Michael Jackson's LA Residence June 25, 2009
I arrived at the hospital
Frank Dileo JACKSON'S MANAGER 1984-89, 2009
and the lady came out maybe 20 minutes later, a nurse.
I stood up. She said, "Who are you?"
"I'm Frank Dileo, I manage Michael.
"Is he okay?"
She hesitated, and I knew.
She looked me in the eye and said,
"No, he didn't make it."
I had them put him in a special room and clean him up.
And that was the one nice thing, is I got to be alone with him.
And I got to kiss him on the forehead and, you know, tell him what I felt.
When I started seeing the news clips
David Gest MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND
the day he died,
my heart sank.
Michael was the most exciting performer
I had ever seen in my life.
He was the ultimate pop superstar.
He wanted, more than anything, for his legacy to be
he is the greatest performer of all time.
And that's what he became.
I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana.
Katherine Jackson MICHAEL'S MOTHER
My mother and father divorced when I was at a young age, about six years old.
My mother was Baptist.
And my sister and I sang in the Baptist choir.
It made us have a love for music.
My father used to listen to the country music all the time,
and out of Chicago came a show, on the radio, called Suppertime Frolic.
And then on Saturdays, he would listen to the Grand Ole Opry
that came out of Nashville.
Some of the people were Ernest Tubb, that's ancient.
Let me... Let the people know how old I am.
We had a club called the Sub-Debs.
We used to give teenage parties for all the kids around there,
and that's where I met Joe.
I think I was around 17 years old.
He would always ask me for a dance when the music was slow.
He seemed very kind, very sweet.
Joseph was in a group.
Besides me leaving singing with my sister, I started singing with him.
And we would sing and harmonise together a lot.
Then the children came along, and I kept singing.
Rebbie Jackson MICHAEL'S SISTER
2300 Jackson St, in that little house.
I was the only one born in that house.
We had two bedrooms in our home.
And I and my sisters, Janet and La Toya, slept in the living room.
Living Room Gary, Indiana 2010
We had a couch that let out into a bed.
My brothers slept in one room.
Boy's Bedroom Gary, Indiana 2010
And that room had triple bunk beds.
And they slept on the bunk beds.
And then my parents slept in the other room.
Parents' Bedroom GARY, INDIANA 2010
KATHERINE: I don't know how I squeezed all of us in that little house.
Jackson Family Kitchen Gary, Indiana 1960's
Having all my children when I was young and having them so close together,
every time I would get pregnant, I was afraid to tell Joe.
We didn't believe in abortion, so that's why we got so many children.
The children around our neighbourhood, especially the boys,
they were kind of bad, some of them.
They would break in people's cars and do things.
And our children were never allowed to go out at night or play with those kids.
J. Randy Taraborrelli JACKSON'S FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER
They weren't really social with the rest of the neighbourhood.
They clung to each other, and that's how the Jacksons were raised.
Poor? I mean, that was a way of life.
We had plenty of food to eat.
We were like all the other kids in the area.
Michael never thought he was poor when he was young,
because he did not know what poor was.
David Gest MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND
He thought everyone lived the way his family did.
We had a rickety washing machine.
We weren't able to buy a new one.
Whenever it washed, it would creak. You know, make noises...
Something like that.
And Michael, I guess, was about 11 or 12 months old.
He was just dancing to the rhythm of the washing machine.
And I knew then that he had a lot of rhythm.
Michael would always do funny things, anything for a laugh.
Anything for a laugh.
La Toya was always very persnickety about the way she kept her room.
And she had this beautiful...
I think it was a white satin bedspread that she had just gotten.
Michael took some invisible ink
and he spread it all over the bedspread, squirted it all over.
And then he had her come in and look at it. She was livid.
Michael used to love telling me stories about Gary, Indiana,
especially how he would have a candy store,
and he would sell candy to all the neighbours,
and to his brothers.
And he never made any money doing it,
but he showed signs of being an entrepreneur at a very young age.
As kids, we had a lot of fun.
Tito Jackson MICHAEL'S BROTHER
You know, just playing around in the neighbourhood.
Playing practical jokes, throwing balloons out the car windows at bus stops,
singing and dancing to every song that came on the radio.
Michael would use some of the money from his candy store
to go and buy 45s,
because in those days, that's what kids bought, 45s.
And if you were lucky, you'd buy an LP.
But he started listening strongly to James Brown
from the time he was about five years old.
He had a great taste for real R&B,
gritty R&B, like Wilson Pickett,
the Dells,
great singers like Levi Stubbs.
We sang country songs and we sang folk songs.
And then they started singing the Temptations
when we got a television.
My father had a guitar that he kept locked in the closet.
One day, he didn't lock the closet and I started playing that thing.
I learnt every song on the radio and made my brothers sing with me.
Joseph had warned them, "Don't play my guitar, now."
And so, Tito took it out and played it, and a string broke.
There was no way of hiding that he hadn't had his guitar.
He punished him for it.
Then he said, "Let me hear you play."
And Tito played for him.
Joe just said nothing else to him, "You can play it if you want to."
Tito had been watching his father play guitar,
but he would come to my house and he and I would play.
Reynaud Jones NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA
And I would play a little something on my guitar, and then show him,
and then give my guitar to him.
And then he'd try to play it.
And so we went back and forth like that.
There was a guy across the street who had one snare drum,
and his name was Milford Hite.
Milford Hite NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA
Reynaud said, "Milford, come over with your drum
"and let's see if we can, you know, start a little group together."
We played for a while and then Jackie Jackson came over.
Okay.
Then after Jackie came in, Jermaine came.
TITO: Michael and Marlon were just little kids.
And we used to tell them to be quiet, "Get out of here."
We used to kick them out the room.
And they used to beg to be in the group.
And we just said, "Your little brother wants to be in the..."
You know, you just said, "No, get out of here. This is big boy stuff."
The school was giving a programme and all the parents were invited.
And Michael was singing solo, Climb Every Mountain.
And so Joe's father wanted to go also, so he could hear him.
And Michael starts singing.
I looked around, Joe's father was crying.
I guess he couldn't imagine
that a 5-year-old kid can keep harmony and sing that well.
But that's what happened.
We heard him sing and we were so taken by that.
We couldn't believe it so we rushed him home,
immediately took him to the room.
And he was in the group, that fast.
The big thing back then was winning the Roosevelt High School talent show.
In the '50s and the '60s,
talent shows were the key to getting a career and a record deal.
And that's what they dreamed of.
Initially, Michael was not our lead singer.
It was Jermaine was our lead singer when we made it to the talent show.
They came to me and asked me if I would come over
Robert Hite NEIGHBOUR - GARY, INDIANA
and give them some pointers on tightening up the group.
