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 lives, if only for minutes.
As I begin to tell my story, I want to repeat what I usually say to people when they ask me about my earliest days with the Jackson 5: I was so little when we began to work on our music that I really don’t remember much about it. Most people have the luxury of careers that start when they’re old enough to know exactly what they’re doing and why, but, of course, that wasn’t true of me. They remember everything that happened to them, but I was only five years old. When you’re a show business child, you really don’t have the maturity to understand a great deal of what is going on around you. People make a lot of decisions concerning your life when you’re out of the room. So here’s what I remember. I remember singing at the top of my voice and dancing with real joy and working too hard for a child. Of course, there are many details I don’t remember at all. I do remember the Jackson 5 really taking off when I was only eight or nine.
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.
Imagine singing and dancing at this age.
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 Richard, Otis Redding, you name it. All those styles were amazing and each had an influence on Joe and on us, although we were too young to know it at the time. The Falcons practiced in the living room of our house in Gary, so I was raised on R&B. Since we were nine kids and my father’s brother had eight of his own, our combined numbers made for a huge family. Music was what we did for entertainment and those times helped keep us together and kind of encouraged my father to be a family-oriented man. The Jackson 5 were born out of this tradition—we later became the Jacksons—and because of this training and musical tradition, I moved out on my own and established a sound that is mine.
I remember my childhood as mostly work, even though I loved to sing. I wasn’t forced into this business by stage parents the way Judy Garland was. I did it because I enjoyed it and because it was as natural to me as drawing a breath and exhaling it. I did it because I was compelled to do it, not by parents or family, but by my own inner life in the world of music.
There were times, let me make that clear, when I’d come home from school and I’d only have time to put my books down and get ready for the studio. Once there, I’d sing until late at night, until it was past my bedtime, really. There was a park across the street from the Motown studio, and I can remember looking at those kids playing games. I’d just stare at them in wonder—I couldn’t imagine such freedom, such a carefree life—and wish more than anything that I had that kind of freedom, that I could walk away and be like them. So there were sad moments in my childhood. It’s true for any child star. Elizabeth Taylor told me she felt the same way. When you’re young and you’re working, the world can seem awfully unfair. I wasn’t forced to be little Michael the lead singer—I did it and I loved it—but it was hard work. If we were doing an album, for example, we’d go off to the studio after school and I might or might not get a snack. Sometimes there just wasn’t time. I’d come home, exhausted, and it’d be eleven or twelve and past time to go to bed.
My father and my mother.
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.
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 piano, which she taught my oldest sister, Maureen, whom we call Rebbie, to play, just as she’d teach my other older sister, LaToya. My mother knew, from an early age, that she would never perform the music she loved in front of others, not because she didn’t have the talent and the ability, but because she was crippled by polio as a child. She got over the disease, but not without a permanent limp in her walk. She had to miss a great deal of school as a child, but she told us that she was lucky to recover at a time when many died from the disease. I remember how important it was to her that we got the sugar-cube vaccine. She even made us miss a youth club show one Saturday afternoon—that’s how important it was in our family.
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 traveling, 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 go he had a special message for me. It was 1970, a year when some of the best people in rock were losing their lives to drugs and alcohol. An older, wiser generation in show business was unprepared to lose its very young. Some people had already said that I reminded them of Frankie Lymon, a great young singer of the 1950s who lost his life that way. Ed Sullivan may have been thinking of all this when he told me, “Never forget where your talent came from, that your talent is a gift from God.”
I was grateful for his kindness, but I could have told him that my mother had never let me forget. I never had polio, which is a frightening thing for a dancer to think about, but I knew God had tested me and my brothers and sisters in other ways—our large family, our tiny house, the small amount of money we had to make ends meet, even the jealous kids in the neighborhood who threw rocks at our windows while we rehearsed, yelling that we’d never make it. When I think of my mother and our early years, I can tell you there are rewards that go far beyond money and public acclaim and awards.
My mother was a great provider. If she found out that one of us had an interest in something, she would encourage it if there was any possible way. If I developed an interest in movie stars, for instance, she’d come home with an armful of books about famous stars. Even with nine children she treated each of us like an only child. There isn’t one of us who’s ever forgotten what a hard worker and a great provider she was. It’s an old story. Every child thinks their mother is the greatest mother in the world, but we Jacksons never lost that feeling. Because of Katherine’s gentleness, warmth, and attention, I can’t imagine what it must be like to grow up without a mother’s love.
One thing I know about children is that if they don’t get the love they need from their parents, they’ll get it from someone else and cling to that person, a grandparent, anyone. We never had to look for anyone else with my mother around. The lessons she taught us were invaluable. Kindness, love, and consideration for other people headed her list. Don’t hurt people. Never beg. Never freeload. Those were sins at our house. She always wanted us to give, but she never wanted us to ask or beg. That’s the way she is.
