# Quincy Jones once claimed a Microsoft billionaire could play “just like” Jimi Hendrix. He wasn’t even joking

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/quincy-jones-once-claimed-a-microsoft-billionaire-could-play-just-like-jimi-hendrix-he-wasnt-even-joking/
- Published: 2026-10-29T22:56:35+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-29T23:54:15+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/quincy-jones-once-claimed-a-microsoft-billionaire-could-play-just-like-jimi-hendrix-he-wasnt-even-joking/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Quincy Jones compared Paul Allen’s playing to Jimi Hendrix’s.
- Jones said Hendrix had backed out of playing on *Gula Matari*.
- Allen collected Hendrix memorabilia and helped the estate financially.

## Summary

Music producer Quincy Jones once said Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sang and played “just like” Jimi Hendrix, apparently meaning it as praise for Allen. The comparison was striking given Jones’s reported frustration with Hendrix, whom he said had declined to play on his 1970 album *Gula Matari*.

Allen was a lifelong Hendrix fan who began playing guitar as a teenager and later collected the musician’s memorabilia. He lent the Hendrix estate $6 million in 1993 to help with a legal battle over the singer’s back catalogue, and founded Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture in 2000, where the collection could be seen by the public. Allen died in 2018 with a reported fortune of nearly $20 billion.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.