I was grateful for his kindness, but I could have told him that my mother had never let me forget. I never had polio, which is a frightening thing for a dancer to think about, but I knew God had tested me and my brothers and sisters in other ways - our large family, our tiny house, the small amount of money we had to make ends meet, even the jealous kids in the neighborhood who threw rocks at our windows while we rehearsed, yelling that we'd never make it. When I think of my mother and our early years, I can tell you there are rewards that go far beyond money and public acclaim and awards.

My mother was a great provider. If she found out that one of us had an interest in something, she would encourage it if there was any possible way. If I developed an interest in movie stars, for instance, she'd come home with an armful of books about famous stars. Even with nine children she treated each of us like an only child. There isn't one of us who's ever forgotten what a hard worker and great provider she was. It's an old story. Every child thinks their mother is the greatest mother in the world, but we Jacksons never lost that feeling. Because of Katherine's gentleness, warmth, and attention, I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up without a mother's love.

One thing I know about children is that if they don't get the love they need from their parents, they'll get it from someone else and cling to that person, a grandparent, anyone. We never had to look for anyone else with my mother around. The lessons she taught us were invaluable. Kindness, love, and consideration for other people headed her list. Don't hurt people. Never beg. Never freeload. Those were sins at our house. She always wanted us to give, but she never wanted us to ask or beg. That's the way she is.

I remember a good story about my mother that illustrates her nature. One day, back in Gary, when I was real little, this man knocked on everybody's door early in the morning. He was bleeding so badly you could see where he'd been around the neighborhood. No one would let him in. Finally he got to our door and he started banging and knocking. Mother let him in at once. Now, most people would have been too afraid to do that, but that's my mother. I can remember waking up and finding blood on our floor. I wish we could all be more like Mum.

The earliest memories I have of my father are of him coming home from the steel mill with a big bag of glazed doughnuts for all of us. My brothers and I could really eat back then and that bag would disappear with a snap of the fingers. He used to take us all to the merry-go-round in the park, but I was so young I don't remember that very well.

My father has always been something of a mystery to me and he knows it. One of the few things I regret most is never being able to have a real closeness with him. He built a shell around himself over the years and, once he stopped talking about our family business, he found it hard to relate to us. We'd all be together and he'd just leave the room. Even today it's hard for him to touch on father and son stuff because he's too embarrassed. When I see that he is, I become embarrassed, too.

My father did always protect us and that's no small feat. He always tried to make sure people didn't cheat us. He looked after our interests in the best ways. He might have made a few mistakes along the way, but he always thought he was doing what was right for his family. And, of course, most of what my father helped us accomplish was wonderful and unique, especially in regard to our relationships with companies and people in the business. I'd say we were among a fortunate few artists who walked away from a childhood in the business with anything substantial - money, real estate, other investments. My father set all these up for us. He looked out for both our interests and his. To this day I'm so thankful he didn't try to take all our money for himself the way so many parents of child stars have. Imagine stealing from your own children. My father never did anything like that. But I still don't know him, and that's sad for a son who hungers to understand his own father. He's still a mystery man to me and he may always be one.

What I got from my father wasn't necessarily God-given, though the Bible says you reap what you sow. When we were coming along, Dad said that in a different way, but the message was just as clear: You could have all the talent in the world, but if you didn't prepare and plan, it wouldn't do you any good.

Joe Jackson had always loved singing and music as much as my mother did, but he also knew there was a world beyond Jackson Street. I wasn't old enough to remember his band, the Falcons, but they came over to our house to rehearse on weekends. The music took them away from their jobs at the steel mill, where Dad drove a crane. The Falcons would play all over town, and in clubs and colleges around northern Indiana and Chicago. At the rehearsals at our house, Dad would bring his guitar out of the closet and plug it into the amp he kept in the basement. He'd always loved rhythm and blues and that guitar was his pride and joy. The closet where the guitar was kept was considered an almost sacred place. Needless to say, it was off-limits to us kids. Dad didn't go to Kingdom Hall with us, but both Mom and Dad knew that music was a way of keeping our family together in a neighborhood where gangs recruited kids my brothers' ages. The three oldest boys would always have an excuse to around when the Falcons came over. Dad let them think they were being given a special treat by being allowed to listen, but he was actually eager to have them there.

Tito watched everything that was going on with the greatest interest. He'd taken saxophone in school, but he could tell his hands were big enough to grab the chords and slip the riffs that my father played. It made sense that he'd catch on, because Tito looked so much like my father that we all expected him to share Dad's talents. The extent of the resemblance was scary as he got older. Maybe my father noticed Tito's zeal because he laid down rules for all my brothers: No one was to touch the guitar while he was out. Period.

