by Joe Bensam
'I don’t know if I can do this for ever,' he said.
After that, life became an endless round of concerts and recordings. More hits followed, and the band played to sellout crowds across the country. The most memorable was the one played in their home town of Gary, Indiana, where they arrived by helicopter and were greeted as superstars by the same people who had once thrown rocks at their windows as they rehearsed. They has sure come a very long way in a very short time.
Success on the road brought The Jackson 5 more than just trophies. As they played more gigs further away from home, it was often not practical to drive home the same night, so they would stay overnight at a cheap motel. The older boys were well into their teens now, and consequently developed a serious interest in girls. Fortunately for them, as their fame spread, girls developed a great deal of interest in them, too.
At the end of a performance, Jackie and Jermaine often found themselves in the company of adoring females, and it was hardly surprising that many of these females ended up going back to their motel rooms. As the boys slept two or three to a room, this meant that Michael was often kept awake by the sound of his brothers 'entertaining' their female companions.
Joseph had little interest in controlling their activities, as he was too busy enjoying the company of any girls that might be left over. He would often arrive back at the motel with a couple of young ladies on his arms, not caring who in the family witnessed them going to his room. To exploit these opportunities to the full, Joseph rented an apartment near their home, expressly so that the older male members of the family could entertain these lady friends, without any interference from Katherine.
In May 1971, the Jackson family moved to a more luxurious property at 4641 Hayvenhurst in Encino, California, which remains the family home to this day.
The Jackson family home at Encino, California
The enormous size of the house was both a delight and a cause for concern. While everyone had plenty of space, Michael and some of his siblings felt a little lost, missing the closeness they had enjoyed back in Gary. Despite their new-found wealth, Joseph enforced a strict five-minute rule for phone calls, and didn’t hesitate to use the strap on anyone in the family who broke that rule, no matter how famous they might be.
His boys might be stars with adoring fans, but one thing was clear - Joseph was still the master of his home, his family...and The Jackson 5.
But Joseph was about to get a surprise.
Chapter 3 - On Track for Stardom
In October, Joseph decided that it would a good idea for Michael to release his own single. That way, the family would have two acts instead of one, and they would all make money. Michael was enthusiastic about the idea, as he had lots of ideas he wanted to explore. The idea was certainly a successful one - perhaps a little too successful. Got To Be There became a top five hit, and suddenly Joseph and the other brothers saw that Michael had a future as a solo performer. Gradually it began to sink in that they were becoming a sideshow on the Michael Jackson bandwagon. Their precocious but uniquely-talented little brother was heading for stardom in his own right, and didn’t actually need them any more.
He could do this all on his own.
Got To Be There was a big international hit, too. It stayed in the top 50 in the UK for around three months, and sold over one and a half million copies worldwide - an impressive total by any standards, and remarkable for a kid who still hadn’t reached his teens. The band toured the South shortly afterwards, and found that while they had more fans than ever, changes were afoot. During a stop in Dallas, a crowd of girls gathered outside their motel room, chanting: 'Michael! Michael!'
When Tito opened the door, the girls burst past him and smothered Michael, completely ignoring the others. The girls were escorted out of the room by security guards, and the brothers teased Michael mercilessly about the incident. They thought it was funny, and joked about him being a 'ladies man.' At this point, they hadn’t realized that things were changing fast in the Jacksons camp. Whether Michael was interested in girls or not, they were certainly interested in him. The constant adulation was something that would dog him for the rest of his life.
Michaelmania was just beginning.
The hits kept coming for Michael. Ben became his first solo single to reach number one, selling over a million copies and bagging an Oscar nomination along the way. The song was part of a movie soundtrack, and Michael loved to watch the movie over and over again, sitting at the back and waiting to hear his song, and to see his credit at the end.
‘Ben’ was a No.1 hit for Michael.
The Jackson 5 was still recording, but changes in the system were further increasing the distance between Michael and his brothers. Purely for practical reasons, Motown started recording Michael’s lead part first, then bringing the brothers in later to record their backing track. The aim was just to make the process more efficient, but it had the effect of singling Michael out from the rest of the band, and making them merely backing singers to his starring role.
The gap widened when they arrived in Europe for their first international tour. Sales of recent Jackson 5 singles had been disappointing in the UK, while Michael’s solo singles had been spectacular successes. The crowd that met them at Heathrow mobbed the whole band, but went absolutely crazy over Michael - pulling at both ends of the scarf he wore and nearly choking him to death.
At their hotel, the police had to disperse his fans with water hoses, and the Rolls Royce that the band travelled in sustained $12,000 of damage caused by fans. The trend continued throughout their tour across mainland Europe.
