Michael Jackson (7 page)

Because Maureen – Rebbie, as she was known in the family – had a powerful singing voice, her father had hoped she would consider
a career in show business. He felt that if she married and raised a family, she would never be able to devote her attention
to the entertainment field. However, though Maureen had taken dance and piano lessons as a child, she was not interested in
a musical career. She preferred the comfort and security of a happy home life to the instability of show business.

Also, of course, Rebbie wanted to get out of that house. There was always so much drama occurring within the walls of that
small home on Jackson Street; from the exuberant high when the boys would win a talent show, to the crashing low when they
were chased and bullied by Joseph. Rebbie wanted out. Who could blame her? As it would happen, her defection from the ranks
would be just the first of such crises in the family, as several of the children chose to marry at an early age against their
father's wishes in order to get away from him.

The arguments went on for weeks until, finally, Joseph relented. Fine, Rebbie could get married. However, he would have the
final word: he would not give her away.

After winning another talent contest, this one at Beckman Junior High in Gary, the boys were brought to the attention of a
man named Gordon Keith, who owned a small local label called Steeltown Records. Keith immediately signed the brothers to a
limited record deal.

On a Saturday morning filled with great promise, Joseph took his brood to Steeltown's recording studio. The boys were led
into a small glass booth. Michael was given a large set of metal headphones which came halfway down his neck. His brothers
plugged their instruments into amplifiers. There were backup singers and a horn section. This was the record business – at last!
The Jackson youngsters were thrilled, as anyone could see by looking at their young, bright faces. Of course, this was a big
day for Joseph, too. It took a few hours to record that first song. After that, they would return every Saturday for the next
few weeks for more recordings. One song was an instrumental; Michael sang lead vocals on the other six. It was obvious that
he was to be the centrepiece of the group, he was so obviously unique with such a true ‘sound’ and amazing self-assurance
at an early age.

Two singles were eventually released on Steeltown in 1968: ‘Big Boy’, backed with ‘You've Changed’, and ‘We Don't Have to
Be Over 21 (to Fall in Love)’, backed with ‘Jam Session’. Both were mediocre numbers that don't really hint at Michael Jackson's
potential as a vocalist, but the boys were thrilled with them just the same. After all, these were their first records. From
here, it seemed, anything might be possible. What a memorable moment it must have been for them, then, when the family gathered
around the radio to hear the broadcast of that first recording. Michael recalled that as it played, they sat in the living
room, stunned. ‘Then, when it was over, we all laughed and hugged one another. We felt we had arrived. This was an amazing
time for us as a family. I can still feel the excitement when I think back on it.’

Ben Brown, then a high-level executive at Steeltown, remembered the day the Jackson boys posed for publicity photographs,
in March 1968. ‘After the photographer positioned the boys, Michael left the lineup and stood off to the side, pouting,’ Brown
said. ‘“This isn't gonna look like a publicity portrait,” Michael complained. “It's gonna look like a family portrait.” “Well,
fix it,” Joseph said. Then, Michael went and rearranged the whole group, put himself in front on one knee, and said, “Go ahead,
take the picture now.” We took it, and you know what? That was a great shot. How did he know how to do that, how to take a
publicity photo? He was such an old soul, as if he had been a superstar in another life.’

In May 1968, the group was invited back to the Apollo to perform and, this time, be paid for their appearance. They were on
a bill with Etta James, Joseph Simon and another family group, The Five Stairsteps and Cubie – a singer who was just two years
old. ‘Michael was a hard worker,’ rhythm-and-blues singer Joseph Simon said in an interview, adding in an echo of the memories
of practically everyone who ever worked on the same stage as the young Jackson star, ‘there was a part of me that thought
he was a midget. His father was a slick businessman, I had heard. It would've been just like him to pass a midget off as a
child, I heard. I remember going up to Michael and looking at him real close, thinking, Okay now, is this kid a midget or
not?

‘“Hey man, stop starin' at me, okay?” he told me.’

‘I remember him being talented, yes,’ Etta James said of Michael, ‘but polite and very interested too. I was working my show,
doing my thing on stage, and as I'm singing “Tell Mama”, I see this little black kid watching me from the wings. And I'm thinking,
Who is this kid? He's distracting me. So I go over to him in between songs, while the people are clapping, and I whisper,
“Scat, kid! Get lost. You're buggin' me. Go watch from the audience.” I scared the hell out of him. He had these big ol’ brown
eyes, and he opened them real wide and ran away.

‘About ten minutes later, there's this kid again. Now he's standing in front of the stage, off to the side. And he's watching
me as I work.’

After the show, when Etta was in her dressing room taking off her makeup, there was a knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘It's me.’

‘Who's me?’

‘Michael,’ the young voice said. ‘Michael Jackson.’

‘I don't know no Michael Jackson,’ Etta said.

‘Yes, you do. I'm that little kid you told to scat.’

Etta, a robust black woman with dyed blond hair and a big, booming voice, cracked the door open and looked down to find a
nine-year-old gazing up at her with large, wondering eyes. ‘Whatchu want, boy?’ she asked.