Therefore, Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine were careful to see that Mom was in the kitchen when they "borrowed" the guitar. They were also careful not to make any noise while removing it. They would then go back to our room and put on the radio or the little portable record player so they could play along. Tito would hoist the guitar onto his belly as he sat on the bed and prop it up. He took turns with Jackie and Jermaine, and they'd all try the scales they were learning in school as well as try to figure out how to get the "Green Onions" part they'd hear on the radio.

By now I was old enough to sneak in and watch if I promised not to tell. One day Mom finally caught them, and we were all worried. She scolded the boys, but said she wouldn't tell Dad as long as we were careful. She knew that guitar was keeping them from running with a bad crowd and maybe getting beat up, so she wasn't about to take away anything that kept them within arm's reach.

Of course, something had to give sooner or later, and one day a string broke. My brothers panicked. There wasn't time to get it repaired before Dad came home, and besides, none if us knew how to go about getting it fixed. My brothers never figured out what to do, so they put the guitar back in the closet and hoped fervently that my father would think it broke by itself. Of course, Dad didn't buy that, and he was furious. My sisters told me to stay out of it and keep a low profile. I heard Tito crying after Dad found out and I went to investigate, of course. Tito was on his bed crying when Dad came back and motioned for him to get up. Tito was scared, but my father just stood there, holding his favorite guitar. He gave Tito a hard, penetrating look and said, "Let me see what you can do."

One day, in the first grade, I participated in a program that was put on before the whole school. Everyone of us in each class had to do something, so I went home and discussed it with my parents. We decided I should wear black pants and a white shirt and sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music . When I finished that song, the reaction in the auditorium overwhelmed me. The applause was thunderous and people were smiling; some of them were standing. My teachers were crying and I just couldn't believe it. I had made them all happy. It was such a great feeling. I felt a little confused too, because I didn't do anything special. I was just singing the way I sang at home every night. When you're performing, you don't realize what you sound like or how you're coming across. You just open your mouth and sing.

Soon Dad was grooming us for talent contests. He was a great trainer, and he spent a lot of money and time working with us. Talent is something that God gives to a performer, but our father taught us how to cultivate it. I think we also had a certain instinct for show business. We loved to perform and we put everything we had into it. He's sit at home with us every day after school and rehearse us. We'd perform for him and he'd critique us. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch. My father was real strict with us - real strict. Marlon was the one who got in trouble all the time. On the other hand, I'd get beaten for things that happened mostly outside rehearsal. Dad would make me so mad and hurt that I'd try to get back at him and get beaten all the more. I'd take a shoe and throw it at him, or I'd just fight back, swinging my fists. That's why I got it more than all my brothers combined. I would fight back and my father would kill me, just tear me up. Mother told me I'd fight back even when I was very little, but I don't remember that. I do remember running under tables to get away from him, and making him angrier. We had a turbulent relationship.

Most of the time, however, we just rehearsed. We always rehearsed. Sometimes, late at night, we'd have time to play games or with our toys. There might be a game of hide-and-go-seek or we'd jump rope, but that was about it. The majority of our time was spent working. I clearly remember running into the house with my brothers when my father came home, because we'd be in big trouble if we weren't ready to start rehearsals on time.

Through all this, my mother was completely supportive. She had been the one who first recognized our talent and she continued to help us realize our potential. It's hard to imagine that we would have gotten where we did without her love and good humor. She worried about the stress we were under and the long hours of rehearsal, but we wanted to be the best we could be and we really loved music.

Music was important in Gary. We had our own radio stations and nightclubs, and there was no shortage of people who wanted to be on them. After Dad ran our Saturday afternoon rehearsals, he'd go see a local show or even drive all the way to Chicago to see someone perform. He was always watching for things that could help us down the road. He'd come home and tell us what he'd seen and who was doing what. He kept up on all the latest stuff, whether it was a local theater that ran contests we could enter or a Cavalcade of Stars show with great acts whose clothes or moves we might adapt. Sometimes I wouldn't see Dad until I got back from Kingdom Hall on Sundays, but as soon as I ran into the house he'd be telling me what he'd seen the night before. He'd assure me I could dance on one leg like James Brown if I'd only try this step. There I'd be, fresh out of church, and back in show business.