When they got back to the States, the band found that record sales were becoming an issue for them. They released a number of singles with disappointing sales, and struggled to get any memorable hits. Joseph blamed Motown for failing to promote their records properly. Berry Gordy was now mainly concerned with his Hollywood career, and The Jackson 5 were being left behind as yesterday’s boy wonders. But Joseph still believed in his boys, and knew that they could achieve more success with the correct promotion. He started to think it was time for the band to leave Motown and find another label.
Joseph was now clearly of the opinion that he could not trust Motown to promote The Jackson 5, so he took the matter into his own hands. He arranged for the band to play at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the most impressive hotel in the city. In order to give the show broader appeal, he drafted the younger members of the family - Randy and Janet, into the act. LaToya was also recruited as a singer and dancer, and Rebbie would have been involved if she had not suffered an injury before the show started. The new family act was a stunning success, and a triumph for Joseph. He had shown that his family could survive without Motown and do things their own way.
As well as changes in their professional life, the band was seeing many personal changes, too. Tito, Jackie and Jermaine all got married, with Jermaine marrying Berry Gordy’s daughter Hazel. Meanwhile, Joseph has secretly fathered a daughter with a Jackson fan - a fact that would remain hidden for some years to come.
Relations with Motown continued to deteriorate. The band still struggled to get hits, and even Michael’s solo albums were not getting much by the way of promotion. More importantly, the Jacksons wanted to have more creative control. They were fed up with being bit parts in the Motown sausage machine, and wanted to play a role in the writing and production of their material.
This was partly because they were growing up and felt they were ready for more responsibility, but also because they realized they were giving away a fortune in song publishing rights. Because they had no part in creating the material, the Jacksons did not receive any income from the song publishing - the most lucrative part of the business. They wanted to write and record their own material. Berry Gordy, however, was unwilling to listen to Joseph, who he thought was a difficult and obstinate businessman.
So one day, 16-year old Michael decided to take the matter into his own hands. He arranged a private meeting
with Gordy to discuss his concerns. At Gordy’s L.A. home, he said that if he could have just one of his own songs on an album it would show some faith in his ability, and would allow him to demonstrate what he was capable of. Gordy was annoyed that he was being pressed in this way after all that he had done for the band. But he was also impressed that Michael had the nerve to demand this meeting and say what he thought. Although the meeting didn’t achieving anything for the Jacksons, it was a major step forward for Michael. For the first time, he was acting on his own initiative and taking the lead in business matters.
Joseph and the boys were furious when they found out that Michael had met with Gordy behind their backs. But when everyone had calmed down, they decided to vote on whether they should leave Motown.
The voted that they should.
The next priority was to get another record deal. After shopping around for a while, they attracted the attention of Ron Alexenberg, who was running Epic records, a CBS subsidiary. He felt that the band was far from finished. In fact, he thought that with the right management, the Jacksons career would be only just starting to take off.
An agreement was reached, and this time the deal was a good one for the Jacksons. They would get $750,000 up front, and at least $350,000 per album, plus a royalty rate that worked out at almost a dollar an album. Better still, the Jacksons would get to choose at least three songs per album, and any songs they wrote themselves would get serious consideration. This deal was not just better than the Motown deal - it was hundreds of times better.
But there were snags. It soon became apparent that Motown now owned the name The Jackson 5, and was not about to allow the boys to use it after leaving Motown. They had to rename themselves The Jacksons. Then Motown sued for damages relating to the ending of their contract, with the result that the band had to pay half a million dollars back to Gordy’s company. But when that was settled, they were all finally free to move on with their career.
All of them, that is, except for Jermaine, who had married Berry Gordy’s daughter Hazel. His loyalties were now split, and he felt that he had little choice but to support his wife and stay with Motown as a solo artist. So Jermaine dropped from the lineup, but young Randy was recruited into the team as a replacement.
Jermaine Jackson marries Hazel Gordy in 1973
The Jacksons could not start recording music with CBS until the legal issues were settled, so in the meantime they kept themselves busy by starring in a show on CBS-TV. This was notable in being the first time a black family had played such a major role on TV.
Although the series was popular, Michael hated being involved. A perfectionist by nature, he wanted to spend as much time as necessary working on a project to get it exactly right. He had thrived in the music studio environment, where it was normal to do things again and again until they were done exactly right. But in the world of TV, everything was ruled by deadlines. OK was good enough, and average was always better than late. Michael felt there was never enough time to practise his routines, to choreograph things properly, or to do a professional job of entertaining. He privately vowed to avoid TV like the plague in future.
The first album recorded for CBS included Michael’s first songwriting effort - Blues Away, and another song co-written by the brothers. They also helped to produce two of the tracks, and felt that at last they were part of the creative process. The input of legendary producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff ensured a professional finish. Michael thoroughly enjoyed working with Gamble and Huff, saying they taught him how to structure a melody, and how the anatomy of a song works.
