Consider this from NPR: NPR

Music producer and Ahmet Ertegun Award winner Quincy Jones attends the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2013 Inductees Announcement at Nokia Theater LA

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Hide caption

Toggle label

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Music producer and Ahmet Ertegun Award winner Quincy Jones attends the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2013 Inductees Announcement at Nokia Theater LA

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Quincy Jones, the famed music producer who helped artists dominate popular music for half a century, has died.

His publicist said he died peacefully at his home in California. He was 91 years old.

NPR's Walter Ray Watson described Jones' talent as one that produced music, touched ears, warmed hearts and moved feet to dance.

Together with Michael Jackson, he opened the world of pop music by producing songs like… Bad, Billie JeanAnd Rock with you. His contributions have sold more than a hundred million records, including thrillerthe best-selling album of all time.

It may be hard to imagine now, but record executives doubted that Quincy Jones was the right candidate to produce Michael Jackson's debut as an adult solo artist.

An unlikely success story

Born Quincy Delight Jones Jr., he was the son of a Chicago carpenter and a housewife who sang hymns at home.

As a child of the Great Depression, Jones faced gang violence. And at age 10, his family moved to Seattle, where his father joined the war effort and worked in a shipyard.

“Gangster. Many of them are gangsters. “In the '30s, that was all I ever saw with machine guns,” he said, describing his childhood in Chicago in a 2008 interview with NPR's Michele Norris.

As a child, he was a leader of mischief. And one day he and a few boys set their sights on a room full of freshly baked cakes at a leisure center. They broke in and ate all the cake. Then Jones opened a door.

“And I saw – in the shadows I saw a piano. Then I almost closed the door, and then something deep inside me said, 'Open the door again.' And I went back into the room and slowly walked over to the piano and I felt goosebumps and everything.”

That changed his life, he said. In high school, Jones learned to play the trumpet. He soon made a lifelong friend in blind 16-year-old pianist Ray Charles.

You're reading the Consider This newsletter, which features an important message every day. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox and listen to more like this Consider this podcast.

A musical superpower

Jones was still a teenager when he was hired by legendary vibraphonist and bandleader Lionel Hampton. His talents opened doors for him and his skills took him everywhere.

After producing and scouting some of the industry's greatest talent, Mercury Records promoted Quincy Jones to executive, a first for a black man at a major record label. His taste and instinct led to him producing some of the biggest hits and artists of the last decades.

Listen to the full episode of Consider this Watson to hear at length about Jones' extraordinary life and achievements.

This episode was produced by Marc Rivers and Noah Caldwell. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Patrick Jarenwattananon. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.