We started collecting trophies with our act when I was six. Our lineup was set; the group featured me at second from the left, and Jackie on my right. Tito and his guitar took stage right, with Marlon next to him. Jackie was getting tall and he towered over Marlon and me. We kept that setup for contest after contest and it worked well. While other groups we'd meet would fight among themselves and quit, we were becoming more polished and experienced. The people in Gary who came regularly to see the talent shows got to know us, so we would try to top ourselves and surprise them. We didn't want them to begin to feel bored by our act. We knew change was always good, that it helped us grow, so we were never afraid of it.

Winning an amateur night or talent show in a ten-minute, two-song set took as much energy as a ninety-minute concert. I'm convinced that because there's no room for mistakes, your concentration burns you up inside more on one or two songs than it does when you have the luxury of twelve or fifteen in a set. These talent shows were our professional education. Sometimes we'd drive hundreds of miles to do one song or two and hope the crowd wouldn't be against us because we weren't local talent. We were competing against people of all ages and skills, from drill teams to comedians to other singers and dancers like us. We had to grab that audience and keep it. Nothing was left to chance, so clothes, shoes, hair, everything had to be the way Dad planned it. We really looked amazingly professional. After all this planning, if we performed the songs the way we rehearsed them, the awards would take care of themselves. This was true even when we were in the Wallace High part of town where the neighborhood had its own performers and cheering sections and we were challenging them right in their own backyards. Naturally, local performers always had their own very loyal fans, so whenever we went off our turf and onto someone else's, it was very hard. When the master of ceremonies held his hand over our heads for the "applause meter," we wanted to make sure that the crowd knew we had given them more than anyone else.

As players, Jermaine, Tito, and the rest of us were under tremendous pressure. Our manger was the kind who reminded us that James Brown would fine his Famous Flames if they missed a cue or bent a note during a performance. As lead singer, I felt I - more than the others - couldn't afford an "off night." I can remember being onstage at night after being sick in bed all day. It was hard to concentrate at those times, yet I knew all the things my brothers and I had to do so well that I could have performed the routines in my sleep. At times like that, I had to remind myself not to look in the crowd for someone I knew, or at the emcee, both of which can distract a young performer. We did songs that people knew from the radio or songs that my father knew were already classics. If you messed up, you heard about it because the fans knew those songs and they knew how they were supposed to sound. If you were going to change an arrangement, it needed to sound better than the original.

We won the citywide talent show when I was eight with our version of the Temptations' song "My Girl." The contest was held just a few blocks away at Roosevelt High. From Jermaine's opening bass notes and Tito's first guitar licks to all of us singing the chorus, we had people on their feet for the whole song. Jermaine and I traded verses while Marlon and Jackie spun like tops. It was a wonderful feeling for all of us to pass that trophy, our biggest yet, back and forth between us. Eventually it was propped on the front seat like a baby and we drove home with Dad telling us, "When you do it like you did tonight they can't not give it to you."

As my brothers were figuring out where to plug in their instruments and stand, some backup singers and a horn section arrived. At first I assumed they were there to make a record after us. We were delighted and amazed when we found out they were there to record with us. We looked over at Dad, but he didn't change expression. He'd obviously known about it and approved. Even then people knew not to throw Dad surprises. We were told to listen to Mr. Keith, who would instruct us while we were in the booth. If we did as he said, the record would take care of itself.

After a few hours, we finished Mr. Keith's first song. Some of the backup singers and horn players hadn't made records either and found it difficult, but they also didn't have a perfectionist for a manager, so they weren't used to doing things over and over the way we were. It was at times like these that we realized how hard Dad worked to make us consummate professionals. We came back the next few Saturdays, putting the songs we'd rehearsed during the week into the can and taking home a new tape of Mr. Keith's each time. One Saturday, Dad even brought his guitar in to perform with us. It was the one and only time he ever recorded with us. After the records were pressed, Mr. Keith gave us some copies so that we could sell them between sets and after shows. We knew that wasn't how the big groups did it, but everyone had to start someplace, and in those days, having a record with your group's name on it was quite something. We felt very fortunate.

That first Steeltown single, "Big Boy," had a mean bass line. It was a nice song about a kid who wanted to fall in love with some girl. Of course, in order to get the full picture, you have to imagine a skinny nine-year-old singing this song. The words said I didn't want to hear fairy tales any more, but in truth I was far too young to grasp the real meanings of most of the words in these songs. I just sang what they gave me.

When that record with its killer bass line began to get radio play in Gary, we became a big deal in out neighborhood. No one could believe we had our own record. We had a hard time believing it.