In a manner that wasn't the least bit timid, Michael said, ‘Miss James, my father told me to come on back here and 'pologize
to you. I'm sorry, ma'am, but I was just watchin' you 'cause you're so good. You're just so
good.
How do you do that? I never seen people clap like that.’

Etta, now flattered, smiled and patted the boy on the head. ‘Come on in here and sit with me,’ she said. ‘I can teach you
a few tricks.’

‘I don't remember what I told him,’ Etta recalled, ‘but I remember thinking as he was leaving, Now, there's a boy who wants
to learn from the best, so one day he's gonna
be
the best.’

While Joseph was at the American Federation of Musicians' hall in New York filling out certain forms for the Apollo engagement,
he met a young, white lawyer by the name of Richard Arons. After talking to him for just a few moments, Joseph asked Arons
to help him manage his sons. Joseph relished the idea of having white assistance – a preference that would cause problems for
him in years to come. Arons, as a co-manager, began seeking concert bookings for the group while Joseph tried to interest
the record industry in them. At one point, he tried to contact Berry Gordy, president of Motown, by sending him an audiotape
of some of the Jacksons' songs; there was no reaction from Gordy, or from anyone else at Motown.

In 1968, when The Jackson Five played The Regal Theater in Chicago, Motown recording artist Gladys Knight arranged for some
of Motown's executives – but not Berry – to attend the show. There was some interest in the group at that time; word got back
to Berry that the Jacksons were an up-and-coming act, but still, there was no interest from him in terms of signing them to
the label.

In July 1968 – when Jackie was seventeen; Tito, fourteen; Jermaine, thirteen; Marlon, ten; and Michael, nine – the group performed
at Chicago's High Chaparral Club as an opening act for a group called Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. After he saw the Jackson
boys in action, Taylor telephoned Ralph Seltzer, head of Motown's creative department and also head of the company's legal
division, to suggest that the group be allowed to audition for Motown.

‘I had some doubts,’ Ralph Seltzer would recall. ‘Creative considerations aside, I had concerns about their age and the way
they would change when they grew older, in terms of their appearance and their voices. But there was so much excitement about
them from Bobby, I finally told him to bring them onto Detroit.’

Though the Jacksons were scheduled to leave Chicago for a local television programme in New York, Bobby Taylor convinced Joseph
that he should, instead, take the boys to Detroit for an audition. Taylor arranged to film their performance. If the boys
were impressive, he said, Ralph Seltzer would then forward the film to Berry Gordy, who was in Los Angeles, for his approval.

Later that day, Katherine called the High Chaparral Club to talk to her husband. She was told that he and the boys had gone
to the Motor City. ‘Detroit?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘You mean to tell me they gave up that television show to go to Detroit?
What in the world for?’

‘Motown,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘They've gone to Motown.’

It was quarter to ten in the morning on 23 July 1968 when the Jackson family's Volkswagen minibus eased into a parking space
in front of a cluster of small white bungalows at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit. The sign above one of the structures
said it all: Hitsville U.S.A. This was Motown Records, the place from which had sprung forth so many memorable, chart-topping
hit records. By 1968, Berry Gordy, Jr., had made an indelible impression on the entertainment world with this company. Gordy
was a maverick in the record business in every way, a visionary who had plucked young, black hopefuls from urban street corners
to then transform them into international superstars, with names such as The Supremes, The Temptations, The Miracles, The
Vandellas and The Marvelettes. His success with those kinds of groups and solo artists, like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and
Tammi Terrell, was largely the result of his brilliance at surrounding the singers with the most talented writers, producers
and arrangers Detroit had to offer: Smokey Robinson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland, Norman Whitfield, and
Barrett Strong, to name just a few. Using the notion of team work as their foundation, they and the artists formulated an
original, contagious style of music that sold millions of records. It was called the Motown Sound.

A muscular rhythm section, engaging hook lines and choruses, and witty lyrics were all standard elements of songs like ‘Where
Did Our Love Go?’ and ‘I Can't Help Myself’. ‘Dancing in the Streets’, ‘Please Mr Postman’, ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’, ‘The
Tracks of My Tears’ and seemingly countless others became not only anthems of an entire generation, but also emblems of the
period in American history in which they were recorded.

Berry Gordy was a tough taskmaster who encouraged intense competition among his groups, writers and producers. The biggest
criticism levelled at Gordy – by outsiders at first and then, later, by the artists themselves – had to do with the complete control
he exercised over his dominion. Practically none of the artists had a clue as to how much money they generated for the company,
and they were usually discouraged from asking questions about it. They sang and performed, and that was all that was expected
of them. ‘I never saw a tax return until 1979,’ Diana Ross, who signed with Gordy in 1960, once said. ‘Berry was such a mentor
and strong personality, you found yourself relying on that. You didn't grow.’

Joseph had heard some rumours about Motown – nonsense about it being linked to the mob, for instance – and had also heard that
some artists had trouble being paid for their work. However, none of that was on his mind when he took his boys there that
day in 1968 for their audition.

Joseph and Jack Richardson, a close family friend who travelled with them and acted as a road manager, were in the front seat
of the van as they drove up to Hitsville. Crammed in the back were the Jackson boys with a plethora of instruments, amplifiers
and microphones.