Knight, leader of the Pips, happened to catch the group at a Regal performance in Chicago. Like everybody, she was transfixed, especially by Michael and his steadily growing collection of super-smooth dance moves. She invited a few Motown executives to catch one of the band’s shows. They communicated their enthusiasm back to the company’s president, Berry Gordy Jr.
InJuly 1968, backstage before a show at the Regal, Joseph Jackson was nowhere to be found. The Jackson 5 were about to open for Motown act Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, famous for a rock-and-soul hit about interracial dating, “Does Your Mama Know about Me,” and Michael’s older brothers were hungry. They wanted to grab dinner out, in Chicago, for the hour they had left before returning to their dressing rooms to prepare for the evening show. Vancouvers’ guitarist Eddie Patterson and keyboardist Robbie King were chilling in the green room, which contained bunks, a coffee machine, and a little rehearsal area with some mirrors. They agreed to keep an eye on the younger Jackson boys, Michael and Marlon.
Patterson and King sat around and read magazines while Michael queued up funky tunes on an old record player, practicing his steps in front of the mirror. Michael didn’t say much, and Patterson wasn’t especially interested in conversing with a ten-year-old.
Later that night, Patterson found himself in the audience, watching the singer he’d just babysat.“Michael was like a little magic kid on a top, just bopping and singing and smiling and dancing,” he says. “In his last days, he was awesome. But when he was a kid, he was defying gravity.” Like Gladys Knight before him, the Vancouvers’ front man, Bobby Taylor, spread the word to Berry Gordy Jr. at Motown.
This time, Gordy listened intently.
----
I . Reynaud Jones would forever brand himself an enemy of the Jackson family when he, with two other people, sued Michael Jackson in 1993 for copying songs without permission that they’d written and sent to him. Reynaud’s side lost. However, he says everything’s okay with the family, to the point that his old friend Tito Jackson gave him the famous guitar that once belonged to Joe, before a recent concert in Indiana. Several credible sources, including Ronnie Rancifer, Gordon Keith, and Shirley Cartman (in her book), acknowledge Jones was instrumental in the Jackson 5’s early development. In his book, Jermaine said Jones “played bass on a couple of occasions,” and Michael would say in court that Jones came over on a couple of occasions for “hello—goodbye.”
II . Gault, who rarely does interviews, says he prefers to be remembered not as a footnote in the Jacksons’ biography but as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
III . Jessye Williams, who fixed windows for the Gary Community School Corp., gave me a new perspective on the famous detail that crowds threw dollars and coins and Michael picked up the money while singing. Williams, a neighbor in a rock-and-soul band called the Tempos who regularly shared bills with the Jackson 5, recalls: “When they would finish the song, I’d go throw five bucks, and then everybody would follow suit in the audience.” I have no reason not to believe Williams, who died in August 2014, other than people have a tendency to write themselves into Michael Jackson’s history.
CHAPTER 2
----
T heSnakepit was a messy room. Microphones hung from the ceiling. Cables were spread everywhere. A set of drums was in one corner, a grand piano in the other. There was aworn spot on the floor near the mixing board where producers had tapped their feet for a decade. But when the Jackson 5 showed up at Hitsville in Detroit, they didn’t care about the housecleaning. They could feel the presence of the singers who’d come before them—Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, the Four Tops. The Jacksons had shown up to cut vocals for their first songs for Motown Records. The
InJuly 1968, backstage before a show at the Regal, Joseph Jackson was nowhere to be found. The Jackson 5 were about to open for Motown act Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, famous for a rock-and-soul hit about interracial dating, “Does Your Mama Know about Me,” and Michael’s older brothers were hungry. They wanted to grab dinner out, in Chicago, for the hour they had left before returning to their dressing rooms to prepare for the evening show. Vancouvers’ guitarist Eddie Patterson and keyboardist Robbie King were chilling in the green room, which contained bunks, a coffee machine, and a little rehearsal area with some mirrors. They agreed to keep an eye on the younger Jackson boys, Michael and Marlon.
Patterson and King sat around and read magazines while Michael queued up funky tunes on an old record player, practicing his steps in front of the mirror. Michael didn’t say much, and Patterson wasn’t especially interested in conversing with a ten-year-old.
Later that night, Patterson found himself in the audience, watching the singer he’d just babysat.“Michael was like a little magic kid on a top, just bopping and singing and smiling and dancing,” he says. “In his last days, he was awesome. But when he was a kid, he was defying gravity.” Like Gladys Knight before him, the Vancouvers’ front man, Bobby Taylor, spread the word to Berry Gordy Jr. at Motown.
This time, Gordy listened intently.
----
I . Reynaud Jones would forever brand himself an enemy of the Jackson family when he, with two other people, sued Michael Jackson in 1993 for copying songs without permission that they’d written and sent to him. Reynaud’s side lost. However, he says everything’s okay with the family, to the point that his old friend Tito Jackson gave him the famous guitar that once belonged to Joe, before a recent concert in Indiana. Several credible sources, including Ronnie Rancifer, Gordon Keith, and Shirley Cartman (in her book), acknowledge Jones was instrumental in the Jackson 5’s early development. In his book, Jermaine said Jones “played bass on a couple of occasions,” and Michael would say in court that Jones came over on a couple of occasions for “hello—goodbye.”
II . Gault, who rarely does interviews, says he prefers to be remembered not as a footnote in the Jacksons’ biography but as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
III . Jessye Williams, who fixed windows for the Gary Community School Corp., gave me a new perspective on the famous detail that crowds threw dollars and coins and Michael picked up the money while singing. Williams, a neighbor in a rock-and-soul band called the Tempos who regularly shared bills with the Jackson 5, recalls: “When they would finish the song, I’d go throw five bucks, and then everybody would follow suit in the audience.” I have no reason not to believe Williams, who died in August 2014, other than people have a tendency to write themselves into Michael Jackson’s history.
CHAPTER 2
----
T heSnakepit was a messy room. Microphones hung from the ceiling. Cables were spread everywhere. A set of drums was in one corner, a grand piano in the other. There was aworn spot on the floor near the mixing board where producers had tapped their feet for a decade. But when the Jackson 5 showed up at Hitsville in Detroit, they didn’t care about the housecleaning. They could feel the presence of the singers who’d come before them—Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, the Four Tops. The Jacksons had shown up to cut vocals for their first songs for Motown Records. The
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