After that first Steeltown record, we began to aim for all the big talent shows in Chicago. Usually the other acts would look me over carefully when they met me, because I was so little, particularly the ones who went on after us. One day Jackie was cracking up, like someone had told him the funniest joke in the world. This wasn't a good sign right before a show, and I could tell Dad was worried he was going to screw up onstage. Dad went over to say a word to him, but Jackie whispered something in his ear and soon Dad was holding his sides, laughing. I wanted to know the joke too. Dad said proudly that Jackie had overheard the headlining act talking among themselves. One guy said, "We'd better not let those Jackson 5 cut us tonight with that midget they've got."

I was upset at first because my feelings were hurt. I thought they were being mean. I couldn't help it that I was the shortest, but soon all the other brothers were cracking up too. Dad explained that they weren't laughing at me. He told me that I should be proud, the group was talking trash because they thought I was a grown-up posing as a child like one of the Munchkins in The Wizard Of Oz. Dad said that if I had those slick guys talking like the neighborhood kids who gave us grief back in Gary, then we had Chicago on the run.

We still had some running of our own to do. After we played some pretty good clubs in Chicago, Dad signed us up for the Royal Theater amateur night competition in town. He had gone to see B. B. King at the Regal the night he made his famous live album. When Dad gave Tito that sharp red guitar years earlier, we had teased him by thinking of girls he could name his guitar after, like B. B. King's Lucille. We won that show for three straight weeks, with a new song every week to keep the regular members of the audience guessing. Some of the other performers complained that it was greedy for us to keep coming back, but they were after the same thing we were. There was a policy that if you won the amateur night three straight times, you'd be invited back to do a paid show for thousands of people, not dozens like the audiences we were playing to in bars. We got that opportunity and the show was headlined by Gladys Knight and the Pips, who were breaking in a new song no one knew called "I Heard It Through The Grapevine." It was a heady night.

After Chicago, we had one more big amateur show we really felt we needed to win: the Apollo Theater in New York City. A lot of Chicago people thought a win at the Apollo was just a good luck charm and nothing more, but Dad saw it as much more than that. He knew New York had a high caliber of talent just like Chicago and he knew there were more record people and professional musicians in New York than Chicago. If we could make it in New York, we could make it anywhere. That's what a win at the Apollo meant to us.

Chicago had sent a kind of scouting report on us to New York and our reputation was such that the Apollo entered us in the "Superdog" finals, even though we hadn't been to any of the preliminary competitions. By this time, Gladys Knight had already talked to us about coming to Motown, as had Bobby Taylor, a member of the Vancouvers, with whom my father had become friendly. Dad had told them we'd be happy to audition for Motown, but that was in out future. We got to the Apollo at 125th Street early enough to get a guided tour. We walked through the theater and stared at all of the pictures of the stars who'd played there, white as well as black. The manager concluded by showing us to the dressing room, but by then I had found pictures of all my favorites.

While my brothers and I were paying dues on the so-called "chitlin' circuit," opening for other acts, I carefully watched all the stars because I wanted to learn as much as I could. I'd stare at their feet, the way they held their arms, the way they gripped a microphone, trying to decipher what they were doing and why they were doing it. After studying James Brown from the wings, I knew every step, every grunt, every spin and turn. I have to say he would give a performance that would exhaust you, just wear you out emotionally. His whole physical presence, the fire coming out of his pores, would be phenomenal. You'd feel every bead of sweat on his face and you'd know what he was going through. I've never seen anybody perform like him. Unbelievable, really. When I watched somebody I liked, I'd be there. James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Sam and Dave, the O'Jays - they all used to really work an audience. I might have learned more from watching Jackie Wilson than from anyone or anything else. All of this was a very important part of my education.

We would stand offstage, behind the curtains, and watch everyone come off after performing and they'd be all sweaty. I'd just stand aside in awe and watch them walk by. And they would all wear these beautiful patent-leather shoes. My whole dream seemed to center on having a pair of patent-leather shoes. I remember being so heartbroken because they didn't make them in little boys' sizes. I'd go from store to store looking for patent-leather shoes and they'd say, "We don't make them that small." I was so sad because I wanted to have shoes that looked the way those stage shoes looked, polished and shining, turning red and orange when the lights hit them. Oh, how I wanted some patent-leather shoes like the ones Jackie Wilson wore.

Most of the time I'd be alone backstage. My brothers would be upstairs eating and talking and I'd be down in the wings, crouching real low, holding on to the dusty, smelly curtain and watching the show. I mean, I really did watch every step, every move, every twist, every turn, every grind, every emotion, every light move. That was my education and my recreation. I was always there when I had free time. My father, my brothers, other musicians, they all knew where to find me. They would tease me about it, but I was so absorbed in what I was seeing, or in remembering what I had just seen, that I didn't care. I remember all those theaters: the Regal, the Uptown, the Apollo - too many to name. The talent that came out of those places is of mythical proportions. The greatest education in the world is watching the masters at work. You couldn't teach a person what I've learned just standing and watching. Some musicians - Springsteen and U2, for example - may feel they got their education from the streets. I'm a performed at heart. I got mine from the stage.