I actually decided that we were going to present the song My Girl,
because it was a song that I had become very fond of.
Each person would get a chance to step forward in the song,
and showcase what they could do.
Milford actually sang My Girl along with them.
Reynaud was singing My Girl.
And all of a sudden we said, "Michael, sing My Girl."
And he hit it, perfect pitch.
And that was it.
That was our secret weapon, quite honestly.
When Michael came in, the crowd just stood up.
They actually broke a couple of chairs and seats in the auditorium.
It was such a surprise.
And that's when everybody recognised the kind of talent that was there.
We wanted to win and we won.
It was a really happy moment.
It was just... 'Cause that was the thing to win, Roosevelt's talent show.
We win a Roosevelt's talent show, it's like signing a contract with Motown.
After the talent show ended,
Joe decided that Reynaud and Milford weren't going to be rehearsing with them.
And that's what kind of split everything off.
Joseph was, in many ways, a frustrated musician.
He had a band called the Falcons.
And I think to some extent he wanted to live vicariously
through the success, the possible success, of his children as musicians.
But Joseph is a very complicated person,
and it's not easy to paint Joseph with a wide brushstroke.
Bobby Taylor ARTIST, GORDY I MOTOWN RECORDS
Joe was a tyrant to them.
He was mean to them. He was evil to them.
Michael was very afraid of Joe,
and a lot of times, he would stay over at my house,
just to get away from Joe,
because he felt Joe had punished him too much when he was younger.
He had taken a strap and spanked him a lot of times.
And he felt it was too harsh.
He was a very strong, and often, as they would tell it, violent disciplinarian.
Michael, Janet and Randy, and a little bit of Marlon,
I think they got easy street, 'cause they were the babies.
The ones who really got the spankings in my family, if I remember correctly,
and I'm pretty sure I do,
was myself, Jermaine and Jackie, the older guys.
I'm sort of like five years older than Michael.
So he was more of one of the little guys that didn't get it the way the big guys did.
I think in later life,
he began to respect Joe more,
because he saw that he wanted his kids to be somebody.
My uncle worked in the steel mill.
He never wanted his kids to do what he did. He wanted them to be better.
Ronald & Keith Jackson JACKSON'S FIRST COUSINS
I seen the steel mill, and I'm gonna tell you...
- It's like working for Satan... - Do not work there...
...because it's 2,000 degrees out there, and it's very dangerous.
So, his vision, I respect.
He wanted them to have a better opportunity, and to do something they love doing.
I think Joe did the right thing because none of his kids went to prison.
None of his kids were out on the street using dope.
I think I was raised right.
I think my father did a brilliant job to take us from Gary, Indiana,
which is a very poverty-stricken town,
and not too many people get out of there and make something of themselves,
and he had a dream, and he stuck with it.
And he knew how to get there and he got us there.
It's okay to have fun sometimes but you have to prepare yourself,
because your adulthood is gonna be a lot longer than your childhood.
And if you didn't prepare for it, you're gonna be on The Late Show.
So I think my father prepared his sons for the future, to be men.
We were men at a very young age.
I remember asking Michael, "Why do you call him Joseph?"
And it was really clear, the way Michael explained it,
that they thought of him as Joseph.
They didn't really think of him as their father, they thought of him as Joseph.
And I thought that was very sad.
That had to hurt even Joseph,
to know that his children felt that way about him,
but that was the way he designed it.
Katherine Jackson MICHAEL'S MOTHER
The world now talks about how mean and evil he is.
He's not that way.
He's just a firm person.
Michael's very close to my mother, and she was like a comfort to him, I think.
Michael and I had a very special bond.
Michael used to always tell me that he was so much like me.
And then I used to tell him, I said,
"I can see myself in you, but I don't want you to be like me,"
because I thought I was too easy-going,
trust people too much,
and that's exactly how Michael is.
There was a mystical connection that made them almost, at times, one.
Michael and Katherine, two peas in a pod.
He was closer to no one else except for her.
Katherine Jackson was golden where Michael was concerned,
throughout his entire lifetime.
She always cared.
When he went through stages of acne, she knew how to handle him.
It was almost as if they were
aligned with each other against the world.
And he could always go to Katherine for anything.
And she would be there for him, 100%.
They had been working on the music for a long time,
and they wanted to be signed to a label.
We would go to school in the morning.
Then after school, we'd get home about 3.;00, 3.;30.
And my father'd have all the mics set up and amps on standby.
And we had enough time to just drop our books,
and we would practise, like, four hours,
until about 7.;00 or 8.;00.
And after that,
we would get ready to go to Chicago or somewhere,
and go do an engagement.
We would play for 45 minutes,
and take 15 minutes off and do our homework.
By the time we was through with our day, it was about 2:30 in the morning.
And we'd drive back from Chicago to Gary, get home about 3:00, 4:00 in the morning,
then go to school the next day.
And that's what life was for us for many years, a lot of work.
We would perform all night, tell you the truth, every day.
Voice of Michael Jackson Interview courtesy of J. Randy Taraborrelli
We would be dancing, doing James Brown,
and a lot of people throwing money on stage, and standing ovations.
And then, soon as we drove home, we'd get up and go to school.
And we couldn't keep our pants up 'cause we had so much money in 'em.
I mean, change just broke 'em.
And there was this man's house, who used to sell candy,
we used to stop there and just load up, eat candy for days.
They had a studio at home and they had these big mirrors and stuff.
And they would say, "Do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again."
And next thing you know, seven, eight, nine hours go by,
but they were looking for perfection.
Ronnie Rancifer KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1967-77
They were focused, that's what I liked about them.
They were serious about doing it, and it was about perfection.
Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer were part of the early Jackson 5.
They were not named members
but they were a part of the group, and an integral part of the group.
Back then, we didn't have the greatest instruments in the world.
Other big name groups, they would have big PAs and all that.
Jacksons didn't have that, but what they had was soul.
See... And soul goes a long way.
You can have $10 jillion worth of equipment, baby,
but if you ain't got no soul, you might as well stay home.
In 1967 the Jackson 5 signed for local record label, Steeltown Records.
They released two songs on the label; 'Big Boy'
and 'We Don't Have To Be Over 21
Neither appeared on any Billboard Chart.
One day, I was setting up a VIP section for Bobby Taylor,
all of a sudden, I hear the people clapping and hollering...
Weldon Arthur McDougal III - A & R EXECUTIVE, MOTOWN RECORDS 1969-80
And so I come out of the office and I look and there was the Jackson 5.
Well, they are pretty good.
Joe Jackson said, "Listen, man, we wanna be on Motown."
And I said, "Man, I can't get nobody on the label."
