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Information Page
INTRODUCTION
PART I
THE JACKSON 5
PART II
MICHAEL JACKSON: SOLO AT MOTOWN
PART III
THE JACKSONS AT EPIC
TIMELINE > > >
PART IV
MICHAEL JACKSON SOLO: THE EPIC YEARS
PART V
THE OTHER BROTHERS – AND SISTERS
Michael Joseph Jackson is the seventh child born to Katherine and Joe Jackson in Gary, Indiana. Other Jackson siblings are: Maureen Reilette (Rebbie), 29 May, 1950; Sigmund Esco (Jackie), 4 May, 1951; Toriano Adaryl (Tito), 15 October, 1953; Jermaine La Juan, 11 December, 1954; Yvonne LaToya, 29 May, 1956; Marlon David, 12 March, 1957; Steven Randall (Randy), 29 October, 1961; Janet Damita, 16 May, 1966
Father Joe begins coaching Jermaine, Tito and Jackie in his spare time and they are soon joined by Marlon and Michael. Joe later recruits drummer Johnny Jackson.
‘I Want You Back’/‘Who’s Loving You’, the Jackson 5’s début single, is released on Motown Records and sells two million copies in six weeks. This is the group’s first Gold record but, because Motown is not a member of the RIAA, it is not certified as such.
Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 enters both the Black and Pop album charts peaking at number 1, holding its position for nine and five weeks respectively. The LP spends a total of 32 weeks on the Pop charts.
Joseph Jackson sends Motown founder, Berry Gordy, a tape of the Jackson 5. Three months later, it is returned with no offer.
Michael starts Kindergarten at Garnett Elementary School in Gary and, at the age of five, participates in a school pageant, singing an a cappella version of ‘Climb Every Mountain’ taken from the film The Sound Of Music. His emotional delivery brings his teacher and his mother to tears. This is Michael’s first public performance. Shortly afterwards, Michael takes over from Jermaine as lead vocalist in the group.
The Jackson 5 are seen by Gladys Knight at a show in Chicago. They subsequently perform at New York’s Harlem Theatre where Michael gets to see James Brown.
The Jackson 5 release the single ‘Big Boy’ on Steeltown Records, Gary. After an appearance on the David Frost TV show, The Jackson 5 audition for Berry Gordy, head of Motown Records, and are are subsequently signed to the label. The Jackson 5, father Joe and his assistant Jack Richardson are temporarily accommodated at the Hollywood Hills homes of Berry Gordy and Diana Ross.
‘I Want You Back’/‘Who’s Loving You’ by the Jackson 5 enters the Top 50 singles chart in Britain, peaking at number 2, and remains on the charts for 13 weeks, selling over 250,000 copies. It hits number 1 on both the Pop and Black singles charts, holds its position for one and four weeks respectively and remains on the Pop charts for 19 weeks.
‘ABC’ hits number 1 on the Pop singles chart, replacing The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’, holding its position for two weeks and remaining on the charts for 13 weeks.
‘I’ll Be There’/‘One More Chance’ by the Jackson 5, released in August by Motown Records, enters the Black singles chart. It peaks at number 1 holding its position for six weeks and remaining on the charts for 13 weeks.
The Jackson 5 reach sales of 10 million worldwide for the singles ‘I Want You Back,’ ‘ABC’ and ‘The Love You Save’ during a nine-month period - a record unsurpassed in such a time period. The Jacksons move to their parents’ first home in Encino, California.
The Jackson 5 embark on their first national tour playing shows in Boston, Cincinnati, Tennessee and New York City. There are incidents during these shows of teenage girls fainting, and trying to mount the stage. While on tour, the Jackson 5 are accompanied by a private tutor, Rose Fine.
‘The Love You Save’/‘I Found That Girl’ by the Jackson 5, released on May 13 by Motown Records, enters the Pop singles chart. It goes on to sell over two million copies.
The Jackson 5 play their first major concert at the Los Angeles Forum.
Michael appears on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Throughout the summer the Jackson 5 play their second major US tour, including a date in front of 80,000 fans at the Lake Michigan Summer Festival.
‘Got To Be There’, Michael’s first solo single, released.
Got To Be There, Michael’s first solo album, released on January 24 by Motown Records, enters the Black and Pop albums charts, peaking at numbers 3 and 14 respectively, and remains on the Pop charts for 23 weeks.
Ben, Michael’s second solo LP, is released, along with the eponymous single.
The Jackson 5 arrive in the UK for their first British dates. While in Europe they also visit Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris.
The Jackson 5 perform in several African countries.
‘Ben’ is nominated for an Oscar at the Academy Awards but doesn’t win.
The Jackson 5 tour Japan.
The Jackson 5 tour Australia.
Far East tour by the Jackson 5.