Dad and Jackie went over the map as we drove away, mostly out of habit, because we had been to Detroit before, of course. We passed Mr. Keith's recording studio downtown by City Hall as we made our way through town. We had done some demos at Mr. Keith's that Dad sent to Motown after the Steeltown record. The sun was going down when we hit the highway. Marlon announced that if we heard one of our records on WVON, it was going to bring us luck. We all nodded. Dad asked us if we remembered what WVON stood for as he nudged Jackie to keep quiet. I kept looking out the window, thinking about the possibilities that lay ahead, but Jermaine jumped in. "Voice of the Negro," he said. Soon we were calling roll all over the dial. "WGN - World's Greatest Newspaper." The Chicago Tribune owned it.) "WLS - World's Largest Store." (Sears) "WCFL . . ." We stopped, stumped. "Chicago Federation of Labor," Dad said, motioning for the thermos. We turned onto I-94, and the Gary station faded into a Kalamazoo station. We began flipping around, looking for Beatle music on CKLW from Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

I had always been a Monopoly fan at home, and there was something about driving to Motown that was a little like that game. In Monopoly you go around the board buying things and making decisions; the "chitlin' circuit" of theaters where we played and won contests was kind of like a Monopoly board full of possibilities and pitfalls. After all the stops along the way, we finally landed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which was definitely Park Place for young performers like us. Now we were on our way up Boardwalk, heading for Motown. Would we win the game or slide past Go with a long board separating us from our goal for another round?

There was something changing in me, and I could feel it, even shivering in the minibus. For years we'd make the drive over to Chicago wondering if we were good enough to ever get out of Gary, and we were. Then we took the drive to New York, certain that we'd fall off the edge of the earth if we weren't good enough to make it there. Even those nights in Philadelphia and Washington didn't reassure me enough to keep me from wondering if there wasn't someone or some group we didn't know about in New York who could beat us. When we tore it down at the Apollo, we finally felt that nothing could stand in our way. We were going to Motown, and nothing there was going to surprise us either. We were going to surprise them, just like we always did.

Dad pulled the typewritten directions out of the glove compartment and we pulled off the highway, passing the Woodward Avenue exit. There weren't many people on the streets because it was a school night for everybody else.

Dad was a little nervous about whether our accommodations would be okay, which surprised me until I realized the Motown people had picked the hotel. We weren't used to having things done for us. We liked to be our own bosses. Dad had always been our booking agent, travel agent, and manager. When he wasn't taking care of the arrangements, Mom was. So it was no wonder that even Motown managed to make Dad feel suspicious that he should have made the reservations, that he should have handled everything.

We stayed at the Gotham Hotel. The reservations had been made and everything was in order. There was a TV in our room, but all the stations had signed off, and with the audition at ten o'clock, we weren't going to get to stay up any later anyway. Dad put us right to bed, locked the door, and went out. Jermaine and I were too tired to even talk.

We were all up on time the next morning; Dad saw to that. But, in truth, we were just as excited as he was and hopped out of bed when we called us. The audition was unusual for us because we hadn't played in many places where they expected us to be professional. We knew it was going to be difficult to judge whether we were doing well. We were used to audience response whether we were competing or just performing at a club, but Dad had told us the longer we stayed, the more they wanted to hear.

We climbed into the VW, after cereal and milk at the coffee shop. I noticed they offered grits on the menu, so I knew there were a lot of Southern people who stayed there. We had never been to the South then and wanted to visit Mom's part of the country someday. We wanted to have a sense of our roots and those of other black people, especially after what had happened to Dr. King. I remember so well the day he died. Everyone was torn up. We didn't rehearse that night. I went to Kingdom Hall with Mom and some of the others. People were crying like they had lost a member of their own family. Even the men who were usually pretty unemotional were unable to control their grief. I was too young to grasp the full tragedy of the situation, but when I look back on that day now, it makes me want to cry - for Dr. King, for his family, and for all of us.

Jermaine was the first to spot the studio, which was known as Hitsville, U.S.A. It looked kind of run-down, which was not what I'd expected. We wondered who we might see, who might be there making a record that day. Dad had coached us to let him do all the talking. Our job was to perform like we'd never performed before. And that was asking a lot, because we always put everything into each performance, but we knew what he meant.

