When we entered the studio, one of the Motown guys was adjusting a movie camera. There was an area set up with instruments and microphones. Dad disappeared into one of the sound booths to talk to someone. I tried to pretend that I was at the Fox Theatre, on the rising stage, and this was just business as usual. I decided, looking around, that if I ever built my own studio, I'd get a mike like the one they had at the Apollo, which rose out of the floor. I nearly fell on my face once running down those basement steps while trying to find out where it went when it slowly disappeared beneath the stage floor. The last song we sang was "Who's Lovin' You." When it ended, no one applauded or said a word. I couldn't stand not knowing, so I blurted, "How was that?" Jermaine shushed me. The older guys who were backing us up were laughing about something. I looked at them out of the corner of my eye. "Jackson Jive, huh?" one
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Dad was a little nervous about whether our accommodations would be okay, which surprised me until I realised the Motown people had picked the hotel. We weren't used to having things done for us. We liked to be our own bosses. Dad had always been our booking agent, travel agent, and manager. When he wasn't taking care of the arrangements, Mom was. So it was no wonder that even Motown managed to make Dad feel suspicious that he should have made the reservations, that he should have handled everything. We stayed at the Gotham Hotel. The reservations had been made and everything was in order. There was a TV in our room, but all the stations had signed off, and with the audition at ten o'clock, we weren't going to get to stay up any later anyway. Dad put us right to bed, locked the door, and went out. Jermaine and I were too tired to even talk. We were all up on time the next morning; Dad saw to that. But, in truth, we were just as excited as he w
Dad and Jackie went over the map as we drove away, mostly out of habit, because we had been to Detroit before, of course. We passed Mr. Keith's recording studio downtown by City Hall as we made our way through town. We had done some demos at Mr. Keith's that Dad sent to Motown after the Steeltown record. The sun was going down when we hit the highway. Marlon announced that if we heard one of our records on WVON, it was going to bring us luck. We all nodded. Dad asked us if we remembered what WVON stood for as he nudged Jackie to keep quiet. I kept looking out the window, thinking about the possibilities that lay ahead, but Jermaine jumped in. "Voice of the Negro," he said. Soon we were calling roll all over the dial. "WGN - World's Greatest Newspaper." The Chicago Tribune owned it.) "WLS - World's Largest Store." (Sears) "WCFL . . ." We stopped, stumped. "Chicago Federation of Labor," Dad said,
Across the street the neighbourhood kids were buying candy, and even some of the kids who were giving me a hard time at school asked when we were going to Motown. I told them and bought candy for them and Randy, too, with my allowance. I didn't want Randy to feel bad about my going away. As we approached the house I heard Marlon yell, "Someone shut that door!" The side of out VW minibus was wide open, and I shuddered, thinking about how cold it was going to be on the long ride up to Detroit. Marlon had beat us home and was already helping Jackie load the bus with our stuff. Jackie and Tito got home in plenty of time for once: They were supposed to have basketball practice, but the winter in Indiana had been nothing but slush and we were anxious to get a good start. Jackie was on the high school basketball team that year, and Dad liked to say that the next time we went to play in Indianapolis would be when Roosevelt went to the state championshi
We won the Apollo amateur night competition, and I felt like going back to those photos on the walls and thanking my "teachers." Dad was so happy he said he could have flown back to Gary that night. He was on top of the world and so were we. My brothers and I had gotten straight A's and we were hoping we might get to skip a "grade." I certainly sensed that we wouldn't be doing talent shows and strip joints much longer. In the summer of 1968 we were introduced to the music of a family group that was going to change our sound and our lives. They didn't all have the same last name, they were black and white, men and women, and they were called Sly and the Family Stone. They had some amazing hits over the years, such as "Dance to the Music," "Stand," "Hot Fun in the Summertime." My brothers would point at me when they heard the line about the midget standing tall and by now I'd laugh along. We heard
That first Steeltown single, "Big Boy," had a mean bass line. It was a nice song about a kid who wanted to fall in love with some girl. Of course, in order to get the full picture, you have to imagine a skinny nine-year-old singing this song. The words said I didn't want to hear fairy tales any more, but in truth I was far too young to grasp the real meanings of most of the words in these songs. I just sang what they gave me. When that record with its killer bass line began to get radio play in Gary, we became a big deal in out neighborhood. No one could believe we had our own record. We had a hard time believing it. After that first Steeltown record, we began to aim for all the big talent shows in Chicago. Usually the other acts would look me over carefully when they met me, because I was so little, particularly the ones who went on after us. One day Jackie was cracking up, like someone had told him the funniest joke in the world. This wasn
