Michael Jackson (12 page)

Not since Sammy Davis, Jr., had the world seen a child performer with as innate a command of himself on stage as Michael Jackson.
Both as a singer and dancer, young Michael exuded a presence that was simply uncanny. After this youngster was heard recording
Smokey Robinson's plaintive, bluesy ‘Who's Loving You?’ the question among Motown's staffers was ‘Where did he learn that
kind of emotion?’ The answer is that he didn't have to learn it, it just seemed to be there for him.

Producers were always astonished at how Michael would, in between recording sessions, play games that pre-teen children enjoy
such as cards and hide-and-seek, and then step behind a microphone and belt out a song with the emotional agility and presence
of an old soul who's seen his share of heartache. Equally amazing was the fact that, aside from listening to demonstration
tapes of the songs sung by a session singer to give him direction on the lead melody and Deke Richards' constant prodding
to clean up his diction, Michael was pretty much left to his own devices in the studio. When he was told to sound like a rejected
suitor, no one in the studio actually expected him to do it, to understand the emotion involved in heartbreak. How could they?
After all, he was eleven.

‘I'll tell you the honest-to-God truth. I never knew what I was doing in the early days,’ Michael confessed to me once. ‘I
just did it. I never knew how to sing, really. I didn't control it. It just formed itself. I don't know where it came from…
it just came. Half the time, I didn't even know what I was singing about, but I still felt the emotion behind it.’

Producer Deke Richards used to have to sit Michael on top of a trash can in order for him to sing into the boom mike above
him. Jermaine and Jackie would stand on either side of Michael – Marlon and Tito rarely recorded backing vocals in the early
days since neither had a knack for harmony – and sheet music would be positioned in front of Michael's face on a music stand.
From the control booth, all Richards could see in the studio were Jermaine and Jackie standing on either side of two sneakers
dangling at the sides of a trash can.

When Michael and his brothers became professional performers, there were probably a million youngsters with as much raw dancing
talent. What set Michael apart from the schoolyard hoofers was his execution, undoubtedly gleaned from years of observing
headliners in the rhythm-and-blues revues in which he and his brothers used to appear. The kid had an eye for what worked.

From legendary soul singer Jackie Wilson, Michael mastered the importance of onstage drama. He learned early on that dropping
dramatically to one knee, an old Wilson tactic, usually made an audience whoop and holler. However, for the most part, watching
young Michael at work was like observing an honour student of ‘James Brown 101’. Michael appropriated everything he could
from the self-proclaimed ‘hardest-working man in show business’. Not only did he employ Brown's splits and the one-foot slides,
he worked a microphone bold-soul style just like Brown – passionately jerking the stand around like a drunk might handle his
girlfriend at the corner pool hall on a Saturday night.

Michael also pilfered James Brown's famous spin. However, back then, the spin didn't go over nearly as well with a crowd as
Michael's version of another dance of the day that Brown popularized, the Camel Walk. When Michael strode across the floor
of
American Bandstand
during The Jackson 5's first appearance on that programme, even the audience of pretty white teenagers got caught up in the
frenzy of excitement.

From Diana Ross, Michael got not only a sense of style, but an appreciation of power. Diana had a
quiet
authority, the power of presence. He'd observed how people reacted to her when she walked into a room. She was revered. She
was given deferential treatment. She had a special power. He liked that.

There was one other thing Michael got from Diana: his early
ooohs.
Michael's early vocal ad-libs were almost always punctuated with an
oooh
here or there; not a long-drawn-out
oooh,
but rather a stab, an exclamation mark. Diana used this effect on many of The Supremes' recordings. Michael delighted in
it and put it in his grab bag of influences. Indeed, for little Michael Jackson, every little
oooh
helped.

At the beginning of November 1969, Berry Gordy leased a house for the Jackson family at 1601 Queens Road in Los Angeles. Michael
moved out of Diana Ross's home and in with his father and brothers. A month later, Katherine, LaToya, Janet and Randy joined
the rest of the family. Motown paid for their flights, their first plane ride.

