Michael Jackson Part 1 of 2

The future king of pop, Michael Joseph Jackson, was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana.

 

Joe Jackson, Michael's dad, was a former boxer and crane operator at U.S. Steel during the 1950s in Gary – according to a fantastic article by Rolling Stone, quoted in the book; Dave Marsh's Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream, there were actual quotas in place on how many black workers were allowed to move up the ladder into skilled trades in the city's mills. This idiocy meant black workers were paid less than white workers. Unfortunately, this also meant they were subject to higher rates of fatal industry-related illnesses – but Papa Joe hoped that music would lift his life. Michael's mother, Katherine Scruse, was from Alabama but lived in East Chicago, Indiana when she met Joe. Momma Katherine played clarinet and piano, had dreams of being a country-and-western performer, worked part-time at Sears, and was a Jehovah's Witness. She grew up listening to country & western music, and even though she had a dream to be a musician, she was stricken with a bout of polio that had left her with an unfortunate and permanent limp. Papa Joe and Momma Katherine were young when they married in 1949 and started on the idea of a big ol family. The first of the bunch was Maureen (aka Rebbie) in 1950, then Sigmund (aka Jackie) in 1951, Toriano (Tito) followed up in 1953, Jermaine in 1954, La Toya in 1956, Marlon in 1957. Then there came Michael in 1958, Randy in 1961, and little baby Janet in 1966, making her 16 years younger than Rebbie. Marlon was actually a twin but their brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.

 

M.J. and his cluster of brothers and sisters constantly had music around them. Papa Joe was super into the new electric R&B sound tearing up Chicago, which wasn't far away, not to mention the beginning stages of early rock & roll. So Papa Joe formed a band with his brothers called "the Falcons," making some extra coin in the surrounding area at parties and small clubs. In his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk, Michael wrote, "They would do some of the great early rock & roll and blues songs by Chuck Berry, Little Richard … you name it," Going on to say, "All those styles were amazing, and each had an influence on … us, though we were too young to know it at the time."

 

The Falcons eventually broke up, and Papa Joe put down his guitar and hid it in his bedroom closet. He wouldn't let anyone near it, let alone touch it, giving us insight into his control over the household. Regardless of Papa Joe's musical dismay, Momma Katherine taught her flock of kiddies how to harmonize while listening to her favorite country/western songs. Tito, just like daddy, was drawn to music and one day thought it was a bright idea to snag Papa Joe's precious guitar from the closet and take it to practice with his brothers. Well, guess what? He broke a string. Michael later said Joe whipped Tito for the infraction and, "he let him have it,." After the whoopin', Papa Joe told Tito to show him what he could do on the guitar. Well, Papa joe was floored. Tito impressed the crap out of him.

 

Is it possible that at that very moment, Papa Joe's lightbulb blew a breaker and saw his musical dreams come to fruition vicariously through his kids? First, he bought Tito his own guitar and taught him some Ray Charles music, then he got Jermaine a bass. Soon he was working all his sons into an ensemble. So, I'm going to say yes, the breaker blew. Papa Joe loved the blues, but he appreciated that his kids liked the new R&B – Motown and soul – and more than likely saw dollar signs every time they mentioned it. Joe wanted Jermaine to be the lead singer with Jackie and Tito, and Michael and Marlon playing the tambourine and congas. Michael has said that his father told him he had a "fat nose" (just a little foreshadowing here) and abused him during rehearsals. Michael recalled that Joe often sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as his children rehearsed, ready to punish any mistakes. Joe acknowledged that he regularly whipped Michael. Katherine said that although whipping came to be considered abuse, it was a common way to discipline children when Michael was growing up. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon have said that their father wasn't abusive and that the whippings, which were harder on Michael because he was younger, kept them disciplined and out of trouble. Michael said his childhood was lonely and isolated.

 

At just four years old, Momma Katherine saw Michael singing along to a James Brown song, and she saw – in both his voice and moves – he was already better than his older brother. So she told Joe, "I think we have another lead singer." Katherine would later say that sometimes Michael's precocious abilities frightened her – she probably saw that his childhood might give way to stardom – but she also noticed that there was something undeniable about his young voice. Michael was also a natural entertainer. He absolutely loved singing and dancing, and because he was so young, the choice was clear, Michael was young, AND Michael was BAD. Get it? No? He was fantastic, OK?