Mr. Lucky's, a Gary nightspot. We were being forced to spend our weekends in Chicago and other places trying to win an ever-increasing number of amateur shows, and these trips were expensive, so the job at Mr. Lucky's was a way to make it all possible. Mom was surprised at the response we were getting and she was very pleased with the awards and the attention, but she worried about us a lot. She worried about me because of my age. "This is quite a life for a nine-year-old," she would say, staring intently at my father. I don't know what my brothers and I expected, but the nightclub crowds weren't the same as the Roosevelt High crowds. We were playing between bad comedians, cocktail organists, and strippers. With my Witness upbringing, Mom was concerned that I was hanging out with the wrong people and getting introduced to things I'd be better off learning much later in life. She didn't have to worry; just one look at some of t
Soon Dad was grooming us for talent contests. He was a great trainer, and he spent a lot of money and time working with us. Talent is something that God gives to a performer, but our father taught us how to cultivate it. I think we also had a certain instinct for show business. We loved to perform and we put everything we had into it. He's sit at home with us every day after school and rehearse us. We'd perform for him and he'd critique us. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch. My father was real strict with us - real strict. Marlon was the one who got in trouble all the time. On the other hand, I'd get beaten for things that happened mostly outside rehearsal. Dad would make me so mad and hurt that I'd try to get back at him and get beaten all the more. I'd take a shoe and throw it at him, or I'd just fight back, swinging my fists. That's why I got it more than all my brothers combined. I
My mother knew her polio was not a curse but a test that God gave her to triumph over, and she instilled in me a love of Him that I will always have. She taught me that my talent for singing and dancing was as much God's work as a beautiful sunset or a storm that left snow for children to play in. Despite all the time we spent rehearsing and travelling, Mom would find time to take me to the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah's Witnesses, usually with Rebbie and LaToya. Years later, after we had left Gary, we performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show", the live Sunday night variety show where America first saw the Beatles, Elvis, and Sly and the Family Stone. After the show, Mr. Sullivan complimented and thanked each of us; but I was thinking about what he had said to me before the show. I had been wandering around backstage, like the kid in the Pepsi commercial, and ran into Mr. Sullivan. He seemed glad to see me and shook my hand, but before he let it g
When I first performed with my brothers, we were known as the Jacksons. We would later become the Jackson 5. Still later, after we left Motown, we would reclaim the Jacksons name again. Every one of my albums or the group's albums has been dedicated to our mother, Katherine Jackson, since we took over our own careers and began to produce our own music. My first memories are of her holding me and singing songs like "You Are My Sunshine" and "Cotton Fields." She sang to me and to my brothers and sisters often. Even though she had lived in Indiana for some time, my mother grew up in Alabama, and in that part of the country it was just as common for black people to be raised with country and western music on the radio as it was for them to hear spirituals in church. She likes Willie Nelson to this day. She has always had a beautiful voice and I suppose I got my singing ability from my mother and, of course, from God. Mom played the clarinet and the pia
So I very much identify with anyone who worked as a child. I know how they struggled, I know what they sacrificed. I also know what they learned. I've learned that it becomes more of a challenge as one gets older. I feel old for some reason. I really feel like an old soul, someone who's seen a lot and experienced a lot. Because of all the years I've clocked in, it's hard for me to accept that I am only twenty-nine. I've been in the business for twenty-four years. Sometimes I feel like I should be near the end of my life, turning eighty, with people patting me on the back. That's what comes from starting so young.
I was born in Gary, Indiana, on a late summer night in 1958, the seventh of my parents' nine children. My father, Joe Jackson, was born in Arkansas, and in 1949 he married my mother, Katherine Scruse, whose people came from Alabama. My sister Maureen was born the following year and had the tough job of being the oldest. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, and Marlon were all next in line. Randy and Janet came after me. A part of my earliest memories is my father's job working in the steel mill. It was tough, mind-numbing work and he played music for escape. At the same time, my mother was working in a department store. Because of my father, and because of my mother's own love of music, we heard it all the time at home. My father and his brother had a group called the Falcons who were the local R&B band. My father played the guitar, as did his brother. They would do some of the great early rock ¦n' roll and blues songs by Chuck Berry, Little
Introduction to THE KING OF POP I've always wanted to be able to tell stories, you know, stories that came from my soul. I'd like to sit by a fire and tell people stories - make them see pictures, make them cry and laugh, take them anywhere emotionally with something as deceptively simple as words. I'd like to tell tales to move their souls and transform them. I've always wanted to be able to do that. Imagine how the great writers must feel, knowing they have that power. I sometimes feel I could do it. It's something I'd like to develop. In a way, songwriting uses the same skills, creates the emotional highs and lows, but the story is a sketch. It's quicksilver. There are very few books written on the art of storytelling, how to grip listeners, how to get a group of people together and amuse them. No costumes, no makeup, no nothing, just you and your voice, and your powerful ability to take them anywhere, to transform their live