I remember a good story about my mother that illustrates her nature. One day, back in Gary, when I was real little, this man knocked on everybody’s door early in the morning. He was bleeding so badly you could see where he’d been around the neighborhood. No one would let him in. Finally he got to our door and he started banging and knocking. Mother let him in at once. Now, most people would have been too afraid to do that, but that’s my mother. I can remember waking up and finding blood on our floor. I wish we could all be more like Mom.
The earliest memories I have of my father are of him coming home from the steel mill with a big bag of glazed doughnuts for all of us. My brothers and I could really eat back then and that bag would disappear with a snap of the fingers. He used to take us all to the merry-go-round in the park, but I was so young I don’t remember that very well.
My father has always been something of a mystery to me and he knows it. 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. Even today it’s hard for him to touch on father and son stuff because he’s too embarrassed. When I see that he is, I become embarrassed, too.
My mother and Janet in Indiana.
My father did always protect us and that’s no small feat. He always tried to make sure people didn’t cheat us. He looked after our interests in the best ways. He might have made a few mistakes along the way, but he always thought he was doing what was right for his family. And, of course, most of what my father helped us accomplish was wonderful and unique, especially in regard to our relationships with companies and people in the business. I’d say we were among a fortunate few artists who walked away from a childhood in the business with anything substantial—money, real estate, other investments. My father set all these up for us. He looked out for both our interests and his. To this day I’m so thankful he didn’t try to take all our money for himself the way so many parents of child stars have. Imagine stealing from your own children. My father never did anything like that. But I still don’t know him, and that’s sad for a son who hungers to understand his own father. He’s still a mystery man to me and he may always be one.
What I got from my father wasn’t necessarily God-given, though the Bible says you reap what you sow. When we were coming along, Dad said that in a different way, but the message was just as clear: You could have all the talent in the world, but if you didn’t prepare and plan, it wouldn’t do you any good.
Joe Jackson had always loved singing and music as much as my mother did, but he also knew there was a world beyond Jackson Street. I wasn’t old enough to remember his band, the Falcons, but they came over to our house to rehearse on weekends. The music took them away from their jobs at the steel mill, where Dad drove a crane. The Falcons would play all over town, and in clubs and colleges around northern Indiana and Chicago. At the rehearsals at our house, Dad would bring his guitar out of the closet and plug it into the amp he kept in the basement. Everyone would be set up and the music would begin. He’d always loved rhythm and blues and that guitar was his pride and joy. The closet where the guitar was kept was considered an almost sacred place. Needless to say, it was off-limits to us kids. Dad didn’t go to Kingdom Hall with us, but both Mom and Dad knew that music was a way of keeping our family together in a neighborhood where gangs recruited kids my brothers’ ages. The three oldest boys would always have an excuse to be around when the Falcons came over. Dad let them think they were being given a special treat by being allowed to listen, but he was actually eager to have them there.
Tito watched everything that was going on with the greatest interest. He’d taken saxophone in school, but he could tell his hands were big enough to grab the chords and slip the riffs that my father played. It made sense that he’d catch on, because Tito looked so much like my father that we all expected him to share Dad’s talents. The extent of the resemblance was scary as he got older. Maybe my father noticed Tito’s zeal because he laid down rules for all my brothers: No one was to touch the guitar while he was out. Period.
Therefore, Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine were careful to see that Mom was in the kitchen when they “borrowed” the guitar. They were also careful not to make any noise while removing it. They would then go back to our room and put on the radio or the little portable record player so they could play along. Tito would hoist the guitar onto his belly as he sat on the bed and prop it up. He took turns with Jackie and Jermaine, and they’d all try the scales they were learning in school as well as try to figure out how to get the “Green Onions” part they’d hear on the radio.
By now I was old enough to sneak in and watch if I promised not to tell. One day Mom finally caught them, and we were all worried. She scolded the boys, but said she wouldn’t tell Dad as long as we were careful. She knew that guitar was keeping them from running with a bad crowd and maybe getting beat up, so she wasn’t about to take away anything that kept them within arm’s reach.
Of course, something had to give sooner or later, and one day a string broke. My brothers panicked. There wasn’t time to get it repaired before Dad came home, and besides, none of us knew how to go about getting it fixed. My brothers never figured out what to do, so they put the guitar back in the closet and hoped fervently that my father would think it broke by itself. Of course, Dad didn’t buy that, and he was furious. My sisters told me to stay out of it and keep a low profile. I heard Tito crying after Dad found out and I went to investigate, of course. Tito was on his bed crying when Dad came back and motioned for him to get up. Tito was scared, but my father just stood there, holding his favorite guitar. He gave Tito a hard, penetrating look and said, “Let me see what you can do.”