And he said, "Well, do you know anybody you could introduce me to at Motown?"
I was so excited about them,
I told Bobby Taylor that Thursday about them.
He said, "Okay, I'll look at 'em."
I met them in 1968, at the Regal Theater.
I was headlining the show.
They were the opening act,
and I was introduced to them by the promoter.
Berry Gordy, President of Motown, gave him permission
to produce any act that he wanted and they would listen to it.
He, at that time, had a group called Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers.
They had records on the radio that were going really well and stuff.
I liked the way he sang, 'cause he was a star vocalist in his own right.
He knew how to do it, when to do it, why to do it, and why not to do it.
I saw this little kid spinning and stuff, I said, "Dang.
"Send him upstairs when they finish, I want to talk to this kid."
Never thought about recording him at that time.
I said, "This little guy, I wanna see what's happening."
He was a kid that would worry you, bug you, until you had to do something with him.
Instead of him going back to Gary, Indiana, from Chicago
every night, he'd go and ask Joseph if he could stay with me,
and spend a night at the hotel with me.
So he stayed in my face for 10 straight days,
from the time that we woke up in the morning,
and I'd take and feed this kid.
It was pure. This kid wanted what he got.
He was a workaholic.
Bobby Taylor worked hard.
I mean, I can't say it enough. I want people to know.
He worked harder on them than he did with the Vancouvers.
My motivation was Michael.
I just figured this kid here, he's an adult in kid's clothing.
That was my only motivation.
Everybody around here knew that Michael Jackson was "it."
The world just didn't know it.
Bobby was pushing.
When I say he was pushing,
the next time I seen Bobby or I seen the group,
he had called me and said he's working at the Apollo.
And come over to the Apollo, he got a surprise for me.
And when I went to the Apollo, the Jackson 5 was on the bill.
Apollo Theater Harlem, New York City
The Apollo was known as the greatest R&B showroom in the world,
because many albums had been made from there,
James Brown, Live at the Apollo.
Jackie Wilson played the Apollo.
Gladys Knight and the Pips played the Apollo.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
Everybody who played the Apollo was a star.
And everybody who was underneath them on a bill
was trying to gain that national fame.
And if you make it there, you're assured of stardom
because people knew that you've got something very special.
It was a very tough audience.
And if they did not like you, and you were not a good live act,
even though you may have a hit record, they'd boo you off the stage.
The Jackson 5 tore that place up.
I mean, I've never seen an act that nobody never heard of,
didn't have a record,
and, I mean, the people kept hollering, "Jackson 5!"
On the same show was the 5 Stairsteps, and they were young kids, too,
or they were about the same age as the Jackson 5.
And they were complaining,
they wanted to get the Jackson 5 off of the show
because every time they went on, people just hollered,
"Jackson 5! Jackson 5! Jackson 5!"
And I said, "Wow! I ain't never seen nothing like this."
Martha Reeves ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
My very first time that I saw Michael Jackson was at the Apollo Theater in New York.
He and his family were a self-contained act, which was very unusual.
And yet there was a guitarist in the group and a bassist in the group,
and keyboard and drums.
They'd won a contest.
They'd won at the Apollo Theater Amateur Night,
and their prize was to open the show for the great James Brown.
Well, he broke out into this James Brown, I Got the Feelin',
and doing his little toes and dancing and looking like James,
if James were a wind-up toy.
And it was amazing.
Rebbie Jackson MICHAEL'S SISTER
He would perform and do the moves and routine that everyone else was doing.
He used to do Fred Astaire and James Cagney.
Then all of a sudden, he would add a little bit of something in there, different.
And that was him feeling what he was doing.
He excited me. I saw all of this in him.
I saw things that he could do that I couldn't.
He had the makings of a great singer.
Michael had universal appeal back when he was real young.
I mean, we weren't really into marketing or anything like that,
but it was already there.
I think the word for it, the phraseology, would be,
"A diamond in the rough," without very many edges to buff off.
With the rest of the brothers, now,
Jermaine stuttered.
And he always thought that if he stuttered when he talked,
that he would do it when he sang.
So I had to push Jermaine more than I had to push anyone else.
And that's all I used, Jermaine, Michael and Jackie.
I did not use Marlon, did not use Tito.
They couldn't sing, right?
And I told them. "Learn. Listen and learn."
The complete group was not just those five boys.
The complete group had two other ones with them,
one was Johnny Jackson, the drummer,
one was Ronnie Rancifer, the pianist,
which made the music for the group.
Without them, there wouldn't have been this Jackson 5.
Every producer has their own method to the madness,
and Bobby's was pretty cool.
He had the old-school roughness on that, you know.
You have to have a certain kind of roughness,
a certain kind of discipline.
He felt Michael had something so special, and he told that to him.
But he said,
"Do not think just me telling you makes it happen.
"It does not.
"You've gotta work and continue to work for what you achieve.
"It will never be easy."
He wasn't always patient.
He wasn't always saying things that you wanna hear,
or saying it right.
But what he said and what he was doing was just trying to make them stars.
Our last day at the Regal Theater
is when I went to Joe, I said,
"Say now, why don't you let me put these kids at Motown?"
And Joe said those words to me, "Man, I thought you'd never ask."
We were in New York City.
Tito Jackson MICHAEL'S BROTHER
And we had just finished performing with James Brown.
We were opening up for him.
Bobby Taylor had been begging Berry to check us out.
Berry Gordy - FOUNDER, MOTOWN RECORD CORPORATION
And he wouldn't do it because he had another kid on his label.
And he was catching a lot of flak from the state
about working this kid who's underage.
Berry would say, "I never wanna have anything to do with kids in this business.
"It's too much problems.
"I can't even handle one. What am I gonna do with five?"
And the one kid was little Stevie Wonder.
I drove Michael, Marlon,
Tommy Chong, who was in my band, from Cheech and Chong,
from Chicago to Detroit.
I take Michael directly to Motown.
So I said, "Berry, I've got these kids here
"and they're number one coming out of the block."
I said, "The lead singer's eight.
"He can out-dance anybody you ever saw.
"Jackie Wilson, James Brown.
"If you close your eyes and listen to him after I finish teaching him,
"the best singer you ever heard in your life."
It was not easy to get a children's group signed to Motown.
And Bobby Taylor knew that when he called Berry
and said, "I've got something so special, you gotta see it,"
that Berry would jump once he did.
Because he would not have taken them to Berry to waste his time.
The next morning, Berry Gordy called me from Los Angeles, and he says,
"I want you to bring them out here."
That's how they got to Motown.
Going to California, the happiest day of my life.
Katherine Jackson MICHAEL'S MOTHER
Joseph had promised me that one day we would go to California.