 

Joe Jackson was good at what he did. "He knew exactly what I had to do to become a professional," Michael later said. "He taught me exactly how to hold a mic, make gestures to the crowd, and handle an audience." But by Joe's own admission, he was also unrelenting. "When I found out that my kids were interested in becoming entertainers, I really went to work with them," he told the time in 1984. "I rehearsed them about three years before I turned them loose. That's practically every day, for at least two or three hours. … They got a little upset about the whole thing in the beginning because the other kids were out having a good time. … Then I saw that after they became better, they enjoyed it more." That isn't always how Michael remembered it. "We'd perform for him, and he'd critique us," he wrote in Moonwalk. "If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch. … 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'd fight back, and my father would kill me, just tear me up." Those moments – and probably many more – created a loss that Jackson never got over. He was essential to the family's music-making, but there was no other bond between father and son. Again, from Moonwalk: "One of the few things I regret most is never being able to have a real closeness with him. He built a shell around himself over the years, and once he stopped talking about our family business, he found it hard to relate to us. We'd all be together, and he'd just leave the room."

 

Around 1964, Joe began entering the Jackson brothers in talent contests, many of which they handily won. Michael started sharing lead vocals with Jermaine, and the group's name was changed to the Jackson 5. In 1965, the group won a talent show; Michael performed the dance to Robert Parker's 1965 song "Barefootin'" and sang the Temptations' "My Girl." From 1966 to 1968, the Jackson 5 toured the Midwest; they frequently played at a string of black clubs known as the Chitlin' Circuit as the opening act for artists such as Sam & Dave, the O'Jays, Gladys Knight, and Etta James. Oh, and James Brown. No one was as important to Michael as James Brown. 

"I knew every step, every grunt, every spin and turn," he recalled. "He would give a performance that would exhaust you, just wear you out emotionally. His whole physical presence, the fire coming out of his pores, would be phenomenal. You'd feel every bead of sweat on his face, and you'd know what he was going through….You couldn't teach a person what I've learned just standing and watching." The chitlin circuit was a collection of performance venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States that provided commercial and cultural acceptance for African American musicians, comedians, and other entertainers during the era of racial segregation in the United States through the 1960s. The Jackson 5 also performed at clubs and cocktail lounges, where striptease shows were featured, and local auditoriums and high school dances. In August 1967, while touring the East Coast, they won a weekly amateur night concert at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY.

 

"At first, I told myself they were just kids," Joe said in 1971. "I soon realized they were very professional. There was nothing to wait for. The boys were ready for stage training, and I ran out of reasons to keep them from the school of hard knocks." So in 1966, he booked his sons into Gary's black nightclubs and some in Chicago. Many of the clubs served alcohol and several featured strippers. "This is quite a life for a nine-year-old," Katherine would remind her husband, but Joe was undaunted. "I used to stand in the wings of this one place in Chicago and watch a lady whose name was Mary Rose," Michael recalled. "This girl would take off her clothes and panties and throw them to the audience. The men would pick them up and sniff them and yell. My brothers and I would be watching all this, taking it in, and my father wouldn't mind." Sam Moore of Sam and Dave recalled Joe locking Michael – who was maybe 10 years old – in a dressing room while Joe went off on his own adventures. Michael sat alone for hours. He also later recalled having to go onstage even if he'd been sick in bed that day.

 

On those tours, the most famous place was the Apollo in New York, where the Jackson 5 won an Amateur Night show in 1967. Joe had invested everything he had in his sons' success, though any accurate recognition or profit would also be his success. While on the circuit, Joe had known Gladys Knight, who was enjoying a string of small wins with Motown, America's pre-eminent black pop label. With the encouragement of both Knight and Motown R&B star Bobby Taylor, of Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, Joe took his sons to Detroit to audition for the label after they opened for Taylor at Chicago's Regal Theater in 1968. Taylor produced some of their early Motown recordings, including a version of "Who's Lovin' You."

 

In 1969, Motown moved the Jackson family to Los Angeles, set them up at the homes of Diana Ross and the label's owner, Berry Gordy, and began grooming them. Finally, Motown executives decided Ms. Ross should introduce the Jackson 5 to the public.

Michael remembered Gordy telling them, "I'm gonna make you the biggest thing in the world. … Your first record will be a number one, your second record will be a number one, and so will your third record. Three number-one records in a row." 