As they arrived at the house, the boys were waiting on the front lawn. Michael was the first to throw himself into his mother's
arms. ‘But you got so big,’ she exclaimed. Tears streamed down her face as she hugged each of her boys in turn. Jackie, ever
the tease, lifted Marlon up and tossed him in the air. ‘Me next, me next,’ three-year-old Janet squealed.

Katherine would recall that, once inside the house, she took a long look around the living room. It was so large – twice the
size of the entire house in Gary – that she was dumbstruck. ‘It ain't Gary, that's for sure,’ Joseph told her with a proud smile.
Then Joseph had Katherine close her eyes. He led his wife out to the backyard patio. ‘Okay, you can open them now,’ he told
her.

A panorama of dusk-time Los Angeles lay stretched below the hillside home, thousands of lights twinkling like earthbound stars.
A dark-blue sky above, clear and cloudless, was full of stars. ‘This must be what heaven looks like,’ Katherine said, when
she could speak. ‘I've never seen anything so beautiful.’

‘Well, it's here for you every night,’ Joseph told her. He was happy to see her, his wife and partner. Sometimes, Katherine's
sadness was so acute, it bordered on depression. Joseph knew he was responsible; he tried not to think about what he was doing
to her, focusing instead on what he was doing
for
her – such as being able to present her with such a new and exciting lifestyle. Though Joseph had his dalliances, he had always
insisted that Katherine Jackson was the only woman he had ever truly loved and the rest were… diversions. Joseph could be
cruel and unconscionable, at times. He could be selfish. Over the years, he would watch as Katherine's love for him foundered
on the rocks of his blatant infidelity and dogged ambition. However, when he was alone with her, what they shared in those
quiet moments was real and powerful, and it lasts to this day. They have been married for fifty-three years.

Katherine recalled that she asked to be left alone for a moment in the outdoors of her new home. There she stood, among the
orange trees and flower beds, all illuminated in a spectacular way. Joseph had turned on the outdoor sound-system so that
romantic music could be heard playing softly in the background. The air smelled of jasmine. It was magical.

‘Lovely, isn't it?’

Katherine whirled around at the sound of the woman's unfamiliar voice, but before either of them could say anything, Michael
was at Katherine's side. ‘Momma, this is
her.
This is Diana Ross,’ he said, excited. #8216;Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she just beautiful?’

Later, telling a friend about the incident, Katherine would remember that Diana was as slim, young and attractive as she appeared
on the television screen. Katherine, who was short and rounded, became painfully aware of how plain she herself may have looked
to the glamorous singer. She walked towards her with a limp. Diana glided, as if on air. She was warm and friendly. Her large,
dark eyes dancing, she took Katherine's hand. ‘Mrs Jackson, I am so happy to meet you,’ she said. ‘Your kids have talked about
you so much. They are just the best.’

As pleased as she was to hear her children praised, Katherine could not help wondering why Diana was at the house, and when
she had arrived. Diana must have sensed her unspoken questions. ‘Oh, I was just visiting,’ she said by way of explanation.
She hugged Katherine warmly and kissed her on the cheek.

Katherine told Diana that she was grateful for all she had done for her boys, especially Michael, and that she was happy to
be able now to raise him herself. ‘He needs his mother,’ she said, firmly. ‘I have been gone too long,’ she added pointedly.
At that, Diana seemed to become uncomfortable; her attitude changed. ‘I'm happy for you,’ she said, softly. She seemed crestfallen
by the subtle reminder that she might no longer be as influential in young Michael's life. She loved being his ‘mother’, even
for just such a short time. She would miss it. Her life had been lonely, one devoted to career pursuits since she was about
fifteen. However, it wouldn't be long before she would have children of her own – three girls and then later two boys – and devote
as much of herself to them as she would to her career. ‘I'd love to chat,’ she told Katherine, ‘but I can't because I'm very
busy.’

‘Can't you at least stay for a cup of coffee?’ Katherine offered.

‘No, not really. I must run now. I'm sure you understand.’

‘Oh… sure,’ Katherine said.

Without another word, Diana turned and walked into the night.

‘Bye,’ Michael called out after her, but Diana didn't answer.