I'd tell him, "No," I said, "Your promise came true,
"but you didn't bring me there, the children did."
Berry Gordy was having a party for Diana Ross.
It was her birthday.
So he asked us to perform at this party for Diana,
and of course we did.
And at that party was, like, the Temptations, Smokey, the Vandellas,
the Supremes, Four Tops.
And here we are performing their songs to them.
So we was quite nervous.
Dionne Warwick SINGER
I first met Michael, he was, I think he was 10 years old.
He was flown out with his brothers
to sing for Berry Gordy, Jr.
Berry had invited a bunch of people up to his home.
This little bitty thing came in and he sat down next to me
and he looked at me and he says, "And who are you?"
I said, "I'm Dionne Warwick. Who are you?"
"I'm Michael Jackson."
I said, "Nice to know you, Michael Jackson. And what do you do, Michael Jackson?"
He says, "Oh, I sing."
I said, "You sing? Can you sing?"
He said, "Yes, I can sing."
I mean, little feisty, beautiful young boy.
I said, "Well, that's what we're here for. We're gonna see if you can sing."
Watching them perform was excitement.
Brenda Holloway ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
Everyone in the group was an individual.
And I feel that every one of them could have gone on their own.
But Michael was the star.
SMOKEY ROBINSON: They came in and they sang a few songs.
They sang a couple songs by James Brown, you know,
Smokey Robinson ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
and Michael did the James Brown dances, and he really did them.
He's 10 years old and he was dancing like he was about 30.
How in the world could this little boy, and he was a kid,
be so talented?
That's what everybody went away talking about.
I think all of us Motown artists were astonished
Kim Weston ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
because here's a kid that, you know, seemed to have no fear.
You know, when the music hit, he was ready, you know, or ready before the music hit.
He said, "I want you to know something, too."
I said, "What's that?"
"You sang a song about my name, Michael."
I said, "Yeah. You think that song was for you?"
He said, "Wasn't it?"
He was an adorable child. It was a wonderful meeting.
They loved it. They enjoyed it.
That was our audition.
So I'm very proud of that moment in our life.
There was another world about to open
David Gest MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND
and he was ready to delve into it.
Marvin Gaye
Junior Walker
When you went to Motown, it was... Everyone was there.
The Isley Brothers
Kim Weston
Edwin Starr
Jimmy Ruffin
It was like Disneyland. You saw Smokey, you saw Mary, you saw Diana Ross.
But everybody was trying to perfect their artistry.
The feeling at Motown was it was a family, a musical family.
Valerie Simpson & Nickolas Ashford
SINGERS I SONGWRITERS, 'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'
And we all were a part of excellence and greatness, musical greatness.
And we so were fans of each other's work,
so that when we saw each other, it was just instant love.
We got, "We knew what you were doing. I heard what you're working on."
And it just... We kept pushing each other.
When you start working with the best in the business
Russell Thompkins, Jr. LEAD SINGER, 'THE STYLISTICS'
that are teaching you how to dance, how to play this
and teaching you how to sing this, putting you at the piano,
vocal coaches, dancing coaches, people who teach you how to talk.
When you work with that from the time that you're a young man,
you grow up with so much influence.
So it wasn't just the fact that Michael Jackson
was born with so much great talent. He always had it around him.
Michael Jackson studied all the artists, all the great artists.
Jimmy Ruffin ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
He studied me, he studied Marvin Gaye, he studied Stevie Wonder.
He studied everybody.
We were the best in the country at the time.
The first time I saw them perform was in San Francisco
and I was like, "Wow."
It was like, "There's nobody that good."
Berry Gordy was like, "Keep your cards close to your chest.
"Don't let people know what you're thinking.
"Don't let the artists know how much people like 'em."
He was a shrewd guy.
Berry looked after every aspect of an artist's career.
Now, some may complain today that they didn't get paid enough royalties
and they never received a lot of their publishing.
But I'll tell you something.
Berry Gordy made these artists.
Everybody, I think, had different relationships with Berry.
Abdul 'Duke' Fakir ARTIST, 'THE FOUR TOPS'
We had a great relationship with Berry and we still do.
He gave us... He promised us things that he made come true,
that he couldn't put in the contract. But he promised them and kept his word.
What he saw in the Jackson 5 was a children's group that could transcend
every age group. And he nurtured their talents.
He knew he had something special.
I made him sit in while I was doing the music
Bobby Taylor ARTIST, GORDY I MOTOWN RECORDS
that they had to work with.
They were with me 20 hours a day.
Being attentive, if I saw somebody sleeping,
then I would send them back to the house
and tell them, "I don't wanna see you for a week."
They worked hard, they really worked hard.
Michael now would stay over at Diana Ross's house and rehearse.
He really liked Diana Ross and she liked him.
Diana Ross was showing him off.
She just like... She was the one that discovered him
and later on I found out that Bobby Taylor actually discovered him.
I think we were just kids.
We didn't realise all the great accomplishments
that we had achieved.
Seeing Hollywood and playing with Diana Ross. I mean, we were in heaven.
Just those things alone was priceless to us.
Michael told me when he came to LA,
it was like his whole world had changed.
He could buy as much candy as he wanted because nobody would say no to him.
Michael and I went to see the Four Tops,
it was around 1971 or '72.
Michael and David just came to the dressing room
and in the dressing room was also Stevie Wonder.
I said to Levi Stubbs, "You're brilliant. I love your voice."
And Michael looked at him and said, "I learned everything from you."
And he was cut off. Stevie said, "What?"
And he grabbed Michael and flung him up against the wall...
And said, "You learned everything from who?"
And he goes, "You, Stevie, you."
It was so funny. It was so funny.
Levi and I, we never forgot that.
Bobby Taylor and I would take Michael to the golf course with us.
He had never even picked up a golf club in his life.
Yet, he was our greatest golf critic.
"Well, Smokey, you know, you hit your ball over in the woods
"because you didn't have your foot standing right here..."
"Bobby, see, your club was not, you know..." He's gonna tell us why we had a bad shot.
But it was fun. He was a great, fun kid.
The first time I heard I Want You Back in the studio,
I noticed a different kind of brightness to the movement,
Ronnie Rancifer KEYBOARDIST, 'JACKSON 5' 1967-77
other than normal Motown brightness.
It was going in a different direction,
which was good because Motown's sound was diversified.
When you listened to I Want You Back, you knew Berry had a knack to get
the best commercial record out of these kids
and make them a worldwide success.
When my sister and my mom first heard our first hit record, I Want You Back,
my father had sent it over, they didn't care for it.
I didn't like it at all.
Because the songs that the children sang
was more like the, I should say, soul music.
