Michael Jackson (23 page)

I walked over to Michael. ‘Hey, man, what happened to Jermaine?’ I asked. ‘But, what a great show, anyway,’ I added. ‘Wow,
man. Wow.’ If it was possible for a teenage admirer to be too fawning, I wasn't aware of it at the time. ‘What a great show
that was,’ I went on. ‘My God. The whole thing was just so…
cool.
’

Michael accepted my compliments with a soft, sad smile. ‘Thanks. Jermaine will be back,’ he said. ‘He's… sick.’

Joseph sat in a corner silently. It appeared that the act – his family – was breaking up, and that there was nothing he could
do about it. Anyone looking at him would have been heartbroken by his forlorn expression. He seemed uncharacteristically vulnerable
as he sat slumped in a chair, shaking his head as if to say, I just don't understand it. How in the world could this have
happened?

Michael went over to his father and studied him. He put his hand on Joseph's shoulder. There was a moment between them, a
genuine…
moment.

Suddenly, Joseph stood up. In a matter of seconds, he went from sadness to fury. ‘It's my blood that flows through Jermaine's
veins,’ Joseph bellowed. ‘Not Berry Gordy's.
Not Berry Gordy's.
’ Then, he stormed out of the dressing room and slammed the door behind him.

It seemed, at first, that leaving Motown would be easier than Joseph thought it would be. Berry Gordy had done nothing to
prevent their departure; he was preoccupied with Motown's film business, anyway, and didn't seem too dismayed by the fact
that The Jackson 5 was leaving the company. As long as he had Jermaine in his corner, and had won that particular battle,
Berry seemed satisfied. Because he did not want to deal with Joseph anyway, Ewart Abner was the one handling most matters
concerning The Jackson 5, during their final days at Motown.

But few acts have ever left Motown without at least a little melodrama. Unbeknownst to Joseph, Berry Gordy had one more surprise
in store for him.

In the last week in June 1975, Berry Gordy's vice-chairman of Motown telephoned Joseph Jackson with a bombshell: Motown owned
the name The Jackson 5. The group could leave Motown, Joseph was told, but they would have to leave the name. ‘Jackson 5’
would stay behind with the company.

‘What are you talking about?’ Joseph demanded, according to his memory. ‘We came to Motown as The Jackson 5. That's my family
name.’

‘I don't know if you came here as The Jackson 5, or not,’ Michael Roshkind told him, ‘but you're sure not leaving as The Jackson
5, I can tell you that much.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’ Joseph asked.

‘The fact is that there are probably forty thousand people named Jackson running around this world,’ Roshkind said. ‘We made
five of them stars. We can find five more if we have to, and we can make them stars, too,’ Roshkind said.

‘Why, you
son of a bitch,
’ Joseph exclaimed. He slammed the phone down.

As it happened, clause sixteen of the Motown recording contract, which Joseph had never read but had signed in 1968, stated,
‘It is agreed that we [Motown] own all rights, title and interest to the name “The Jackson 5”.’

Furthermore, to insure the company's ownership of the name, on 30 March 1972, after The Jackson 5's first string of hit records,
Motown applied to the United States Patent Office to register the logo ‘Jackson 5’. The name ‘Jackson Five’ and ‘Jackson 5’
were also exclusively owned by the Motown Record Corporation.

Of course, Joseph could have registered the names ‘Jackson Five’, ‘Jackson 5’, and any other name he wanted to hold on to – had
he only thought to do it. It simply had not crossed his mind. However, it had been common practice for Motown to register
the name of its acts, whenever possible. The company had done so with The Supremes, the Temptations… and with many of its
acts over the years.

With this latest salvo, the group's departure from Motown had become bigger than the record business, it was now a battle
between two families: the Jacksons and the Gordys. It seemed to some observers that anything Berry could do to demonstrate
his power to an ever-scrutinizing record industry and press, he would do, even if that meant preventing the boys from using
their name. ‘That was hardball, of course,’ Michael told me, later.

Michael was actually intrigued by Berry's tactic regarding the group's name. ‘I never even
thought
of that,’ he said. It was as if he was as much a student of Berry's as he was an adversary. While the other brothers watched,
waited and fumed, Michael learned. ‘I want to know how he did it,’ Michael said of Berry's having registered the name. ‘I'll
have to remember all of this,’ he added, as if stockpiling information for future use.

There was another family meeting. What do we do now?

‘If Berry owns the name, he owns the name,’ Michael said, according to his memory. ‘We don't have to be The Jackson 5, do
we? I mean, can't we just be The Jackson Family? Or The Jacksons?’

‘We might not have a choice,’ Joseph said. ‘It makes me sick to lose that name. All the work we put into it.’

‘And you know damn well that they ain't gonna use it,’ grumbled Tito. ‘It'll just be wasted.’

Tito was correct. Once Motown claimed the name, there wasn't much they could do with it, other than to market old products
by the group.

On Monday 30 June 1975, Joseph Jackson arranged a press conference to announce the family's new affiliation with CBS. With
over eight months still to run on the Motown contracts, Joseph seemed more eager than ever to leave Motown. Even though he
was extremely busy at this time dealing with Diana Ross and post-production on her film
Mahogany,
Berry fought back. On the morning of Joseph's announcement, Michael Roshkind told the press that if CBS expected to get all
of the members of The Jackson 5, they would be disappointed – meaning that Jermaine would never leave Berry's side. Furthermore,
Roshkind said, ‘There is no way the group will ever sing under that name for anyone else. They'll never get all five members
of the group, and they won't be getting The Jackson 5.’