My brother pulled himself together and started to play a few runs he had taught himself. When my father saw how well Tito could play, he knew he’d obviously been practicing and he realized that Tito and the rest of us didn’t treat his favorite guitar as if it were a toy. It became clear to him that what had happened had been only an accident. At this point my mother stepped in and voiced her enthusiasm for our musical ability. She told him that we boys had talent and he should listen to us. She kept pushing for us, so one day he began to listen and he liked what he heard. Tito, Jackie, and Jermaine started rehearsing together in earnest. A couple of years later, when I was about five, Mom pointed out to my father that I was a good singer and could play the bongos. I became a member of the group.
About then my father decided that what was happening in his family was serious. Gradually he began spending less time with the Falcons and more with us. We’d just woodshed together and he’d give us tips and teach us techniques on the guitar. Marlon and I weren’t old enough to play, but we’d watch when my father rehearsed the older boys and we were learning when we watched. The ban on using Dad’s guitar still held when he wasn’t around, but my brothers loved using it when they could. The house on Jackson Street was bursting with music. Dad and Mom had paid for music lessons for Rebbie and Jackie when they were little kids, so they had a good background. The rest of us had music class and band in the Gary schools, but no amount of practice was enough to harness all that energy.
The Falcons were still earning money, however infrequent their gigs, and that extra money was important to us. It was enough to keep food on the table for a growing family but not enough to give us things that weren’t necessary. Mom was working part-time at Sears, Dad was still working the mill job, and no one was going hungry, but I think, looking back, that things must have seemed like one big dead end.
One day Dad was late coming home and Mom began to get worried. By the time he arrived, she was ready to give him a piece of her mind, something we boys didn’t mind witnessing once in a while just to see if he could take it like he dished it out, but when he poked his head through the door, he had a mischievous look on his face and he was hiding something behind his back. We were all shocked when he produced a gleaming red guitar, slightly smaller than the one in the closet. We were all hoping this meant we’d get the old one. But Dad said the new guitar was Tito’s. We gathered around to admire it, while Dad told Tito he had to share it with anyone who would practice. We were not to take it to school to show it off. This was a serious present and that day was a momentous occasion for the Jackson family.
Mom was happy for us, but she also knew her husband. She was more aware than we of the big ambitions and plans he had for us. He’d begun talking to her at night after we kids were asleep. He had dreams and those dreams didn’t stop with one guitar. Pretty soon we were dealing with equipment, not just gifts. Jermaine got a bass and an amp. There were shakers for Jackie. Our bedroom and living room began to look like a music store. Sometimes I’d hear Mom and Dad fight when the subject of money was brought up, because all those instruments and accessories meant having to go without a little something we needed each week. Dad was persuasive, though, and he didn’t miss a trick.
We even had microphones in the house. They seemed like a real luxury at the time, especially to a woman who was trying to stretch a very small budget, but I’ve come to realize that having those microphones in our house wasn’t just an attempt to keep up with the Joneses or anyone else in amateur night competitions. They were there to help us prepare. I saw people at talent shows, who probably sounded great at home, clam up the moment they got in front of a microphone. Others started screaming their songs like they wanted to prove they didn’t need the mikes. They didn’t have the advantage that we did—an advantage that only experience can give you. I think it probably made some people jealous because they could tell our expertise with the mikes gave us an edge. If that was true, we made so many sacrifices—in free time, schoolwork, and friends—that no one had the right to be jealous. We were becoming very good, but we were working like people twice our age.
While I was watching my older brothers, including Marlon on the bongo drums, Dad got a couple of young guys named Johnny Jackson and Randy Rancifer to play trap drums and organ. Motown would later claim they were our cousins, but that was just an embellishment from the P.R. people, who wanted to make us seem like one big family. We had become a real band! I was like a sponge, watching everyone, and trying to learn everything I could. I was totally absorbed when my brothers were rehearsing or playing at charity events or shopping centers. I was most fascinated when watching Jermaine because he was the singer at the time and he was a big brother to me—Marlon was too close to me in age for that. It was Jermaine who would walk me to kindergarten and whose clothes would be handed down to me. When he did something, I tried to imitate him. When I was successful at it, my brothers and Dad would laugh, but when I began singing, they listened. I was singing in a baby voice then and just imitating sounds. I was so young I didn’t know what many of the words meant, but the more I sang, the better I got.
Johnny Jackson is playing the drums in this early publicity photograph.