As it turned out, "I Want You Back" was originally called "I Want To Be Free" and was written for Gladys Knight. Freddie had even thought that Berry might go over Gladys's head and give the song to the Supremes. Instead, he mentioned to Jerry that he'd just signed this group of kids from Gary, Indiana. Freddie put two and two together, realized it was us, and decided to trust fate.

When we were learning the Steeltown songs back in Gary, Tito and Jermaine had to pay special attention because they were responsible for playing on those records. When they heard the demo for "I Want You Back," they listened to the guitar and bass parts, but Dad explained that Motown didn't expect them to play on our records; the rhythm track would be taken care of before we put our vocals down. But he reminded them that this would put more pressure on them to keep up their practice independently, because we'd have to duplicate those songs in front of our fans. In the meantime, all of us had lyrics and cues to learn.

The guys looking after us in the singing department were Freddie Perren and Bobby Taylor and Deke Richards, who, along with Hal Davis and another Motown guy named "Fonce" Mizell, were part of the team that wrote and produced our first singles. Together these guys were called "The Corporation." We went over to Richard's apartment to rehearse, and he was impressed that we had prepared so well. He didn't have to do much tinkering with the vocal arrangement he'd worked out, and he thought that while we were still hot, we should go right to the studio and cut our parts. The following afternoon we went to the studio. We were all so happy with what we got that we took our rough mix over to Berry Gordy. It was still midafternoon when we arrived at his studio. We figured that once Berry heard it, we'd be home in time for supper.

But it was one in the morning when I finally slumped in the back seat of Richard's car, bobbing and steadying my head all the way home to fight off sleep. Gordy hadn't liked the song we did. We went over every part again, and when we did, Gordy figured out what changes he had to make in the arrangement. He was trying new things with us, like a school chorus master who has everyone singing their part as if they're singing alone, even if you can't hear him or her distinctly for the crowd. After he was through rehearsing us as a group, and he had reworked the music, he took me aside, one on one, to explain my part. He told me exactly what he wanted and how he wanted me to help him get it. Then he explained everything to Freddie Perren, who was going to record it. Berry was brilliant in this area. Right after the single was released, we went in to cut an album. We were particularly impressed with the "I Want You Back" session then because that one song took more time (and tape) than all the other songs on the record combined. That's the way Motown did things in those days because Berry insisted on perfection and attention to detail. I'll never forget his persistence. This was his genius. Then and later, I observed every moment of the sessions where Berry was present and never forgot what I learned. To this day I use the same principles. Berry was my teacher and a great one. He could identify the little elements that would make a song great rather than just good. It was like magic, as if Berry was sprinkling pixie dust over everything.

For me and my brothers, recording for Motown was an exciting experience. Our team of writers shaped our music by being with us as we recorded it over and over, molding and sculpting a song until it was just perfect. We would cut a track over and over for weeks until we got it just as they wanted it. And I could see while they were doing it that it was getting better and better. They would change words, arrangements, rhythms, everything. Berry gave them the freedom to work this way because of his own perfectionist nature. I guess if they hadn't been doing it, he would have. Berry had such a knack. He'd just walk into the room where we were working and tell me what to do and he'd be right. It was amazing.

When "I Want You Back" was released in November 1969, it sold two million copies in six weeks and went to number one. Our next single, "ABC," came out in March 1970 and sold two million records in three weeks. I still like the part where I say, "Siddown, girl! I think I loove you! No, get up, girl, show me what you can do! " When our third single, "The Love You Save," went to number one in June of 1970, Berry's promise came true.

When our next single, "I'll Be There," was also a big hit in the fall of that year, we realized we might even surpass Berry's expectations and be able to pay him back for all the effort he had made for us.

My brothers and I - our whole family - were very proud. We had created a new sound for a new decade. It was the first time in recording history that a bunch of kids had made so many hit records. The Jackson 5 had never had much competition from kids our own age. In the amateur days there was a kids' group called the Five Stairsteps that we used to see. They were good, but they didn't seem to have the strong family unit that we did, and sadly they broke up. After "ABC" hit the charts in such a big way, we started seeing other groups that record companies were grooming to ride the bandwagon we had built. I enjoyed all these groups: the Partridge Family, the Osmonds, the DeFranco Family. The Osmonds were already around, but they were doing a much different style of music, like barbershop harmony and crooning. As soon as we hit, they and the other groups got into soul real fast. We didn't mind. Competition, as we know, was healthy. Our own relatives thought "One Bad Apple" was us. I remember being so little that they had a special apple crate for me to stand on with my name on it so I could reach the microphone. Microphones didn't go down far enough for kids my age. So many of my childhood years went by that way, with me standing on that apple box singing my heart out while other kids were outside playing.