The Jackson 5 tour the UK
The Jackson 5, including Michael, announce they have signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of Columbia, and will therefore leave Motown when their contract expires in 1976. Because Jermaine Jackson, who is married to Berry Gordy’s daughter, remains with Motown, the group is renamed The Jacksons. Legal battles ensue but in the end the family stay with Epic.
In the UK, the Jacksons play the Royal Command Performance as part of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations.
The Jackson Family, including sisters Rebbie, La Toya and Janet, play the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. They return there twice before the end of the year.
The Jacksons star in their own variety series on CBS TV.
Michael rehearses for his role as the Scarecrow in Universal Pictures’ remake of The Wizard Of Oz, The Wiz, which also stars Diana Ross as Dorothy. Filming begins in October when Michael meets the show’s musical director, Quincy Jones, for the first time.
Michael meets Paul McCartney for the first time.
The Wiz opens in Los Angeles.
Destiny, the first Jacksons album on Epic, is released
Off The Wall, Michael’s first solo LP on which he has full creative control, is released. Produced by Quincy Jones, it breaks music industry records by being the first album to include four Top Ten singles in the US. In the UK there are a record five hit singles, including ‘Girlfriend’, a duet with Paul McCartney.
The Jacksons begin a world tour to promote their Destiny album, opening in Germany and moving on for several concerts in the UK.
The Jacksons release their Triumph album.
The Jacksons’ Triumph tour opens in Memphis but some shows are cancelled after Michael collapses with exhaustion.
Michael and 44 other artists, including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, record ‘We Are The World’ co-written by Michael and Lionel Richie. This follows Bob Geldof’s Band Aid initiative in the UK, which is designed to ease famine in Africa.
While singles from Thriller, including ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Beat It’ and the title track, are huge hits across the globe, Michael debuts his moonwalk dance during a TV show that celebrates Motown’s 25th Anniversary.
Watched by 47,000,000 US viewers, it reinforces Michael’s dominance of the music scene during a year when Thriller spent all 52 weeks of the year in the US Top Ten, including 37 at number one.
Michael acquires ATV Music, which includes Northern Songs, The Beatles’ publishing catalogue, from Australian millionaire Robert Holmes A’Court, for $47.5 million. The purchase does not please Paul McCartney.
Bad, Michael’s third and final album produced by Quincy Jones, is released.
Michael’s Thriller, which will go on to become the biggest-selling album of all time, is released.
Michael wins an unprecedented eight awards at the Grammys in Los Angeles.
Michael’s hair catches fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in New York.
Michael is reunited with his brothers for the Victory tour, named after the Jacksons album released this month, opens in Kansas. The tour is dogged by poor organisation and some fans stay away because the price of tickets is too high. Nevertheless the tour continues through December.
Michael starts his first ever solo tour of the US, opening in Kansas City. The tour continues through April.
The Bad tour moves to Australia.
Michael opens his solo Bad tour in Japan.
The Bad tour continues with more dates in the US.
The Bad tour moves to Europe, opening in Rome.
Michael performs five sell-out concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium, including one attended by Price Charles and Princess Diana.
The Bad tour winds down with more shows in the US.
Michael re-signs his contract with Sony Music, which had bought CBS in 1988. It is reported to be the biggest music deal in history.
Michael is seen dining out with Madonna in Los Angeles.
Michael is on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, with a picture taken by Annie Leibovitz.
Michael performs at the Super Bowl Half Time Show at the Rose Bowl Stadium, Pasadena. It is watched by 100,000 in the stadium and 133 million on TV.
Michael visits West Africa.
Michael’s single ‘Black Or White’, featuring Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, is released.
Michael’s Dangerous album is released.
Michael’s European tour again includes five concerts at Wembley Stadium
Japanese tour.
Far East tour, followed by shows in Moscow and Tel Aviv.
The LA Police Department investigates allegations of abuse made by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler.
Michael’s HIStory album is released throughout the world.
Child molestation charges relating to Jordan Chandler are dropped.
Michael makes a statement denying the child abuse allegations.
Michael tours South America and Mexico. Further dates on the Dangerous tour are cancelled due to Michael’s addiction to pain-killing drugs.
It is reported that Michael has separated from Lisa Marie Presley.
Michael marries Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie, in the Dominican Republic. News of the marriage is not released until July.
Michael attends a private birthday party for Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Michael’s appearance at the Brits in London is disrupted when Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker runs on stage while Michael sings ‘Earth Song’.
The HIStory tour visits Japan and other Far Eastern countries.
Michael plays two concerts in Hawaii, his first US dates since 1989.
Debbie Rowe gives birth to Michael’s son Prince Michael in Los Angeles.
Michael attracts 120,000 fans to a concert in Warsaw, Poland.
The second leg of the HIStory tour, which opens in Germany, crosses Europe, and includes three concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium.
