this was probably ten plus years ago) played the Sky Church at EMP here in Seattle and darned if Allen didn't come out and play a couple of songs with them. I wouldn't call it Hendrix...he had one of the guitarists whispering the chord changes to him til he caught on. He was fine, but it did strike me as a guy with a lot of money who got to do it because it was his house.
That interview was awesome for all the lack of fucks, though, and hey, if I was on a guy's yacht I might think he played pretty well too.
I've posted it here a few times, but it's worth a repeat.
The long version is here: https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/tom-petty-and-others-tell-the-story-behind-princes-while-my-guitar-gently-weeps-solo
Basically, during rehearsals, Jeff Lynne's guitarist Marc Mann plays the first Clapton solo note for note, and when it comes time for Prince's big solo, he plays the same thing, note for note.
He tells the producer not to worry, everything will be fine at showtime. So he just whips it out, unrehearsed with the band, and the rest is musical history.
The third part of the equation that would become the Beatles fell into place on Feb. 6, 1958. George Harrison joined the Quarry Men, the John Lennon-led group that Paul McCartney had joined as a second guitarist and singer the previous summer.
Harrison, who was a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday, had known McCartney for about a year. The two were students at the Liverpool Institute and frequently took the same bus to and from school. A friendship blossomed, and the two began jamming together, even after McCartney had moved from Speke to Allerton.
When the Quarry Men -- named after the Quarry Bank High School where the band was formed three years earlier -- were looking to bring in a third guitarist (they had the idea long before Lynyrd Skynyrd), McCartney suggested his friend. The audition took place, strangely enough, on the top of a double-decker bus. At McCartney's prompt, Harrison took out his guitar and played Bill Justis' R&B instrumental "Raunchy," a No. 2 hit on Sun Records in 1957.
Lennon was impressed with the note-perfect rendition. But the 17-year old Lennon, who was already at Liverpool Art College, had reservations about being in a group with such a youngster. As McCartney put it in Anthology, "It seemed an awful lot at the time. If we wanted to do anything grown-up we worried about George looking young. We thought, 'He doesn't shave. ... Can't we get him to look like a grown-up?'"