As I said before, in those early days "The Corporation" at Motown produced and shaped all our music. I remember lots of times when I felt the song should be sung one way and the producers felt it should be sung another way. But for a long time I was very obedient and wouldn't say anything about it. Finally it reached a point where I got fed up with being told exactly how to sing. This was in 1972 when I was fourteen years old, around the time of the song "Lookin' Through the Windows." They wanted me to sing a certain way, and I knew they were wrong. No matter what age you are, if you have it and you know it, then people should listen to you. I was furious with our producers and very upset. So I called Berry Gordy and complained. I said that they had always told me how to sing, and I had agreed all this time, but now they were getting too . . . mechanical.

So he came into the studio and told them to let me do what I wanted to do. I think he told them to let me be more free or something. And after that, I started adding a lot of vocal twists that they really ended up loving. I'd do a lot of ad-libbing, like twisting words or adding some edge to them.

When Berry was in the studio with us, he would always add something that was right. He'd go from studio to studio, checking on different aspects of people's work, often adding elements that made the records better. Walt Disney used to do the same thing: he'd go check on his various artists and say, "Well, this character should be more outgoing." I always knew when Berry was enjoying something I was doing in the studio, because he has this habit of rolling his tongue in his cheek when he's pleased by something. If things were really going well, he'd punch the air like the ex-professional boxer he is.

My three favorite songs from those days are "Never Can Say Goodbye," "I'll Be There," and "ABC." I'll never forget the first time I heard "ABC." I thought it was so good. I remember feeling this eagerness to sing that song, to get in the studio and really make it work for us.

We were still rehearsing daily and working hard - some things didn't change - but we were grateful to be where we were. There were so many people pulling for us, and we were so determined ourselves that it seemed anything could happen.

Once "I Want You Back" came out, everyone at Motown prepared us for success. Diana loved it and presented us at a big-name Hollywood discotheque, where she had us playing in a comfortable party atmosphere like at Berry's. Following directly on the heels of Diana's event came an invitation to play at the "Miss Black America" telecast. Being on the show would enable us to give people a preview of our record and our show. After we got the invitation, my brothers and I remembered our disappointment at not getting to go to New York to do our first TV show because Motown had called. Now we were going to do our first TV show and we were with Motown. Life was very good. Diana, of course, put the cherry on top. She was going to host "The Hollywood Palace," and big Saturday night show; it would be her last appearance with the Supremes and the first major exposure for us. This meant a lot to Motown, because by then they had decided that our new album would be called "Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5." Never before had a superstar like Diana passed the torch to a bunch of kids. Motown, Diana, and five kids from Gary, Indiana, were all pretty excited. By then "I Want You Back" had come out, and Berry was proven right again; all the stations that played Sly and the Beatles were playing us, too.

The wildest mob scene I ever witnessed happened the first time we went to England. We were in the air over the Atlantic when the pilot announced that he had just been told there were ten thousand kids waiting for us at Heathrow Airport. We couldn't believe it. We were excited, but if we could have turned around and flown home, we might have. We knew this was going to be something, but since there wasn't enough fuel to go back, we flew on. When we landed, we could see that the fans had literally taken over the whole airport. It was wild to be mobbed like that. My brothers and I felt fortunate to make it out of the airport alive that day.

I wouldn't trade my memories of those days with my brothers for anything. I often wish I could relive those days. We were like the seven dwarfs: each of us was different, each had his own personality. Jackie was the athlete and the worrier. Tito was the strong, compassionate father figure. He was totally into cars and loved putting them together and tearing them apart. Jermaine was the one I was closest to when we were growing up. He was funny and easygoing, and was constantly fooling around. It was Jermaine who put all those buckets of cold water on the doors of our hotel rooms. Marlon was and is one of the most determined people I've ever met. He, too, was a real joker and prankster. He used to be the one who'd always get in trouble in the early days because he'd be out of step or miss a note, but that was far from true later.

The diversity of my brothers' personalities and the closeness we felt were what kept me going during those grueling days of constant touring. Everybody helped everybody. Jackie and Tito would keep us from going too far with our pranks. They'd seem to have us under control, and then Jermaine and Marlon would shout, "Let's go crazy!!"

I really miss all that. In the early days we were together all the time. We'd go to amusement parks or ride horses or watch movies. We did everything together. As soon as someone said, "I'm going swimming," we'd all yell, "Me too!"