It is announced that Michael has married 37-year-old nurse Debbie Rowe during a ceremony in Australia where he is playing concerts.
Michael’s wife Debbie Rowe gives birth to a baby girl, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson.
Michael and Debbie Rowe end their marriage.
Michael talks about his forthcoming album, on which he will collaborate with several different producers.
Michael speaks out against the American music industry’s treatment of black artists, and claims that Sony have not sufficiently promoted Invincible.
Michael performs at two tribute concerts for him at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
In London, Michael attends a football match at Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC. The club is owned by Harrods boss Mohammed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi died in the Paris crash in 1997 that killed Diana, Princess of Wales.
Michael takes part in a marathon concert in Washington, organised to benefit the victims of the 9/11 World Trade Centre atrocity.
Michael’s album Invincible is released.
The controversial documentary Living With Michael Jackson is aired on TV. Later Michael issues a statement claiming he was “unfairly treated”.
More child abuse allegations lead LA police to search Michael’s Neverland Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara. Michael is subsequently arrested and charged.
Michael’s trial for child abuse continues.
A tentative date is set for Michael’s child abuse trial but it is further delayed until 2005.
In Germany, Michael holds his new baby Prince Michael II over the railings high up in his hotel suite. He later apologises for his actions.
Michael is back in Gary, Indiana, to receive the keys of the city and revisit his childhood home.
Armed with a new search warrant, police raid Michael’s Neverland Ranch for a second time.
Michael flies to the Middle East, where he stays as a guest of Bahrain’s Southern Governor Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
Michael is found not guilty of the abuse charges.
For most of the year, Michael stays in Bahrain, making periodic visits to London, Ireland, Paris and Hamburg.
Michael takes up residence in Las Vegas, but maintains a low profile for much of the year amid continuing reports about problems with his financial affairs.
Michael dies from a heart attack at a rented home in Los Angeles.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Thriller, Thriller 25 is released, containing remixes and a previously unreleased song.
To celebrate Jackson’s 50th birthday in August, Sony BMG releases a compilation album.
In London, Michael announces that he will perform 50 shows at the O2 Arena from July 13, 2009, to March 6, 2010.
Michael Jackson was breaking records as a big-selling pop star before he was a teenager and went on to set standards for commercial success by selling upwards of 50 million copies of one piece of work, Thriller. His other solo albums recorded as an adult have sold in the region of another 50 million and he sold millions of singles as a child star fronting The Jackson 5. He became one of the richest individuals in the world.
He could have anything he wanted and do anything he wanted. He could be anything he wanted except private, a child again or immortal and some of hose things are probably hat he most wanted. He was not a poor little rich boy who inherited wealth. His fortune was generated by his talent. As a child he had no choice or control over how this talent was directed but he learned his crafts - singing, dancing, recording, writing - with a speed and thoroughness that impressed his elders.
The price exacted for these riches was well documented in a series of biographies, his personal memoir (he was too young to have written a definitive autobiography) and the biographies and autobiographies of other members of his family. You might know of large families, ruled by fear of the father, who have evolved to be every bit as dysfunctional as the Jacksons without the professional pressures - or the opportunities for counselling money can buy. Of course, wealth could not forever shore up a collapsing family structure. Look at the Windsors. It is ludicrous to expect that Michael Jackson (b 29 August, 1958) should have grown up “ordinary”. His was not an ordinary childhood. Jackie (b Sigmund Esco Jackson, 4 May, 1951), Tito (b Toriano Adaryll Jackson, 15 October, 1953) and Jermaine (b Jermaine La Jaune Jackson, 11 December, 1954), his three elder brothers, formed a trio in 1961.
Michael joined a few years later (with Marlon David Jackson, b 12 March, 1957), his singing and dancing thrusting him to the fore. He’d been fronting the group for six years when the commercial ball started rolling in 1969. He was 11, something of a veteran and fast becoming the family’s meal ticket. He, not the father, was their breadwinner. And for a short while he was central to Motown’s financial stability.
Remarkably, he was one of the few child stars who was a bigger star as an adult. Although Motown had parlayed a “child genius” Little Stevie Wonder into a mature star, the burn-out rate among pop music child stars is roughly equal to that of movie child stars. In 1956, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers had four R&B hits in the US, two of which were Top 20 pop hits there, and ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love?’, which Lymon had written at the age of 13, got to No 1 in the UK, the first of three British hits. Addicted to heroin for much of the Sixties, he died of an overdose in 1968, a year before The Jackson 5 burst onto the scene. By these tokens, Michael’s career should have ended in the Seventies.