And to me, I Want You Back didn't sound that way.
All the songs that was out then sound so different,
so I guess Berry wanted to bring out a different style.
Little did they know it was a very big song, number one.
It was just an unbelievable track.
It just came out of the radio like lightning.
Oh, them Jackson 5, that is a kickin' group.
"Wow, that's them?" And I had to get used to the song
because even though it was a very big hit,
your brothers singing on a record, on vinyl, and you hearing it
is something totally different.
We just don't have songs that come and go,
Voice of Michael Jackson Interview courtesy of J. Randy Taraborrelli
we have songs that'll be around all the time.
Like, you'll hear 'em on the FM classical stations,
by the Philharmonic Orchestra, things like that.
So it's just not what people call it, kiddie rock. It's not that.
And a million sellers, a million selling.
J. Randy Taraborrelli JACKSON'S FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER
It was difficult to believe that they were Motown artists,
because they were just kids.
It was as if they had some kind of stardust rub off on them
because, you know, they were becoming close to Berry Gordy,
Diana Ross, and to all of my idols.
When I wrote Who's Lovin' You, I was, you know, in my early 20s.
Smokey Robinson ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
But at least, at that point, I had had a chance to experience
some life and some love.
I was married. I got married when I was 19.
The subject matter of the song is like a person
who has somebody who really loves them.
And yet they don't appreciate it. They do the person wrong.
The first time I heard Smokey's Who's Lovin' You,
my assistant was playing it and it's one of those,
oh, party, red-light, basement-type, you know, up on it.
But when Michael got ahold to it,
and Bobby Taylor infused him up with that funk,
man, Michael put that soul in that song so deep, it was soulful.
How could he possibly know what that song meant?
He sang it like he had written it.
I sing Who's Lovin' You, or part of it, in my live concerts
and many times, young people have come up to me after the concert and said,
"Oh, I didn't know you sang Michael Jackson's song."
A kid, 11 years old, singing that song with that much emotion? It was incredible.
Unbelievable.
He seemed as if he was an old soul,
that he could take a song like Who's Lovin' You
and he could actually interpret those lyrics
in a way that made you believe
that he had those experiences, when actually he was 10 years old.
If you didn't know he was a kid, you'd have thought he was an old man.
But he was singing it from his heart.
You know, Michael's life was kind of paradoxical to me,
because when he was a child, he was a man.
So when he was a man, he got the chance to be a child and he took it.
He had a way of interpreting a lyric, even as a very young boy,
that made you believe the song.
He knew how to perform.
This was, I think, something that Berry Gordy really liked about Michael
because, not only was he a great vocal talent,
but he was a great performer.
Watching him, as a kid, be so comfortable performing
Peabo Bryson SINGER
probably helped me become a better performer, actually.
His voice was nearly as high as Stevie Wonder's.
Martha Reeves ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
I met Stevie when he was eight years old
and I said, "Here's another little youngster who's far beyond his age, talent-wise,
"but able to sing adult songs in perfect-pitched voices,
"real high voices that hadn't changed yet."
His voice and his expressions and his...
Weldon Arthur McDougal III
A & R EXECUTIVE, MOTOWN RECORDS 1969-80
...charisma start taking these songs over.
Like, if Smokey felt like he did his song
and more people like the way Michael did it than him,
that's because he did that with all of his songs at that time.
No matter who it was, the O'Jays, the Dells, the Whispers or the Beatles,
we wanted to be the best.
And that's what we were striving for.
Berry Gordy did not like the stuff that Bobby Taylor was recording on them.
I wanted to do the boys a certain way, but he wanted me to do 'em his way.
And I says, "I can't do 'em the way you want me to do 'em.
"I must have my own head."
So he says, "Okay, well, go on back to Detroit."
Then he took over.
Berry Gordy, in turn, put his crew together.
The Corporation was established to bring fresh new material
to the Jackson 5.
Youthful material.
I think he probably felt that Bobby Taylor would
give them more adult material and forget that they were children.
He saw gazillions, right?
Then he took over.
Bobby Taylor did never get the recognition he should have gotten
for working with them,
from the group or the public.
Bobby Taylor produced 10 songs on the album: 'Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5'
During 1969-70 the Jackson 5 released 4 number one singles in a row.
The Corporation, is what they called themselves,
they topped themselves with those early songs by the Jackson 5,
they were absolutely incredible.
Absolutely incredible.
When my boys had five gold records in a row,
I was very proud of them because I know it was something that they wanted
and it was their dream.
And they were happy and I was happy.
The whole family was happy about that.
We did a show once for Jesse Jackson.
Dennis Edwards LEAD SINGER, 'THE TEMPTATIONS'
You know, Jesse Jackson, he's the activist.
He's got an organisation called PUSH Expo.
He booked the Temptations and the Jackson 5.
They were just up and coming.
We were superstars at that time and, oh, man, it was so many people.
When they did that show,
the Temptations got a great response.
When the Jackson 5 came on, it was phenomenal.
I mean, almost blew the roof off the place.
They couldn't get us to our limos.
They had to back up an armoured car, a Brink's car.
It's like a moment in history.
That's when they finally made it with the black R&B public.
They were just ripe for stardom.
On the stage, he was a different guy.
He was really as much of an actor in so many ways as he was a singer.
A lot of people always come up to a lot of us and say
Voice of Michael Jackson Interview courtesy of J. Randy Taraborrelli
it's like two different people.
On stage and off stage.
When we was talking, he's shy and, you know, very soft spoken.
But just when he jumped on that stage, he's like...
Well, I mean, he was a different person
and I've never seen that in another artist's life.
He was like two guys.
Anything he felt that he wanted to do, he would do it on stage.
The moment he came off of the stage,
he was back to the little boy he was before he went on stage.
When I get on stage, I really, totally do. That's with a lot of performers.
Voice of Michael Jackson Interview courtesy of J. Randy Taraborrelli
I've learned that about comedians, too.
It's like when I worked with Richard Pryor in The Wiz.
A lot of people think he's the funniest guy to be around 24 hours.
That's not true. He's really shy and quiet.
We were all like that, too.
Singing or dancing in front of, like, one person, can't do it.
But, like, it's 30,000, you feel so free, so much easier.
It's hard to explain.
What motivates Michael Jackson?
That was an audience.
Think about it.
He's shy, he won't look at you, right?
On stage, what is he?
He owns it.
So if I had people looking at him,
I used to bring five, six girls every time, right?
And I'd say, "Michael, look at that girl, man. They think you're cute."
Michael'd say, "Dang, Bobby, they said that?"
I said, "You better go out there and sing now, son."
I said, "You go out there and you mess up now," I said,
"They're gonna tell all the rest of the girls out there.
