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 would fight back and my father

would kill me, just tear me up. Mother told me I'd fight back even when I

was very little, but I don't remember that. I do remember running under

tables to get away from him, and making him angrier. We had a turbulent

relationship.

Most of the time, however, we just rehearsed. We always rehearsed.

Sometimes, late at night, we'd have time to play games or with our toys.

There might be a game of hide-and-go-seek or we'd jump rope, but that was

about it. The majority of our time was spent working. I clearly remember

running into the house with my brothers when my father came home, because

we'd be in big trouble if we weren't ready to start rehearsals on time.

Through all this, my mother was completely supportive. She had been the one

who first recognised our talent and she continued to help us realise our

potential. It's hard to imagine that we would have gotten where we did

without her love and good humour. She worried about the stress we were under

and the long hours of rehearsal, but we wanted to be the best we could be

and we really loved music.

Music was important in Gary. We had our own radio stations and nightclubs,

and there was no shortage of people who wanted to be on them. After Dad ran

our Saturday afternoon rehearsals, he'd go see a local show or even drive

all the way to Chicago to see someone perform. He was always watching for

things that could help us down the road. He'd come home and tell us what

he'd seen and who was doing what. He kept up on all the latest stuff,

whether it was a local theatre that ran contests we could enter or a

Cavalcade of Stars show with great acts whose clothes or moves we might

adapt. Sometimes I wouldn't see Dad until I got back from Kingdom Hall on

Sundays, but as soon as I ran into the house he'd be telling me what he'd

seen the night before. He'd assure me I could dance on one leg like James

Brown if I'd only try this step. There I'd be, fresh out of church, and back

in show business.

We started collecting trophies with our act when I was six. Our lineup was

set; the group featured me at second from the left, and Jackie on my right.

Tito and his guitar took stage right, with Marlon next to him. Jackie was

getting tall and he towered over Marlon and me. We kept that setup for

contest after contest and it worked well. While other groups we'd meet would

fight among themselves and quit, we were becoming more polished and

experienced. The people in Gary who came regularly to see the talent shows

got to know us, so we would try to top ourselves and surprise them. We

didn't want them to begin to feel bored by our act. We knew change was

always good, that it helped us grow, so we were never afraid of it.

Winning an amateur night or talent show in a ten-minute, two-song set took

as much energy as a ninety-minute concert. I'm convinced that because

there's no room for mistakes, your concentration burns you up inside more on

one or two songs than it does when you have the luxury of twelve or fifteen

in a set. These talent shows were our professional education. Sometimes we'd

drive hundreds of miles to do one song or two and hope the crowd wouldn't be

against us because we weren't local talent. We were competing against people

of all ages and skills, from drill teams to comedians to other singers and

dancers like us. We had to grab that audience and keep it. Nothing was left

to chance, so clothes, shoes, hair, everything had to be the way Dad planned

it. We really looked amazingly professional. After all this planning, if we

performed the songs the way we rehearsed them, the awards would take care of

themselves. This was true even when we were in the Wallace High part of town

where the neighbourhood had its own performers and cheering sections and we

were challenging them right in their own backyards. Naturally, local

performers always had their own very loyal fans, so whenever we went off our

turf and onto someone else's, it was very hard. When the master of

ceremonies held his hand over our heads for the "applause meter," we wanted

to make sure that the crowd knew we had given them more than anyone else.

As players, Jermaine, Tito, and the rest of us were under tremendous

pressure. Our manger was the kind who reminded us that James Brown would

fine his Famous Flames if they missed a cue or bent a note during a

performance. As lead singer, I felt I - more than the others - couldn't

afford an "off night." I can remember being onstage at night after being

sick in bed all day. It was hard to concentrate at those times, yet I knew

all the things my brothers and I had to do so well that I could have

performed the routines in my sleep. At times like that, I had to remind

myself not to look in the crowd for someone I knew, or at the emcee, both of

which can distract a young performer. We did songs that people knew from the

radio or songs that my father knew were already classics. If you messed up,

you heard about it because the fans knew those songs and they knew how they

were supposed to sound. If you were going to change an arrangement, it

needed to sound better than the original.

We won the citywide talent show when I was eight with our version of the

Temptations' song "My Girl." The contest was held just a few blocks away at

Roosevelt High. From Jermaine's opening bass notes and Tito's first guitar

licks to all of us singing the chorus, we had people on their feet for the

whole song. Jermaine and I traded verses while Marlon and Jackie spun like

tops. It was a wonderful feeling for all of us to pass that trophy, our

biggest yet, back and forth between us. Eventually it was propped on the

front seat like a baby and we drove home with Dad telling us, "When you do

it like you did tonight they can't not give it to you."

We were now Gary city champions and Chicago was our next target because it

was the area that offered the steadiest work and the best word of mouth for

miles and miles. We began to plan our strategy in earnest. My father's group

played the Chicago sound of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, but he was

open-minded enough to see that the more upbeat, slicker sounds that appealed

to us kids had a lot to offer. We were lucky because some people his age

weren't that hip. In fact, we knew musicians who thought the sixties sound

was beneath people their age, but not Dad. He recognised great singing when

he heard it, even telling us that he saw the great doo-wop group from Gary,

the Spaniels, when they were stars not that much older than we. When Smokey

Robinson of the Miracles sang a song like "Tracks of My Tears" or "Ooo, Baby

Baby," he'd be listening as hard as we were. The sixties didn't leave

Chicago behind musically, Great singers like the Impressions with Curtis

Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Major Lance, and Tyrone Davis were playing all over

the city at the same places we were. At this point my father was managing us

full-time, with only a part-time shift at the mill. Mom had some doubts

about the soundness of this decision, not because she didn't think we were

good but because she didn't know anyone else who was spending the majority

of his time trying to break his children into the music business. She was

even less thrilled when Dad told her he had booked us as a regular act at