I always knew how to dance. I would watch Marlon’s moves because Jermaine had the big bass to carry, but also because I could keep up with Marlon, who was only a year older than me. Soon I was doing most of the singing at home and preparing to join my brothers in public. Through our rehearsals, we were all becoming aware of our particular strengths and weaknesses as members of the group and the shift in responsibilities was happening naturally.
Our family’s house in Gary was tiny, only three rooms really, but at the time it seemed much larger to me. When you’re that young, the whole world seems so huge that a little room can seem four times its size. When we went back to Gary years later, we were all surprised at how tiny that house was. I had remembered it as being large, but you could take five steps from the front door and you’d be out the back. It was really no bigger than a garage, but when we lived there it seemed fine to us kids. You see things from such a different perspective when you’re young.
Our school days in Gary are a blur for me. I vaguely remember being dropped off in front of my school on the first day of kindergarten, and I clearly remember hating it. I didn’t want my mother to leave me, naturally, and I didn’t want to be there.
Returning home to our small house in Gary after our success. The welcome was overwhelming.
In time I adjusted, as all kids do, and I grew to love my teachers, especially the women. They were always very sweet to us and they just loved me. Those teachers were so wonderful; I’d be promoted from one grade to the next and they’d all cry and hug me and tell me how much they hated to see me leave their classes. I was so crazy about my teachers that I’d steal my mother’s jewelry and give it to them as presents. They’d be very touched, but eventually my mother found out about it, and put an end to my generosity with her things. That urge that I had to give them something in return for all I was receiving was a measure of how much I loved them and that school.
One day, in the first grade, I participated in a program that was put on before the whole school. Everyone of us in each class had to do something, so I went home and discussed it with my parents. We decided I should wear black pants and a white shirt and sing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” from The Sound of Music. When I finished that song, the reaction in the auditorium overwhelmed me. The applause was thunderous and people were smiling; some of them were standing. My teachers were crying and I just couldn’t believe it. I had made them all happy. It was such a great feeling. I felt a little confused too, because I didn’t think I had done anything special. I was just singing the way I sang at home every night. When you’re performing, you don’t realize what you sound like or how you’re coming across. You just open your mouth and sing.
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 person, 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’d 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.
One of the early talent shows where we won a trophy.
Practicing after school.
Most of the time, however, we just rehearsed. We always rehearsed. Sometimes, late at night, we’d have time to play games or play 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 recognized our talent and she continued to help us realize our potential. It’s hard to imagine that we would have gotten where we did without her love and good humor. 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 theater 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, facing the audience, Jermaine on the wing next to me, 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 neighborhood 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 more than anyone else.
As players, Jermaine, Tito, and the rest of us were under tremendous pressure. Our manager 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 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 five 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 recognized 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 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 up-bringing, 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 those strippers wasn’t going to get me that interested in trouble—certainly not at nine years old! That was an awful way to live, though, and it made us all the more determined to move on up the circuit and as far away from that life as we could go.
Being at Mr. Lucky’s meant that for the first time in our lives we had a whole show to do—five sets a night, six nights a week—and if Dad could get us something out of town for the seventh night, he was going to do it. We were working hard, but the bar crowds weren’t bad to us. They liked James Brown and Sam and Dave just as much as we did and, besides, we were something extra that came free with the drinking and the carrying on, so they were surprised and cheerful. We even had some fun with them on one number, the Joe Tex song “Skinny Legs and All.” We’d start the song and somewhere in the middle I’d go out into the audience, crawl under the tables, and pull up the ladies’ skirts to look under. People would throw money as I scurried by, and when I began to dance, I’d scoop up all the dollars and coins that had hit the floor earlier and push them into the pockets of my jacket.
I wasn’t really nervous when we began playing in clubs because of all the experience I’d had with talent show audiences. I was always ready to go out and perform, you know, just do it—sing and dance and have some fun.
We worked in more than one club that had strippers in those days. I used to stand in the wings of this one place in Chicago and watch a lady whose name was Mary Rose. I must have been nine or ten. This girl would take off her clothes and her 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. We were exposed to a lot doing that kind of circuit. In one place they had cut a little hole in the musicians’ dressing room wall that also happened to act as a wall in the ladies’ bathroom. You could peek through this hole, and I saw stuff I’ve never forgotten. Guys on that circuit were so wild, they did stuff like drilling little holes into the walls of the ladies’ loo all the time. Of course, I’m sure that my brothers and I were fighting over who got to look through the hole. “Get outta the way, it’s my turn!” Pushing each other away to make room for ourselves.