"You're gonna be one ugly little boy everywhere you go."
He used to go out and do one take.
When we were on the road, Michael would worry you to death.
I hear somebody knocking on my door and say,
"Hey, man, what's wrong?" "Oh, man, what you doing? I wanna come in."
So I'd let him in. I'd say, "Man, why don't you hang out with Jackie and them guys?"
"Hey, man, they got somebody in their room."
I said, "Well, how do you know?"
He said, "'Cause I was listening to the door for about an hour."
He was like a little boy, I mean, he...
I said, "What were they doing?"
He said, "They were talking, but they won't let me in."
They were like little kids and they were very, very happy
and very carefree.
Michael loved being Michael Jackson at that age.
He loved touring, he loved recording at Motown.
He loved his fans, he loved performing.
They had dirt bikes and they used to go on Saturday mornings.
They'd go to a place where they could ride them,
and Michael used to tear that thing up.
Man, he was flying up and down over the hills.
I thought it was, you know, he was like any other little boy.
But he was a little boy with a dirt bike.
I mean, they had two or three of 'em.
So, when people say that he didn't have a childhood,
far as I'd seen he had a childhood.
When he was a kid, things were a lot simpler.
And I think that, as they got older, the family became more divided
and other stuff happened in Michael Jackson's life
to make him wish that he was 12 years old again.
So, when he says he missed out on his childhood,
I've always felt that what he really meant was that he just missed it very much.
The first time I met him was when he was 14,
Don Black SONGWRITER, 'BEN'
full of life, full of ambition.
It was at the peak of his powers.
Fire in his belly and just everything about him was fabulous.
I wrote it about friendship.
The story is about this boy who's very seriously ill
and nothing's going right for him.
But a little rat comes along one day, he sees it in his bedroom.
But it was a lovely little mousey kind of rat.
And he befriends him.
And it makes the boy so much better, it lifts his spirits up.
And that's how I wrote the song, about friendship.
It can be about a rat.
"The two of us need look no more. You're always running here and there."
But it could be about a best friend.
When Michael recorded Ben, I remember going to the studio
and it was just magical. I just loved it.
I always remember Michael getting very emotional about that song.
His eyes welled up a bit,
particularly at the middle bit.
I'll never forget that image.
The middle bit was, "I used to say 'I' and 'me,'
"now it's 'us,' now it's 'we."'
Michael just loved those lines.
In fact, that's why, I think, we repeat them in the song.
We do it again.
There was a longing, I think, for love and acceptance,
going all the way back to when he was a little kid.
And you were able to hear that longing in his voice.
Singing is passion.
Bobby Taylor ARTIST, GORDY I MOTOWN RECORDS
You have to do it from inside of you.
It has to come from your soul, your heart.
And Michael Jackson had that.
It wasn't done for the posture of "I did this."
Dionne Warwick SINGER
It was done because his heart said, "This is what I need to do," and he did it.
Michael sings like an angel.
He has the voice of an angel and he does...
Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff
PRODUCERS I SONGWRITERS, PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS
Every note is right on it and he was doing that at nine years old.
MICHAEL: I recorded Ben I don't know how long ago.
I mean, I hear it all the time still, you know, go on and on and on.
Voice of Michael Jackson Interview courtesy of J. Randy Taraborrelli
Yeah, it's selling more now.
So, it's what you leave behind, I think.
BLACK: There are people who come along once in a lifetime.
Michael Jackson, he only happens once.
When you think about Michael Jackson, you think about him as a kid.
Freda Payne SINGER
Like when he did some of those earlier songs, like Ben.
And then as he grew and evolved and became a young man,
I saw the metamorphosis of a beautiful, beautiful flower,
just blooming and unfolding.
Michael enjoyed what he was doing.
Mickey & Jan Rooney JACKSON'S FRIENDS
That's why, transition from very young to getting older,
it's just one year after another, but doing what the good Lord let us do.
When Michael became a teenager, his voice changed.
He realised that he would be singing different types of music,
David Gest MICHAEL'S CLOSE FRIEND
not kiddie pop songs like he had been most of his career.
The first time we worked with the Jackson 5 was very exciting.
Because the one thing I noticed about the group,
Brian & Eddie Holland
SONGWRITERS, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND
that they were extremely down to earth, very mannerable,
very, very polite.
Michael recorded several songs of mine and the Hollands'
Lamont Dozier SONGWRITER, HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND
and Forever Came Today was one of my favourites.
He had such pipes and drama in his voice
to be so young.
He was just one of a kind in that respect.
He really did the songs justice.
I think Michael knew how important lyric was to the song.
Valerie Simpson & Nickolas Ashford
SINGERS I SONGWRITERS, 'ASHFORD & SIMPSON'
And it had to reach, touch something, I think, for him to really wanna sing it.
And, you know, he'd dance and sing at the same time
so it had to correspond with his body, too.
So it all had to be one piece for him.
He didn't want fluff. He wanted something with legs on it,
something that was gonna last through time
and that's actually what he ended up creating.
The bigger he became as an artist,
the more enamoured he seemed to be over songwriters.
A lot of people have done those songs and couldn't get a handle on 'em
like the Levi Stubbs or Diana Ross,
but he just had a knack, a gift.
He already had a cake but then he put icing all on top of it.
Around 1974,
they started doing product at Motown that perhaps wasn't the best.
J. Randy Taraborrelli JACKSON FRIEND AND BIOGRAPHER
As a fan, I loved songs like The Boogie Man is gonna get you,
and Lookin' through the Windows, and Skywriter,
but these songs weren't hits.
Joe mentioned to me
several times that he felt like Motown was taking the group over,
taking them away from his direction.
What happened was that
Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson
were writing and producing and doing a lot of things at Motown
that the Jacksons had begun to want to do for themselves.
And to see how Motown treated other artists
and how the other artists was making it,
it was kind of disillusion.
The company was being run at that time by Ewart Abner,
Berry Gordy was making movies with Diana Ross.
And Abner felt pretty strongly
that they should not be writing and producing their own music,
that they should just accept the material that came their way
and just do a good job with it in the studio.
Michael was very disillusioned.
He wanted to not only write his own material
but produce it as well.
He realised
if he was to reach these goals, he would have to go somewhere else.
Joe Jackson called me and told me
that they were looking for a place to go.
Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff
PRODUCERS I SONGWRITERS, PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS
And of course, Huff and myself,
we tried to get them for Philly International Records.
But at the same time, CBS
was negotiating with them also.
I wanted to know if there was a shot, a chance,
Ron Alexenburg SNR. VICE PRESIDENT CBS I EPIC RECORDS
of being able to get involved. And I was told there was.