In 1959, Gordy founded Tamla Records – which soon became known as Motown – in Detroit. By the time he signed the Jackson 5, Motown had long enjoyed its status as the most essential black-owned and -operated record label in America, spawning the successes of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Mary Wells, the Four Tops, and Diana Ross and the Supremes, among others. Unlike Stax and Atlantic, Motown's soul wasn't incredibly bluesy or gritty, nor was it music that spoke explicitly to social matters or to the black struggle in the U.S. By its nature, the label exemplified black achievement. Still, its music was made to be consumed by the pop mainstream – which of course, meant a white audience as much as a black one (the label's early records bore the legend "The Sound of Young America"). At the time, rock music was exceedingly becoming a medium for full-length albums. However, Motown maintained its identity as a label that manufactured hit singles, despite groundbreaking albums by Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Gordy was looking for a singles-oriented group to deliver hits for young people and give them somebody to identify as their own and admire. The Jackson 5, Gordy said, would exemplify "bubblegum soul."

The Jackson 5 made their first television appearance in 1969 in the Miss Black America pageant, performing a cover of "It's Your Thing." Rolling Stone later described the young Michael as "a prodigy" with "overwhelming musical gifts" who "quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer."

 

The Jackson 5's first three singles – "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "The Love You Save" – became Number One hits as Gordy had promised, and so did a fourth, "I'll Be There." "I Want You Back" became the first Jackson 5 song to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100; it stayed there for four weeks. It was originally written for Gladys Knight and The Pips and Diana Ross.

The group was established as the breakout sensation of 1970. Fred Rice, who would create Jackson 5 merchandise for Motown, said, "I call 'em the black Beatles. … It's unbelievable." And he was right. The Jackson 5 defined the transition from 1960s soul to 1970s pop as much as Sly and the Family Stone. When many Americans were uneasy about minority aspirations to power, the Jackson 5 displayed an agreeable ideal of black pride, reflecting kinship and aspiration rather than opposition. Moreover, they represented a realization that the civil rights movement made possible, which couldn't have happened even five or six years earlier.

Not to mention, the Jackson 5 earned the respect of the critics. Reviewing "I Want You Back" in Rolling Stone, Jon Landau wrote, "The arrangement, energy and simple spacing of the rhythm all contribute to the record's spellbinding impact." Yes, we all they were a fantastic group. However, there was no question about who the Jackson 5's true star was and who they depended on. Michael's voice also worked beyond conventional notions of male-soul vocals – it surpassed genders. Cultural critic and musician Jason King wrote, "It is not an exaggeration to say that he was the most advanced popular singer of his age in the history of recorded music. His untrained tenor was uncanny. By all rights, he shouldn't have had as much vocal authority as he did at such a young age."

In May 1971, the Jackson family moved into a large house on a two-acre estate in Encino, California. Michael turned from a child performer into a heart-throbbing teen idol during this period.

 

Michael and his brothers seemed like they were everywhere for at least the first few years and enjoyed the praise of the masses. But soon, they experienced some problematic limitations. The music they were making wasn't really of invention – they didn't write or produce it – and after Michael was relegated to recording throwback tunes like "Rockin' Robin," in 1972, he worried that the Jackson 5 would become an "oldies act" before he left adolescence. 

 

Michael released four solo studio albums with Motown: Got to Be There (1972), Ben (1972), Music & Me (1973), and Forever, Michael(1975). "Got to Be There" and "Ben," the title tracks from his first two solo albums, sold well as singles, as did a cover of the aforementioned, Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin."

 

They were frustrated by Motown's refusal to give creative input, so The Jackson 5 started producing themselves and creating their own sound. When given creative leeway, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye showed the ability to grow and change – and sell records. And with 1974's "Dancing Machine," the Jacksons proved they could thrive when they tackled a funk groove and brought the robot dance into popularity.

Motown, however, wouldn't consider it. "They not only refused to grant our requests," Michael said in Moonwalk, "they told us it was taboo to even mention that we wanted to do our own music." Michael understood this: Motown would not let the Jackson 5 grow. But unfortunately, they also wouldn't let him grow as an artist. So Michael waited, studying the producers he and his brothers worked with. "I was like a hawk preying in the night," he said. "I'd watch everything. They didn't get away with nothing without me seeing. I really wanted to get into it."