Later, when we did the Apollo Theater in New York, I saw something that really blew me away because I didn’t know things like that existed. I had seen quite a few strippers, but that night this one girl with gorgeous eyelashes and long hair came out and did her routine. She put on a great performance. All of a sudden, at the end, she took off her wig, pulled a pair of big oranges out of her bra, and revealed that she was a hard-faced guy under all that makeup. That blew me away. I was only a child and couldn’t even conceive of anything like that. But I looked out at the theater audience and they were going for it, applauding wildly and cheering. I’m just a little kid, standing in the wings, watching this crazy stuff.
I was blown away.
As I said, I received quite an education as a child. More than most. Perhaps this freed me to concentrate on other aspects of my life as an adult.
One day, not long after we’d been doing successfully in Chicago clubs, Dad brought home a tape of some songs we’d never heard before. We were accustomed to doing popular stuff off the radio, so we were curious why he began playing these songs over and over again, just one guy singing none too well with some guitar chords in the background. Dad told us that the man on the tape wasn’t really a performer but a songwriter who owned a recording studio in Gary. His name was Mr. Keith and he had given us a week to practice his songs to see if we could make a record out of them. Naturally, we were excited. We wanted to make a record, any record.
We worked strictly on the sound, ignoring the dancing routines we’d normally work up for a new song. It wasn’t as much fun to do a song that none of us knew, but we were already professional enough to hide our disappointment and give it all we could. When we were ready and felt we had done our best with the material, Dad got us on tape after a few false starts and more than a few pep talks, of course. After a day or two of trying to figure out whether Mr. Keith liked the tape we had made for him, Dad suddenly appeared with more of his songs for us to learn for our first recording session.
Mr. Keith, like Dad, was a mill worker who loved music, only he was more into the recording and business end. His studio and label were called Steeltown. Looking back on all this, I realize Mr. Keith was just as excited as we were. His studio was downtown, and we went early one Saturday morning before “The Road Runner Show,” my favorite show at the time. Mr. Keith met us at the door and opened the studio. He showed us a small glass booth with all kinds of equipment in it and explained what various tasks each performed. It didn’t look like we’d have to lean over any more tape recorders, at least not in this studio. I put on some big metal headphones, which came halfway down my neck, and tried to make myself look ready for anything.
As my brothers were figuring out where to plug in their instruments and stand, some backup singers and a horn section arrived. At first I assumed they were there to make a record after us. We were delighted and amazed when we found out they were there to record with us. We looked over at Dad, but he didn’t change expression. He’d obviously known about it and approved. Even then people knew not to throw Dad surprises. We were told to listen to Mr. Keith, who would instruct us while we were in the booth. If we did as he said, the record would take care of itself.
After a few hours, we finished Mr. Keith’s first song. Some of the backup singers and horn players hadn’t made records either and found it difficult, but they also didn’t have a perfectionist for a manager, so they weren’t used to doing things over and over the way we were. It was at times like these that we realized how hard Dad worked to make us consummate professionals. We came back the next few Saturdays, putting the songs we’d rehearsed during the week into the can and taking home a new tape of Mr. Keith’s each time. One Saturday, Dad even brought his guitar in to perform with us. It was the one and only time he ever recorded with us. After the records were pressed, Mr. Keith gave us some copies so that we could sell them between sets and after shows. We knew that wasn’t how the big groups did it, but everyone had to start someplace, and in those days, having a record with your group’s name on it was quite something. We felt very fortunate.
“Big Boy” was our first recorded song.
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 our 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’t a good sign right before a show, and I could tell Dad was worried he was going to screw up onstage. Dad went over to say a word to him, but Jackie whispered something in his ear and soon Dad was holding his sides, laughing. I wanted to know the joke too. Dad said proudly that Jackie had overheard the headlining act talking among themselves. One guy said, “We’d better not let those Jackson 5 cut us tonight with that midget they’ve got.”
I was upset at first because my feelings were hurt. I thought they were being mean. I couldn’t help it that I was the shortest, but soon all the other brothers were cracking up too. Dad explained that they weren’t laughing at me. He told me that I should be proud, the group was talking trash because they thought I was a grown-up posing as a child like one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Dad said that if I had those slick guys talking like the neighborhood kids who gave us grief back in Gary, then we had Chicago on the run.
We still had some running of our own to do. After we played some pretty good clubs in Chicago, Dad signed us up for the Royal Theater amateur night competition in town. He had gone to see B. B. King at the Regal the night he made his famous live album. When Dad gave Tito that sharp red guitar years earlier, we had teased him by thinking of girls he could name his guitar after, like B. B. King’s Lucille.
At the NAACP Image Awards.
Performing together in the early days.
We won that show for three straight weeks, with a new song every week to keep the regular members of the audience guessing. Some of the other performers complained that it was greedy for us to keep coming back, but they were after the same thing we were. There was a policy that if you won the amateur night three straight times, you’d be invited back to do a paid show for thousands of people, not dozens like the audiences we were playing to in bars. We got that opportunity and the show was headlined by Gladys Knight and the Pips, who were breaking in a new song no one knew called “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” It was a heady night.