The next is, we sat down and we started to negotiate.
They wanted a million dollars.
And I figured, "Okay, that's all I could approve up to."
That was my approval level.
I had to go through the ranks
and I said, "We have a chance of signing the Jackson 5"
and they said, "They're done."
I said, "No, I'm sorry.
"I believe in them, I believe that there's a big future,
"I believe that Michael Jackson
"could be one of the biggest stars ever."
That took care of that.
I was handed the letter and they said, "There's your deal memo, go sign 'em."
In order to move on and progress,
Katherine Jackson MICHAEL'S MOTHER
Joseph said he had to do it
because he wanted the children to get credit for their writings and all of that,
and they couldn't do that at Motown.
CBS offered them movies, they offered 'em a TV show,
cartoons and everything.
And of course Gamble and Huff, you know, we couldn't offer them all those things.
So they decided to go with CBS.
Probably the most important signing of my career.
The Jackson 5 left Motown Records and went to CBS.
Jermaine stayed behind because he was married to Hazel
and Hazel was Berry Gordy's daughter.
When my boys left Jermaine back at Motown,
it hurt, because Jermaine wouldn't come.
I don't know if it was upset or angry or whatever or disappointment or whatever,
Tito Jackson MICHAEL'S BROTHER
it just was a sad time, that's all. That's the word. It was sad.
Jermaine felt that he owed his allegiance to Berry
'cause Berry was the one that gave us our start.
And I felt the same way.
Berry Gordy maintained the name "Jackson 5"
and they really thought that maybe
it wasn't fair that Berry got to keep the name "Jackson 5,"
so they went to CBS as the Jacksons.
I was not prepared for the rubbish that would come my way.
It was this fear, I guess,
that what the supposed "lily white" company
was gonna do to this black family.
I received phone calls, I received threats.
There was a lot of prejudice in the business.
Black records usually had to cross over from being R&B to pop stations.
Very rarely did a pop station just go on a black record.
It's the most ridiculous thing in the world when you think of it now
because it's not like that any more.
But it sure was in the '60s and '70s.
Music business was segregated
and even though the Jackson 5 had crossed over,
there was just always this thing that was going on
that there was a difference
between R&B and pop.
Forget the colour, listen to the music.
Does the music excite your audience? Yes. Play it.
Ron Alexenburg called us and asked us
if we would produce them.
I wanted to go to proven winners
and that's why I picked up the phone and called Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff
and it was only at that time that I found out that they were also
trying to sign the Jacksons and I said,
"Well, pretend that you signed them but they're gonna be on Epic Records
"and please produce them for me."
That transition
was a trying time, because
they had a lot of emotional things going on with them
because this was the first time that Jermaine was not recording with them.
When Jermaine left,
Randy came into the group
and Joe had been preparing Randy, for a long time, to become a member.
And he fit in like a glove.
This here gentleman is Randy Jackson,
The Jacksons PHILADELPHIA INT. STUDIO 1977
and he happens to be the youngest and the ugliest member of the Jackson 5.
Now what's the excuse for you, so ugly?
'Cause I take after my big brother, Tito.
As soon as we found a recording date for an artist,
we would start writing for them
and not only would Gamble and Huff write for them,
but we had McFadden and Whitehead who wrote for them.
- All of our writers, all of our staff... - Dexter, Cynthia Biggs...
They would know that the Jacksons were coming in.
Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff instructed me
to write a number one for them
to see if I could come up with any material that they liked,
Dexter Wansel PRODUCER I SONGWRITER
meaning the Jacksons, and that Gamble and Huff could approve.
And so, we would have prepared for them
maybe 20 songs when they walked in the door.
And then we'd take those 20 songs and we'd cut 'em down to maybe, like, 12.
The Jacksons themselves were
interested in moving on with their career.
They wanted to write, they wanted to produce.
So Huff and I, we helped them produce.
Tito was excellent, 'cause he's a great guitar player.
Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff was very warm, nice people.
They had a lot of soul,
we had a lot in common with the music.
When I cut their tracks,
I always included Tito
in the rhythm section.
And he told me Motown would not let him play on their tracks,
but he played on every one of mine.
Our studio was running 24 hours a day, so it was like a machine.
Sometimes,
we might wanna work until the wee hours
of the morning.
Depends on how strong your creative juices is flowing
at that moment.
And the Jacksons were used to curfews.
But that changed in Philly.
Well, they were older, they were teenagers then.
But they were still trying to induce that old system,
and Michael rebelled against it.
Because Michael wanted to hang out
into the wee hours of the morning, so... And that's what he did.
Michael loved his time with Gamble and Huff.
He really appreciated working with two geniuses
who wrote so many classic songs.
Can you tell us, what made you want to sing in the first place?
- I don't know. - You don't know?
Well, you know how that goes with children. They just don't know, do they?
Michael, at that time, was always shy
and really reserved.
We would say, "I wanna go get something to eat, " or "Let's do this. "
And he would go, "Okay."
And he was very humble.
And I think he was pretty humble through his life.
- What's your name? - Christopher Wansel.
I was young when that video was made, I was, like, one or two years old.
Christopher Wansel JACKSON FRIEND
The relationship with the Jacksons started there
and it continued throughout life.
Can you sing?
He can't dance? I wanna see his dance.
- Come on, man! - You don't have to.
I remember a lot of just,
I guess, excitement and just joy with those guys at that point, you know,
'cause a lot of people that would record would be serious,
you wouldn't get a smile or anything,
but these guys were constantly joking left and right.
What do you do, booger?
Well, other than being "the Bishop of Soul"
I'm also "the Monk of Funk" and "the High Priest of Rock"
and "the Bishop of Soul."
All right! Who said that?
I met Michael Jackson when he first came to Philly
Billy Paul ARTIST, PHILADELPHIA INT. RECORDS
back in, I think, it was 1974.
He was a very shy, young kid, you know.
And he was very excited to meet me, you know,
'cause he... Mrs Jones... It was at the height of Mrs Jones.
I welcomed him to the studio and told him he was gonna enjoy it
and I'd do a good job, you know, and he just laughed.
Michael's voice had changed, obviously,
from the little boy
that could hit all those high, piercing, I'll Be There notes
to a rawer sound.
But he was a great singer because
he studied the great singers, he wanted to sing like them.
He knew what he wanted to do with his voice,
like over-dubbing his voice and doubling his voice
and speeding up one voice and this one...
These are things that he was telling me, you know. We're the producers.
He would say, "Gamble, can I try this? Can I try that?"
I said, "Yeah, try anything you want."
- We let him express himself. - Yeah.
You know, he was in there
through the mixes, he was around me and Huff all the time.