Katherine hugged Michael. Then, without a backward glance at the breathtaking view, mother and son walked hand in hand into
the house to begin their new life.

By the end of 1969, Michael Jackson, now eleven years old and reunited with his mother, was a bubbly, energetic and happy
youngster. ‘All I want now is to see how far we can go as a family,’ he told
Soul
magazine reporter Judy Spiegelman. ‘I like show business, Hollywood, and all that stuff, the things people like Berry Gordy
do to make you look good. I'm real excited about things.’

In December, Motown Records released the brothers' first album,
Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.
It would go on to sell 629,363 copies, an amazing number for a debut album. In Britain, it peaked at number sixteen and remained
in the Top 100 for four weeks. ‘Honesty has always been a very special word for me – a special idea,’ Diana Ross wrote in the
liner notes. ‘But when I think of my own personal idea of honesty, I think of something being straight out, all there, on
the table – the way it is… That's how I feel about The Jackson 5 – five brothers by the name of Jackson whom I discovered in Gary,
Indiana. They've got great talent,’ Diana Ross concluded. ‘And above all, they're honest.’

Michael read an advance proof of the album jacket in one of the Motown offices as his brothers and a promotion man looked
on.

‘Wouldn't even let us play our own instruments on the album,’ Tito grumbled. ‘But here we are in the picture holdin' 'em like
we played 'em. Don't seem right to me.’ In truth, Tito and Jermaine were not permitted to play their bass and guitar in the
Motown sessions because Berry didn't think they were ready for studio work. All of the instrumental music was recorded by
Motown's top team of musicians before the Jacksons even got to the studio. The boys would then have to learn to duplicate
the sound as best they could for live performances.

‘I think we should be playin' on this record album, here,’ Tito decided.

Michael rolled his eyes. ‘So?’ he asked.

‘So, it's not true,’ Tito said. ‘It's not honest, like Miss Ross said on the jacket.’

‘And what about this part?’ Jermaine asked, still looking over Michael's shoulder. He pointed to Diana's line about discovering
the group. ‘That ain't honest, either. Bobby Taylor was the one.’

Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘It's called
public relations
,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘C'mon, guys. Get with it.’

‘He was really into this image thing at a pretty early age,’ said Stan Sherman, the independent promotion man who witnessed
the exchange. ‘The other boys were sort of befuddled about all the lies, but not Michael. Once you explained it to him, he
not only agreed with it but, I think, he even started to believe it. To me, that was frightening. He seemed willing and even
eager to adjust to the fantasy of it all.’

Later in the month, on 14 December 1969, The Jackson 5 appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
Although they had already made one national television appearance on
The Hollywood Palace,
in October, being asked to perform on
The Ed Sullivan Show
was an important milestone in their career.

The programme couldn't credit its success to its host. Stiff and usually unsmiling, Sullivan, a columnist for the
New York Daily News,
did little more than introduce his guests, whose names he routinely mispronounced or forgot. Once, when Smokey Robinson and
the Miracles appeared, he introduced them as ‘Smokey and his little Smokeys’. The lure of the show was its roster of guests,
though. Newcomers knew they had the brass ring in their reach when they were asked to perform; those already established were
assured they were still on top. Ed Sullivan never bothered with has-beens or wanna-be's.

As soon as Sullivan introduced this ‘sensational group’, Marlon, Jackie and Michael, flanked by Tito and Jermaine on guitar,
started their set with their rendition of the Sly Stone song ‘Stand’. They were dressed in a variety of mod clothes purchased
off the rack in Greenwich Village by Suzanne dePasse.

Michael, again, was the star. When he sang, his eyes sparkled. He looked adorable in his magenta cowboy hat. Anyone who saw
the performance would remember how impossibly cute this little kid was while on that stage. No diamond in the rough, he already
seemed a polished, seasoned performer. When he sang ‘Can You Remember?’ his voice had a purity and range of tone that belied
his years. By the time The Jackson 5 finished the set with a rousing ‘I Want You Back’, the audience had been completely won
over. Just to appear with Ed Sullivan was an accomplishment, but to receive such rousing applause seemed a clear prophecy
for success.