After Chicago, we had one more big amateur show we really felt we needed to win: the Apollo Theater in New York City. A lot of Chicago people thought a win at the Apollo was just a good luck charm and nothing more, but Dad saw it as much more than that. He knew New York had a high caliber of talent just like Chicago and he knew there were more record people and professional musicians in New York than Chicago. If we could make it in New York, we could make it anywhere. That’s what a win at the Apollo meant to us.
Chicago had sent a kind of scouting report on us to New York and our reputation was such that the Apollo entered us in the “Superdog” finals, even though we hadn’t been to any of the preliminary competitions. By this time, Gladys Knight had already talked to us about coming to Motown, as had Bobby Taylor, a member of the Vancouvers, with whom my father had become friendly. Dad had told them we’d be happy to audition for Motown, but that was in our future.
We got to the Apollo at 125th Street early enough to get a guided tour. We walked through the theater and stared at all of the pictures of the stars who’d played there, white as well as black. The manager concluded by showing us to the dressing room, but by then I had found pictures of all my favorites.
While my brothers and I were paying dues on the so-called “chitlin’ circuit,” opening for other acts, I carefully watched all the stars because I wanted to learn as much as I could. I’d stare at their feet, the way they held their arms, the way they gripped a microphone, trying to decipher what they were doing and why they were doing it. After studying James Brown from the wings, I knew every step, every grunt, every spin and turn. I have to say 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. I’ve never seen anybody perform like him. Unbelievable, really. When I watched somebody I liked, I’d be there. James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Sam and Dave, the O’Jays—they all used to really work an audience. I might have learned more from watching Jackie Wilson than from anyone or anything else. All of this was a very important part of my education.
We would stand offstage, behind the curtains, and watch everyone come off after performing and they’d be all sweaty. I’d just stand aside in awe and watch them walk by. And they would all wear these beautiful patent-leather shoes. My whole dream seemed to center on having a pair of patent-leather shoes. I remember being so heartbroken because they didn’t make them in little boys’ sizes. I’d go from store to store looking for patent-leather shoes and they’d say, “We don’t make them that small.” I was so sad because I wanted to have shoes that looked the way those stage shoes looked, polished and shining, turning red and orange when the lights hit them. Oh, how I wanted some patent-leather shoes like the ones Jackie Wilson wore.
Most of the time I’d be alone backstage. My brothers would be upstairs eating and talking and I’d be down in the wings, crouching real low, holding on to the dusty, smelly curtain and watching the show. I mean, I really did watch every step, every move, every twist, every turn, every grind, every emotion, every light move. That was my education and my recreation. I was always there when I had free time. My father, my brothers, other musicians, they all knew where to find me. They would tease me about it, but I was so absorbed in what I was seeing, or in remembering what I had just seen, that I didn’t care. I remember all those theaters: the Regal, the Uptown, the Apollo—too many to name. The talent that came out of those places is of mythical proportions. The greatest education in the world is watching the masters at work. You couldn’t teach a person what I’ve learned just standing and watching. Some musicians—Springsteen and U2, for example—may feel they got their education from the streets. I’m a performer at heart. I got mine from the stage.
Jackie Wilson was on the wall at the Apollo. The photographer captured him with one leg up, twisted, but not out of position from catching the mike stand he’d just whipped back and forth. He could have been singing a sad lyric like “Lonely Teardrops,” and yet he had that audience so bug-eyed with his dancing that no one could feel sad or lonely.
Sam and Dave’s picture was down the corridor, next to an old big-band shot. Dad had become friendly with Sam Moore. I remember being happily amazed that he was nice to me when I met him for the first time. I had been singing his songs for so long that I thought he’d want to box my ears. And not far from them was “The King of Them All, Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Please Please Himself,” James Brown. Before he came along, a singer was a singer and a dancer was a dancer. A singer might have danced and a dancer might have sung, but unless you were Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, you probably did one better than the other, especially in a live performance. But he changed all that. No spotlight could keep up with him when he skidded across the stage—you had to flood it! I wanted to be that good.
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 these songs all over the dial, even on the rock stations. They were a tremendous influence on all of us Jacksons and we owe them a lot.
After the Apollo, we kept playing with one eye on the map and one ear to the phone. Mom and Dad had a rule about no more than five minutes a call, but when we came back from the Apollo, even five minutes was too long. We had to keep the lines clear in case anyone from a record company wanted to get in touch with us. We lived in fear of having them get a busy signal. We wanted to hear from one record company in particular, and if they called, we wanted to answer.