Chapter 4 - No Sex, Please...I’m Michael Jackson
By the time Michael Jackson reached his late teens, he was not only a handsome young man, but also an international superstar with money at his fingertips. It was hardly surprising that the legions of adoring female fans had now greatly multiplied in number. Michael clearly had plenty of opportunities for relationships, both casual or of a more serious nature. But it became readily apparent that he wasn’t really interested.
Why this was the case has never become clear. Certainly he had experiences in his younger years which may have affected his desire to form relationships. Not only had he reluctantly witnessed his older brothers having sex many times, he was also exposed to his father’s constant infidelities. But there was more. On one occasion when he was about 15, someone in the family locked him in a hotel room with two hookers so that he could enjoy his first sexual experience. Instead, Michael was horrified and traumatized by the whole episode.
Michael enjoyed the attention from his fans, and as he got older he learned to dance in a sensual manner to drive his fans wild. Yet, he still had no desire to take things further.
‘I think it's fun that girls think I'm sexy,’ he once said. ‘But I don't think that about myself. It's all just fantasy, really. I like to make my fans happy so I might pose or dance in a way that makes them think I'm romantic. But really I guess I'm not that way.’
He did find an unlikely first girlfriend in his early teens in the attractive shape of child-star Tatum O’Neal. But despite them enjoying a jacuzzi together at one time, he insists that nothing sexual ever happened between them. In a later interview, Michael revealed that Tatum was ready to take their relationship to a more intimate level, and invited him over for that purpose. She asked Michael to lay down on the bed, but when she started to undress him, he recoiled in horror. He wasn’t ready for that kind of relationship yet.
Michael with Tatum O’Neal
Tatum apart, the public soon noticed that as he grew older, he did not seem to be forming any serious relationships with women. Combine this with his high-pitched voice and effeminate manner, and it is easy to put two and two together to make five. Rumours abounded that Michael was gay, much to his disgust and puzzlement. Still a devout Jehovah’s Witness at that time, Michael considered homosexuality to be against God’s will, and therefore beyond the pale. Of course, repressing your natural desires does not extinguish them, but whenever pressed on the issue of his sexuality, Michael would always angrily insist that he definitely was not gay.
To complicate his life still further, Michael was becoming increasingly worried about his appearance. Like many teenagers, he started breaking out in acne. But most teenagers don’t have to broadcast their spotty faces to hundreds of millions of critical viewers. His brothers also teased him about his wide nose, calling him Big Nose to his face, and making him desperately unhappy about the way he looked. To make it worse, as he looked in the mirror every day, he saw himself looking more and more like his father - the last person in the world he wanted to resemble.
The more he looked at the reflection of the man in the mirror, the more determined he became to find a way to change it.
***
One of the downsides of Michael’s busy life was that his education largely went by the wayside While he did have good tutors at times, and was enrolled into school at other times, his education was patchy and largely home grown. As a result, he was not the world’s greatest scholar. However, fate can take strange twists and turns, and his educational difficulties led to an encounter that would change his life for good.
In July 1977, Michael travelled to New York for a entirely new experience in his career - making a film. The Whiz was a movie with Motown connections, a slightly bizarre and entirely black production of the Wizard of Oz story. Michael was invited to play the part of the the Scarecrow, and leaped at the chance.
The movie was not destined to be a Hollywood success, to say the least, but Michael thoroughly enjoyed playing the part of the Scarecrow, even though it took five hours to put his make up on. In fact, he enjoyed the look so much, he sometimes wore it back to his hotel at night.
Filming went well, with only one minor issue. Michael proved to be so good at learning the dance routines that he made the other actors look stupid. He only had to see a routine once to be able to dance it flawlessly. The rest of the cast struggled to keep up. Finally, star
Diana Ross took him aside one day and hissed at him to learn the dances more slowly, as he was making a fool of her.
However, the most important moment in the filming was one that didn’t seem to have much consequence at the time. At one point, Michael was required to pull out a piece of paper and read a quote from Socrates. This was where Michael’s spotty education let him down. He thought Socrates was pronounced So-crates (as in sew crates). The crew laughed, but Michael had no idea what was wrong.
Then someone whispered the correct pronunciation in his ear. Michael turned to see a man extending his hand.
'I’m Quincy Jones,' he said. Quincy was the show’s musical director.
Michael smiled back. Neither of them had any idea that this moment was the start of a relationship that would single-handedly save the music industry from ruin.
***
About a year later, Michael decided he wanted to embark on a new solo album. This would not only be his first solo album as an adult performer, but also the first one in which he had real creative control.
More importantly than anything else, he wanted to create an album that was definitely his own, one that could not be identified with The Jacksons in any way. He wanted to escape the family ties and create his own identity. But to do that, he had to find a new producer, someone who had no previous connections with the Jackson family. He remembered Quincy Jones from The Whiz, and thought he might be able to suggest some producers from his contacts in the music world.