Earlier that morning, Berry had one of his lawyers send a telegram to Arthur Taylor, president of CBS Records, warning him
that his company had better not host a press conference relating to The Jackson 5 since Gordy had exclusive rights to ‘issue
authorized publicity’. When Berry learned that Taylor planned to ignore the warning, he sent him another telegram warning
him that he'd better not refer to the group as The Jackson 5 at the media summit since Motown owned exclusive rights to that
name.

The press conference took place at the Rainbow Grill atop the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. As a room full of reporters
and photographers recorded the event, eleven members of the Jackson family were solemnly ushered into the room single-file
by a CBS publicist. There were no smiles. Each Jackson took his seat on the dais, where ten high-backed black chairs were
arranged behind a long, narrow table. All of the family members, with Jermaine conspicuously absent, put forth a united front
to announce the group's signing with CBS, effective 10 March 1976, the day their Motown contracts expired. Katherine, Maureen
(Rebbie), LaToya, Janet and Randy had been told by Joseph to be present in order to demonstrate family solidarity.

The atmosphere was sombre, such as one might find at a meeting at the United Nations. Joseph – stage right, at the end of the
dais – in a dark pin-striped suit, announced that the Jacksons had signed with CBS Records; he then turned the floor over to
members of the family.

Jackie explained that the group – referred to that afternoon as ‘The Jackson Family’ – was signing with Columbia, ‘because Columbia
is an album-selling company, and albums is what really makes you known.’ When asked if the group had tried to renegotiate
with Motown, he answered, ‘Yes, but the figures, they was just Mickey Mouse.’

Michael, in a black velvet jacket and matching vest, didn't have much to say. ‘I think the promotion will probably be stronger,’
he observed, meekly. He seemed awkward and uncomfortable, especially when contrasted with his confident brothers. It was painfully
obvious that Michael wished he were somewhere else. ‘I think Motown did a great job for us,’ he said, tentatively. Joseph
shot him a hot look. Michael caught the current and quickly added, ‘But, now, things will be even better.’

‘How will all of this affect your relationship with Berry Gordy?’ asked one writer.

Everyone on the dais looked to Joseph for an answer. He shrugged his shoulders and forced a thin smile. ‘You take it as it
comes,’ he said. ‘Next question.’

‘Will Jermaine be joining the group?’

Again, Joseph answered. ‘Yes. But it'll take a while. Next question.’

‘Why isn't Jermaine here?’

‘Next question.’

After the press conference, Berry Gordy filed a lawsuit against Joseph Jackson, The Jackson 5 and CBS, seeking five million
dollars in damages for signing with CBS before the Motown contract had expired. Joseph countersued, claiming Motown owed the
family royalties, unpaid advances, and expenses. Joseph thought Motown owed them money. Wrong. He owed
Motown
money. For by the terms of their contract, The Jackson 5 were liable for the costs of all of the songs they recorded for
Motown, including the ones that were not released.

To say that Motown had kept the boys busy would be an understatement. Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 recorded 469 songs
for Motown in the six years from 1969 to 1975. That's about seventy-five songs a year, which is astonishing considering that
this isn't
all
the boys did for a living. Besides having to learn those songs before they could record them, they also rehearsed their ever-changing
stage show, toured the world with their act, appeared on many television programmes – including their own specials – sat through
countless interviews, posed for innumerable photos (there are thousands of photos of the boys the public has never seen),
and also tried to have the semblance of a personal life outside of show business.

Of those 469 songs recorded by The Jackson 5, only 174 were actually released, or 37 per cent. The other 295, it was decided
by company producers and Berry Gordy, were not up to Motown's standards. Therefore, much to the group's chagrin, the Jacksons
owed Motown over $500,000 for songs that the public had never even heard. ‘That sucked,’ Joseph later said. ‘They really got
us good.’

Michael Jackson, who was about to turn seventeen in August 1975, was sceptical. He had begun to have serious doubts about
Joseph's ability as an entertainment manager. To his way of thinking, his father had made some major mistakes: he gave away
Jermaine, he gave away their group name, and now he had to give away a lot of money, paying for songs that had never been
released. ‘Maybe we shoulda’ read that contract,’ Michael said, bitterly.

However, taking the boys away from Motown and to Epic would not later be catalogued as one of Joseph's mistakes. If not for
Joseph's decision, Michael would probably have ended up an obscure showbiz act, relegated to Las Vegas lounges – and not major
showrooms, either. There is little doubt in the minds of most music historians that, after
Moving Violation,
The Jackson 5 would have stagnated at Motown in much the same way other groups who had stayed after their heyday did, such
as The Supremes after Diana Ross left for happier trails.

If Joseph hadn't had his way when he did, Michael would probably be performing on ‘oldies-but-goodies’ revues today with one
authentic Temptation, a couple of Four Tops, and Mary Wilson of the original Supremes. He would have aged into his forties
singing ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘ABC’, to make a buck, much like the great Martha Reeves, still out there singing ‘Love is like
a Heatwave’, maybe not so much because she wants to as much as because she must. It's a tough life for Motown survivors like
Martha, and not one for the faint of heart. It would have been Michael's life, too, had he never had the freedom to write
and produce his own songs. No matter what some may think of Joseph Jackson as a personal manager, in the final analysis, that
man saved Michael Jackson's career.