Quincy Jones was understandably dubious when — near the start of our 1996 interview in Los Angeles — I said I wanted to ask him a question he’d never been asked before.

“I’ve done lots of interviews,” said the legendary music producer, composer and arranger, who died Sunday at the age of 91 from undisclosed causes at his Bel-Air home.

But Jones lit up when he learned I had recently turned 40 and did not know how to drive.

“You did? You don’t? Welcome to the club!” he said, smiling broadly.

Our subsequent chat about our shared lifelong-pedestrian status was an enjoyable prelude to the real reason I was there to do the interview. Jones was producing the 1996 edition of the Academy Awards, which was hosted by his friend (and former San Diegan) Whoopi Goldberg.

The only artist to produce landmark albums by Miles Davis and Michael Jackson, Jones spoke for more than an hour about helming the Oscars. He also recalled what it was like to be a nominee, as he had been seven times in the Best Musical Score and Best Song for a Motion Picture categories.

“I never felt such chills in my life,” Jones said. “I remember sitting by Burt Bacharach and Rod Steiger, and Rod won that year (for the Jones-scored “In the Heat of the Night”). And Rod said at one point before he won: ‘Sitting here is like pleading for your dignity.’ It’s just a nightmare. It’s so painful.

“Because once you walk in that hall, you want to win. I mean, let’s be real. No one’s going to say: ‘I came here to lose. I’m a great loser.’ I don’t want to be good at losing.”

Happily, I interviewed Jones multiple times in the 1990s and aughts. But our 1996 interview remains one of the very few I have done with any artist to began with me volunteering that I don’t know how to drive.

It was a terrific ice-breaker, and I owe the credit for it to the late James Moody, the jazz saxophone legend who had been a close friend of Jones since they first performed together in New York in the early 1950s. (“Moody! To this day, I hear his name and it just warms me up. He went out of his way to help me,” Jones told me in a 2003 Jazz Times interview.)

Moody and his wife, San Diego Realtor Linda Moody,  knew that — like Jones — I didn’t drive. Moody encouraged me to make Jones aware of our shared, wheels-free status.

I did exactly that. The resulting interview, which ran in my then-weekly San Diego Union-Tribune column, Pop Beat, could not have been a smoother or more enjoyable ride. Here it is, in full.

Baby, you can drive their cars — PLEASE!

By GEORGE VARGA , March 27, 1996 | The San Diego Union-Tribune

Quincy Jones is a hard-driving man, except when it comes to driving.

A major force in music, film, television and more, Jones has won enough awards (including 26 Grammys); to fill a small museum. He currently heads his own record label and one of the largest minority-owned broadcasting companies in the nation, produces “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and three other TV shows, and is overseeing the production of seven feature films.

A self-acknowledged workaholic, Jones has been driven to succeed since he started playing music professionally in his early teens. But when it comes to actually driving, he is a lifelong pedestrian.

So, for that matter, is Pop Beat.

But there are a few key differences between Jones, who produced this past Monday’s Academy Awards telecast, and Pop Beat, which watched the Oscars at home on TV.

Difference No. 1: Pop Beat walks and runs 4½ miles to work most weekdays; Jones has a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Town Car at his disposal, around-the-clock.

Difference No. 2: Jones is one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood; Pop Beat, well, never mind.

During an interview at the Wilshire Boulevard production offices of the Academy Awards, Jones discussed the ins and outs of pedestrian living on March 12, just two days before his 64th birthday. Here is a nearly unedited text of that conversation.

Pop Beat: Can I assume that, over the years, you’ve done more interviews than you might ever care to recall?

Quincy Jones: (chuckles) I’ve done lots of interviews.

Pop Beat: That being the case, I’d like to begin with something I hope you have never been asked.

Jones: (doubtfully) OK.

Pop Beat: I turned 40 last month, and I don’t know how to drive, and —

Jones: You did? You don’t? Welcome to the club! (smiles, shakes hands)

Pop Beat: I have a number of former girlfriends who will tell you why it’s not good that I don’t drive.

Jones: I have a bunch of former wives.

Pop Beat: What did you tell them?

Jones: That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is, you know. I even went out and took 11 lessons, and some days I’d drive perfectly, with the dual controls. And other days, when I was thinking about something else, I’d stop at a stoplight on the downbeat. Or somebody I know at the Wilshire Hotel would yell at me as I was driving by, and I’d stop and talk to them (from the car), because I didn’t have the discipline of knowing that at any moment you could get killed.

So, (at) the last lesson, my instructor said: “I’m taking you to lunch and giving you your money back. They don’t need another fool out on the road. So forget it; we’ll go eat and there will be one less idiot in traffic.”

Pop Beat: How old were you at that time?

Jones: (laughing) Oh, this wasn’t long ago. You know, some days I’d drive all the way out to MGM (studios) and not drive over the curbs or anything, just straight driving, when I concentrated on it. But once I drift off, forget it. One second like that can take your life. So forget it. I gave it up. You, too?

Pop Beat: I had a disastrous attempt to learn to drive when I was 20. I had no reflexes, so instead of hitting the brakes, I hit the gas and broadsided another car, which went over a curb and into a tree. Fortunately, the other driver was not badly hurt. But I took it as a warning from a greater force from above telling me not to drive.

Jones: You’re not a Pisces, are you?

Pop Beat: I am.

Jones: Oh s—! (laughs) Sounds like it, man. What day?

Pop Beat: February 28.

Jones: Oh god. Mine is March 14. Incredible. (laughs, shakes hands) It sounds so familiar! (laughs again) I remember getting in the car one night and trying to put it in the garage. It was in reverse, and went right straight through the gate. Amazing.