While we waited, we found out that someone who had seen us at the Apollo had recommended us to “The David Frost Show” in New York City. We were going to be on TV! That was the biggest thrill we’d ever had. I told everyone at school, and told the ones who didn’t believe me twice. We were going to drive out there in a few days. I was counting the hours. I had imagined the whole trip, trying to figure out what the studio would be like and how it would be to look into a television camera.
My love of hats began long before the days of “Billie Jean”
I came home with the traveling homework my teacher had made up in advance. We had one more dress rehearsal and then we’d make a final song selection. I wondered which songs we’d be doing.
That afternoon, Dad said the trip to New York was canceled. We all stopped in our tracks and just stared at him.
We were shocked. I was ready to cry. We had been about to get our big break. How could they do this to us? What was going on? Why had Mr. Frost changed his mind? I was reeling and I think everyone else was, too. “I canceled it,” my father announced calmly. Again we all stared at him, unable to speak. “Motown called.” A chill ran down my spine.
I remember the days leading up to that trip with near-perfect clarity. I can see myself waiting outside Randy’s first-grade classroom. It was Marlon’s turn to walk him home, but we switched for today.
Randy’s teacher wished me luck in Detroit, because Randy had told her we were going to Motown to audition. He was so excited that I had to remind myself that he didn’t really know what Detroit was. All the family had been talking about was Motown, and Randy didn’t even know what a city was. The teacher told me he was looking for Motown on the globe in the classroom. She said that in her opinion we should do “You Don’t Know Like I Know” the way she saw us do it at the Regal in Chicago when a bunch of teachers drove over to see us. I helped Randy put his coat on and politely agreed to keep it in mind—knowing that we couldn’t do a Sam and Dave song at a Motown audition because they were on Stax, a rival label. Dad told us the companies were serious about that kind of stuff, so he wanted us to know there’d be no messing around when we got there. He looked at me and said he’d like to see his ten-year-old singer make it to eleven.
We left the Garrett Elementary School building for the short walk home, but we had to hurry. I remember getting anxious as a car swept by, then another. Randy took my hand, and we waved to the crossing guard. I knew LaToya would have to go out of her way tomorrow to take Randy to school because Marlon and I would be staying over in Detroit with the others.
The last time we played at the Fox Theater in Detroit, we left right after the show and got back to Gary at five o’clock in the morning. I slept in the car most of the way, so going to school that morning wasn’t as bad as it might have been. But by the afternoon three o’clock rehearsal I was dragging around like someone with lead weights for feet.
We could have left that night right after our set, since we were third on the bill, but that would have meant missing the headliner, Jackie Wilson. I’d seen him on other stages, but at the Fox he and his band were on a rising stage that moved up as he started his show. Tired as I was after school the next day, I remember trying some of those moves in rehearsal after practicing in front of a long mirror in the bathroom at school while the other kids looked on. My father was pleased and we incorporated those steps into one of my routines.
Just before Randy and I turned the corner onto Jackson Street, there was a big puddle. I looked for cars but there weren’t any, so I let go of Randy’s hand and jumped the puddle, catching on my toes so I could spin without getting the cuffs of my corduroys wet. I looked back at Randy, knowing that he wanted to do the things I did. He stepped back to get a running start, but I realized that it was a pretty big puddle, too big for him to cross without getting wet, so, being a big brother first and a dance teacher second, I caught him before he landed short and got wet.
Across the street the neighborhood 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 our 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 championships. The Jackson 5 would play between the evening and morning games, and Jackie would sink the winning shot for the title. Dad liked to tease us, but you never knew what might happen with the Jacksons. He wanted us to be good at many things, not just music. I think maybe he got that drive from his father, who taught school. I know my teachers were never as hard on us as he was, and they were getting paid to be tough and demanding.
Mom came to the door and gave us the thermos and the sandwiches she had packed. I remember her telling me not to rip the dress shirt she had packed for me after sewing it up the night before. Randy and I helped put some things in the bus and then went back into the kitchen, where Rebbie was keeping one eye on Dad’s supper and the other on little Janet, who was in the high chair.
Rebbie’s life was never easy as the oldest. We knew that as soon as the Motown audition was over, we’d find out if we had to move or not. If we did, she was going to move South with her fiancé. She always ran things when Mom was at night school finishing the high school diploma she was denied because of her illness. I couldn’t believe it when Mom told us she was going to get her diploma. I remember worrying that she’d have to go to school with kids Jackie’s or Tito’s age and that they’d laugh at her. I remember how she laughed when I told her this and how she patiently explained that she’d be with other grownups. It was interesting having a mother who did homework like the rest of us.