I remember when they were working with Gamble and Huff in Philadelphia,
and I liked their sound and I liked what they did and they helped them out a lot.
And that's when the boys first start writing, too.
Their first record produced by Gamble and Huff,
even though it went gold,
wasn't a really huge album for them.
It mid-charted in around the 50s
and he wanted something that was number one.
When they did their second album, Goin' Places,
the album was really a flop.
He was used to selling
a million or so albums on Motown.
And he really, in no disrespect to them,
wanted to produce and write all his own material.
He wanted to be in charge.
Released in 1978 'Destiny' was the first album produced by the Jacksons.
When I first heard Destiny,
I liked it very much. I was very proud of them.
I thought they did a real good job.
The album re-established The Jacksons as a top selling group.
He kept reaching for higher plateaus
and he felt, maybe, that if the group...
Dennis Edwards LEAD SINGER, 'THE TEMPTATIONS'
Where he wanted to go, they probably couldn't go with him.
Michael was beginning to think of himself as a solo artist
and I always wondered what would happen to the brothers
if Michael left the group.
Without Michael Jackson, that was gonna be a tough road for the Jacksons.
And I also believed
that that's one of the reasons why Michael put it off for as long as he could.
Yeah, I figured he'd go solo.
Jimmy Ruffin ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
He was too good. He couldn't carry his brothers forever.
One of the lawyers called me in
and he told me to tell the boys to save their money
because Michael is gonna go solo.
I said, "He can't do that."
And he said, "Well, he don't need his brothers."
I said, "They need one another."
Joseph just felt that what was really important
wasn't the individual success of the group
but it was the group itself and it was the family itself.
And that's easy to say when you're not the lead singer of the group.
I saw Michael leaving his father as a positive,
no longer persecuting him, abusing him
or saying things to him that were ugly.
He seemed to only be getting it from one source, his father.
Michael never felt comfortable with Joe as his manager,
'cause he was afraid of him.
And when you're afraid of somebody, you don't wanna be around them.
That was his destiny, to be by himself.
His confidence level was really high
and when he made the transition from us to Quincy,
he was ready.
Michael really admired Quincy Jones.
Because
Quincy had produced Frank Sinatra,
icon.
Ella Fitzgerald,
icon.
Dinah Washington,
icon.
And so many other acts during his very illustrious career.
When he was about to do Off The Wall, he went to him,
asking for suggestions
of people that might be interested in working with him.
And the story goes that Quincy Jones said, "I'm available," and he said,
"I would love to work with you."
I was in the studio for the Off The Wall sessions,
and so, I was able to actually watch Michael and Quincy work together.
And Michael really thought of Quincy as sort of the father that he hoped
Joseph could have been for him.
One of the things that Michael told me he loved about working with Quincy
was that Quincy thought Michael's ideas were good ideas.
And if you listen to some of the demos,
those songs were complete when Michael brought them to Quincy.
I mean, you could have just put them out.
And Quincy appreciated the fact that Michael had this amazing ability.
There was a lot of respect there.
Quincy Jones has always been smart about merging what he has to offer
with what the artist has to offer
and I think that's probably one of Quincy's greatest gifts.
Peabo Bryson SINGER
And he certainly did that with Michael in abundance.
I will never forget when he brought Off The Wall over to my house
to play it for me.
It just jumped right out of the record player.
It was the most unbelievable album
I'd ever heard to that date.
To me, that's one of the greatest albums I've ever heard in my life.
Russell Thompkins, Jr. LEAD SINGER, 'THE STYLISTICS'
When the musicians that I know,
and we all sit around and we listen to the arrangements,
and the production that was done on that album, the things that Quincy Jones did,
was fantastic.
Quincy Jones had horn players playing such fantastic licks
Martha Reeves ARTIST, MOTOWN RECORDS
and had drummers and percussions that Michael had to dance to,
and that only made him even the more exciting.
Quincy was a great arranger,
Michael was a great singer, and also had a great foresight
and it just was a marriage made in heaven.
I had the pleasure
of coming up in the same era and watching him
Eddie Floyd SINGER I SONGWRITER, STAX RECORDS
and once he got with Michael... Wow...
History speaks for itself.
There was just no way
that these songs weren't going to be big hits.
KATHERINE: An album would have two very good songs on it
that they know is gonna be hits, and then they throw anything on an album,
to fill it out.
And he said, "Mother, I don't believe in that. I think every song should be a hit."
And so, he just put good songs out there and gave the people
good product.
Actually, it made me start dancing again
when I went out,
'cause I was one of those "I don't wanna sweat" guys.
When Off The Wall was on, you had to hit the dance floor.
It was just absolutely astounding
and then he just kept getting better and better.
Abdul 'Duke' Fakir ARTIST, 'THE FOUR TOPS'
Such a God-given talent, so precious.
When he recorded Thriller, Michael was very excited
and he said that he thought
this was going to sell hundreds and hundreds of millions of copies.
Quincy kept telling Michael, "You know what? Maybe five million.
"I mean, if we do 10 million, it's gonna be huge,
"but, you know, don't get your hopes up."
He was never pleased with what he accomplished.
He always wanted to accomplish the impossible.
Michael felt that Quincy should have been on his team
with 100 million.
And he told his attorney,
"Thriller's not coming out. Quincy doesn't believe in it.
"Cancel. The thing's not coming out," right?
So, Michael had a conversation with Walter Yetnikoff,
who was running CBS at that time.
And Walter Yetnikoff told Michael, "Look, who cares what these guys think.
"It's not about what their impression is of this music,
"it's what you believe to be the case.
"And if you believe this is going to sell 100 million copies,
"guess what, Michael?
"I'm with you.
"Let this thing come out. Don't mess with this. Just let it come out."
And then Michael did.
But it could have gone either way.
We were averaging a million units a week, which no other record had done.
Frank Dileo JACKSON'S MANAGER 1984-89, 2009
Michael Jackson, that year with Thriller, saved the record business.
Tower Records was going out of business,
CBS itself had had two black Fridays where they laid off, like, a thousand people,
other companies were laying off people. Everybody was losing their job.
But Thriller was so big,
it brought millions of people into the stores
and they not only bought Thriller, they bought other product.
It was the music that will probably influence contemporary artists
for a long, long time to come.
It gave us a...
A goal, a bull's-eye or a dream to get to,
something to aspire to.
After Michael made Off The Wall, and then Thriller,
I knew then that it was like shooting a rocket up to the moon.
Were you aware of the sales?
I pretty much did the album and just sat back and watched.
He saw where he wanted to go
Freda Payne SINGER
and he went there.
And nobody could stop him.
He went to a level
that only the very great have obtained.
He wanted to be the best and he was the best.