Quincy Jones: The Dude

"MR: You mentioned 'Just Once.' BM: ... I had always sung on all my demos, and I felt that this demo had an R&B quality about it, so I asked around our publishing company if they knew of any singers who could sing the song who was an R&B singer. They mentioned this guy James Ingram. We never heard him sing, and we hired him. Usually, we listen first, but for some reason, we just hired him. ... He goes in behind the mic, and we turn on the tape, and the intro begins, and then he starts to sing. We nearly fell on the floor. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. He was so great. ... We loved it, and then we sent it to Quincy hoping that he would see how great the song is for James. About an hour after we sent it to Quincy, Quincy calls up, and he says, 'Man, I love this. Barry is singing his ass off!' He thought that was me singing, and we told him, 'No, it's this guy James Ingram.' ... Then we found out, James told us years later, he had never sung lead ever. ... MR: Yeah, and actually Quincy's production on that was amazing, and then it ends up on The Dude, one of the great contemporary jazz/pop albums. CW: Right. MR: In addition to James' vocal, that small trumpet answer on the chorus back was such a hook. I guess it just takes the right notes sometimes, doesn't it. BM: Yeah. That's Quincy. He's very tasteful" (Mike Ragogna, "A Conversation with Songwriters Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil," Huffington Post, 7/9/12).

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