The 5’s success in targeting a new, young audience spawned a rash of imitations, notably The Osmonds (a bizarre Battle of the Sects subtext here: Jehovah’s Witnesses versus The Mormons!). Since then, the teen and pre-teen market has never been without succour - New Edition, New Kids On The Block, Take That, East 17, Boyzone, rap acts like Kriss Kross, vocal groups who, as did the J5, base their acts on the vocal legacy of Sixties soul (Boyz II Men, Jodeci and so on) in Nineties clothes and dances.
According to some books, his father, a manipulator by fear, told Jackson he was not as good as he thought. Motown told him he was fabulous but had much to learn. When he thought he’d learned much and wanted some control, they told him he wasn’t as good as he thought. The press wrote that he was great, then not as good as he thought. Then he was fantastic, then weird, mad and much worse. He formed few lasting relationships with people of his own age outside his family because of the cocoon woven around him by family and record company, by his own shyness (another result of a cloistered upbringing), and by his dissatisfaction with his appearance, which was not helped by virulent teenage acne, teasing brothers and a taunting father.
The rest you will have read about in the newspapers.
In the beginning was The Corporation. And The Corporation was Mighty. And The Corporation saw The Jackson 5 home video and saw that it was good. For Bobby Taylor, leader of The Vancouvers, a toiler in soul’s vineyard, hath seen The Jackson 5 many times and had spoken unto Gladys Knight of their great talent. And Gladys Knight hath seen them at the Regal Theater, Chicago in 1967 and sent word to her Lord and Master at The Corporation, whose name shall be honoured for it is (all rise) Berry Gordy (all sit). And Berry Gordy called a Great Gathering of acolytes to his Mansion and they were much excited. For there had been consternation in The Corporation that it was losing its powers and that its flock was wandering elsewhere, yea, even unto the false gods of Psychedelic Rock, unto emerging sects who worshipped Funk, and unto the politicised scribes who spake the words Black Power.
Certainly, in the way it came to be told, there was something Biblical rather than merely providential about the “discovery” of The Jackson 5, a group of teens and preteenagers rigorously tutored by their father, Joe Jackson, in the over-spilling family home at Gary, Indiana. They had recorded a couple of undistinguished singles for Steeltown, a local label in Michigan, before word-of-mouth, a home video and an audition at Berry’s pad got them a deal with Tamla Motown records, which was in the process of moving to Los Angeles - Gordy wanted to break into movies big time and was not fascinated by Detroit’s inner-city problems.
“It was Tito who decided we should form a group and we did and we practised a lot and then we started entering talent shows and we won every one we entered.”
The label was also in the process of re-grouping after the loss of its main hit-writing team - Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland - and a sudden sea change in the music market that was affecting sales of singles, traditionally the main aim of “black” music in general (jazz was the exception) and Motown in particular. Previously, African-American music had not been attuned to album sales, but it was now the growth area in the “white” music market, the market that had turned Berry’s labels - Tamla, Gordy and Motown - from an exciting local operation into a national phenomenon, one of the largest black-owned companies in the United States and a beacon of pride and achievement to a people.
The signing of The Jackson 5 did not give Motown sudden penetration into the albums market - that came within a couple of years through the extraordinary fertile period of recording by Marvin Gaye (‘What’s Going On’, ‘Let’s Get It On’) and Stevie Wonder (‘Music Of My Mind’, ‘Talking Book’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Fulfillingness’ First Finale’) and Norman Whitfield’s Temptations’ productions. What the signing did achieve was to re-energize the company and reaffirm its slogan, The Sound Of Young America, by shooting it back to the top of the singles charts four times in 11 months as The Jackson 5 became the first new group to hit No 1 with its first four singles.
The 5 had been performing on stage since 1965, were winning high-profile talent contests two years later and in 1967 played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. They were not entirely unknown outside a small area of Michigan when Motown signed them and travelled as far east and south as Philadelphia, Kansas City and St Louis to support big name acts but made little noise, even locally, with the ballad ‘Big Boy’ backed with ‘You’ve Changed’ (1968) on Steeltown. (To collectors, an original copy is now worth a cool grand.) A second Steeltown single, the teenybop precursor ‘You Don’t Have To Be Over 21 To Fall In Love’ with a ‘Jam Session’ flip, recorded in 1968, was eventually released in 1971 in a futile attempt to cash in on their subsequent breakthrough. Another Steeltown single, by The Ripples Featuring Michael (aka The Ripple & The Waves) and titled ‘Let Me Carry Your Schoolbooks’/‘I Never Had A Girl’, was also released in 1971, though the label denied it was by The Jackson 5. But by the end of 1968 they’d been signed by Motown and relocated to Los Angeles, living as guests in the not unpalatial homes of Gordy and his label’s hot property Diana Ross. (The Steeltown sides are available as ‘The Jackson 5 Featuring Michael Jackson: Historic Early Recordings’ on Charly Groove CPCD 8122. There is also a more extensive and expensive Japanese import titled ‘Big Boy’.)