 

In 1975, The Jackson 5 left Motown, and Joe Jackson negotiated a new deal for his sons with Epic Records for a 500 percent royalty-rate increase and renamed themselves the Jacksons, with younger brother Randy joining the band around this time. The contract also stipulated solo albums from the Jacksons (though the arrangement did not include Jermaine, who married Gordy's daughter Hazel and stayed with Motown, creating a rift with the family that lasted for several years). Motown tried to block the deal and stopped the brothers from using the Jackson 5 name. Instead, epic initially placed them with Philadelphia producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Still, it wouldn't be until 1978's "Destiny" that the Jacksons, with Michael as their primary songwriter, finally took control over their music and rebranded their sound with the dance-tastic hits "Blame It on the Boogie" and "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)," while bringing a newly found emotional embellishment in songs like "Push Me Away" and "Bless His Soul."

Destiny, however, was just the start. After that, Michael was ready to make significant changes to establish his dominance as a solo artist. 

 

In 1977, Michael moved to New York City to star as the Scarecrow in The Wiz. It costarred Diana Ross, Nipsey Russell, and Ted Ross. The movie was a box-office failure but has gained significant traction as a cult classic. Its score was arranged by a gentleman named Quincy Jones, who later produced three of Michael's solo albums. In New York, Jackson often hung out at the Studio 54 nightclub, where he discovered early hip hop; this influenced his beatboxing on future tracks such as "Working Day and Night." In 1978, Jackson broke his nose during a dance routine. A rhinoplasty led to breathing difficulties that later affected his career. 

 

During this time, he fired his father as his manager and found himself a new father figure, that guy Quincy Jones. Jones was a respected jazz musician, bandleader, composer, and arranger who had worked with Clifford Brown, Frank Sinatra, Lesley Gore, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, and Paul Simon. In addition, he wrote the film scores for The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, and In the Heat of the Night. 

 

Michael liked Quincy's ear for mixing complex hard beats with soft overlayers. "It was the first time that I fully wrote and produced my songs," Jackson said later, "and I was looking for somebody who would give me that freedom, plus somebody who's unlimited musically." Specifically, Michael said his solo album had to sound different than the Jacksons; he wanted a cleaner and funkier sound. These two getting together was history in the making. Quincy brought an ethereal buoyancy to Michael's 5th solo album, Off the Wall, and his soft erotic fever on songs like "Rock With You" and "Don't Stop' Til You Get Enough," and in a fantastic moment like "She's Out of My Life," Where Quincy pulled out and left the intense heartbreak in Michael's voice. The tears in She's Out of My Life are real. Jackson would break down in tears at the end of each studio take. "We recorded about - I don't know - 8 to 11 takes, and every one at the end, he just cried," producer Quincy Jones said. "I said, 'Hey - that's supposed to be, leave it on there.'" The resulting album was a massive hit, selling more than 5 million copies in the U.S. alone by 1985 and producing four top ten singles. It reached number 3 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” was solely written by Michael. He decided to write the song after constantly humming the melody at home.

 

Michael won three American Music Awards for his solo work in 1980: Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." He also won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." However, he thought he should have taken away more. 

The Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes" won Record of the Year, and Billy Joel's 52nd Street won Album of the Year. Michael was stunned and kind of bitter. "My family thought I was going crazy because I was weeping so much about it," he later said. "I felt ignored and it hurt. I said to myself, 'Wait until next time' – they won't be able to ignore the next album. … That experience lit a fire in my soul." 

Michael told Quincy and others that his next album wouldn't simply be more immense than "Off the Wall," it would be the biggest album ever. Man, he wasn't lying.

 

In 1981, Michael was the American Music Awards winner for Favorite Soul/R&B Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.

 

So what are royalties, you may ask?

Music royalties are compensation payments received by songwriters, composers, recording artists, and their respective representatives in exchange for the licensed use of their music.

 

Michael recorded with Freddie Mercury, the star-studded frontman of future Icons Queen, from 1981 to 1983, recording demos of "State of Shock," "Victory," and "There Must Be More to Life Than This." The recordings were supposed to be for an album of duets, but, according to Queen's manager Jim Beach, the relationship went to crap when Jackson brought a llama into the recording studio. Yes, a llama. Also, Michael was upset by Mercury's drug use. But yet... a llama. 

Luckily, those songs were released in 2014.

Michael recorded "State of Shock" with Mick Jagger for the Jacksons' album Victory (1984), the fifteenth studio album by the Jacksons. The album was the only album to include all six Jackson brothers together as an official group; also, it was the band's last album to be entirely recorded with Michael as lead singer. In 1982, Michael contributed "Someone in the Dark" to the audiobook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.