Loading up the bus was easier than usual. Normally Ronnie and Johnny would have come to back us up, but Motown’s own musicians would be playing behind us, so we were going alone. Jermaine was in our room finishing some of his assignments when I walked in. I knew he wanted to get them out of the way. He told me that we ought to take off for Motown by ourselves and leave Dad, since Jackie had taken driver’s ed and was in possession of a set of keys. We both laughed, but deep down I couldn’t imagine going without Dad. Even on the occasions when Mom led our after-school rehearsals because Dad hadn’t come home from his shift on time, it was still like having him there because she acted as his eyes and ears. She always knew what had been good the night before and what had gotten sloppy today. Dad would pick it up from there at night. It seemed to me that they almost gave each other signals or something—Dad could always tell if we had been playing like we were supposed to by some invisible indication from Mom.
There was no long good-bye at the door when we left for Motown. Mom was used to our being away for days, and during school vacations. LaToya pouted a little because she wanted to go. She had only seen us in Chicago, and we had never been able to stay long enough in places like Boston or Phoenix to bring her back anything. I think our lives must have seemed pretty glamorous to her because she had to stay home and go to school. Rebbie had her hands full trying to put Janet to sleep, but she called good-bye and waved. I gave Randy a last pat on the head and we were off.
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, motioning for the thermos. We turned onto I-94, and the Gary station faded into a Kalamazoo station. We began flipping around, looking for Beatle music on CKLW from Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
I had always been a Monopoly fan at home, and there was something about driving to Motown that was a little like that game. In Monopoly you go around the board buying things and making decisions; the “chitlin’ circuit” of theaters where we played and won contests was kind of like a Monopoly board full of possibilities and pitfalls. After all the stops along the way, we finally landed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which was definitely Park Place for young performers like us. Now we were on our way up Boardwalk, heading for Motown. Would we win the game or slide past Go with a long board separating us from our goal for another round?
There was something changing in me, and I could feel it, even shivering in the minibus. For years we’d make the drive over to Chicago wondering if we were good enough to ever get out of Gary, and we were. Then we took the drive to New York, certain that we’d fall off the edge of the earth if we weren’t good enough to make it there. Even those nights in Philadelphia and Washington didn’t reassure me enough to keep me from wondering if there wasn’t someone or some group we didn’t know about in New York who could beat us. When we tore it down at the Apollo, we finally felt that nothing could stand in our way. We were going to Motown, and nothing there was going to surprise us either. We were going to surprise them, just like we always did.
Dad pulled the typewritten directions out of the glove compartment and we pulled off the highway, passing the Woodward Avenue exit. There weren’t many people on the streets because it was a school night for everybody else.
Dad was a little nervous about whether our accommodations would be okay, which surprised me until I realized 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 was and hopped out of bed when he called us. The audition was unusual for us because we hadn’t played in many places where they expected us to be professional. We knew it was going to be difficult to judge whether we were doing well. We were used to audience response whether we were competing or just performing at a club, but Dad had told us the longer we stayed, the more they wanted to hear.
We climbed into the VW, after cereal and milk at the coffee shop. I noticed they offered grits on the menu, so I knew there were a lot of Southern people who stayed there. We had never been to the South then and wanted to visit Mom’s part of the country someday. We wanted to have a sense of our roots and those of other black people, especially after what had happened to Dr. King. I remember so well the day he died. Everyone was torn up. We didn’t rehearse that night. I went to Kingdom Hall with Mom and some of the others. People were crying like they had lost a member of their own family. Even the men who were usually pretty unemotional were unable to control their grief. I was too young to grasp the full tragedy of the situation, but when I look back on that day now, it makes me want to cry—for Dr. King, for his family, and for all of us.
Jermaine was the first to spot the studio, which was known as Hitsville, U.S.A. It looked kind of run-down, which was not what I’d expected. We wondered who we might see, who might be there making a record that day. Dad had coached us to let him do all the talking. Our job was to perform like we’d never performed before. And that was asking a lot, because we always put everything into each performance, but we knew what he meant.
There were a lot of people waiting inside, but Dad said the password and a man in a shirt and tie came out to meet us. He knew each of our names, which astounded us. He asked us to leave our coats there and follow him. The other people just stared through us like we were ghosts. I wondered who they were and what their stories were. Had they traveled far? Had they been here day after day hoping to get in without an appointment?
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 Theater, 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 of them called out with a big grin on his face. I was confused. I think my brothers were too.
The man who had led us back said, “Thanks for coming up.” We looked at Dad’s face for some indication, but he didn’t seem pleased or disappointed. It was still daylight out when we left. We took I-94 back to Gary, subdued, knowing there was homework to do for class tomorrow, wondering if that was all there was to that.