The separation from my brothers started much later, when they began to get married. An understandable change occurred as each of them became closest to his wife and they became a family unit unto themselves. A part of me wanted us to stay as we were - brothers who were also best friends - but change is inevitable and always good in one sense or another. We still love each other's company. We still have a great time when we're together. But the various paths our lives have taken won't allow us the freedom to enjoy one another's company as much as we did.

In those days, touring with the Jackson 5, I always shared a room with Jermaine. He and I were close, both onstage and off, and shared a lot of the same interests. Since Jermaine was also the brother most intrigued by the girls who wanted to get at him, he and I would get into mischief on the road.

I think our father decided early on that he had to keep a more watchful eye on us than on our other brothers. He would usually take the room next to ours, which meant he could come in to check on us anytime through the connecting doors. I really despised this arrangement, not only because he could monitor our misbehavior, but also because he used to do the meanest things to us. Jermaine and I would be sleeping, exhausted after a show, and my father would bring a bunch of girls into the room; we'd wake up and they'd be standing there, looking at us, giggling.

Because show business and my career were my life, the biggest personal struggle I had to face during those teenage years did not involve the recording studios or my stage performance. In those days, the biggest struggle was right there in my mirror. To a great degree, my identity as a person was tied to my identity as a person was tied to my identity as a celebrity.

My appearance began to really change when I was about fourteen. I grew quite a bit in height. People who didn't know me would come into a room expecting to be introduced to cute little Michael Jackson and they'd walk right past me. I would say, "I'm Michael," and they would look doubtful. Michael was a cute little kid: I was a gangly adolescent heading toward five feet ten inches. I was not the person they expected or even wanted to see. Adolescence is hard enough, but imagine having your own natural insecurities about the changes your body is undergoing heightened by the negative reactions of others. They seemed so surprised that I could change, that my body was undergoing the same natural change everyone's does.

It was tough. Everyone had called me cute for a long time, but along with all the other changes, my skin broke out in a terrible case of acne. I looked in the mirror one morning and it was like, "OH NO!" I seemed to have a pimple for every oil gland. And the more I was bothered by it, the worse it got. I didn't realize it then, but my diet of greasy processed food didn't help either.

I became subconsciously scarred by this experience with my skin. I got very shy and became embarrassed to meet people because my complexion was so bad. It really seemed that the more I looked in the mirror, the worse the pimples got. My appearance began to depress me. So I know that a case of acne can have a devastating effect on a person. The effect on me was so bad that it messed up my whole personality. I couldn't look at people when I talked to them. I'd look down, or away. I felt I didn't have anything to be proud of and I didn't even want to go out. I didn't do anything.

My brother Marlon would be covered with pimples and he wouldn't care but I didn't want to see anybody and I didn't want anyone to see my skin in that shape. It makes you wonder about what makes us the way we are, that two brothers could be so different.

I still had our hits records to be proud of, and once I hit the stage, I didn't think about anything else. All that worry was gone.

But once I came offstage, there was that mirror to face again.

Eventually, things changed. I started feeling differently about my condition. I've learned to change how I think and learned to feel better about myself. Most importantly, I changed my diet. That was the key.

In the fall of 1971 I cut my first solo record, "Got to Be There." It was wonderful working on that record and it became one of my favorites. It was Berry Gordy's idea that I should do a solo recording, and so I became one of the first people in a Motown group to really step out. Berry also said he thought I should record my own album. Years later, when I did, I realized he was right.

There was a small conflict during that era that was typical of the struggles I went through as a young singer. When you're young and have ideas, people often think you're just being childish and silly. We were on tour in 1972, the year "Got To Be There" became a big hit. One night I said to our record manager, "Before I sing that song, let me go offstage and grab that little hat I wore for the picture on the album cover. If the audience sees me wearing that hat, they'll go crazy."

He thought it was the most ridiculous idea he had ever heard. I was not allowed to do it because I was young, and they all thought it was a dumb idea. Not long after that incident, Donny Osmond began wearing a very similar hat all over the country and people loved it. I felt good about my instincts; I had thought it would work. I had seen Marvin Gaye wear a hat when he sang "Let's Get It On," and people went bananas. They knew what was coming when Marvin put that hat on. It added excitement and communicated something to the audience that allowed them to become more involved with the show.

I was already a devoted fan of film and animation by the time "The Jackson Five" Saturday morning cartoon show started appearing over network television in 1971. Diana Ross had enhanced my appreciation of animation when she taught me to draw, but being a cartoon character pushed me over the brink into a full-time love of the movies and the kind of animated motion pictures pioneered by Walt Disney. I have such admiration for Mr. Disney and what he accomplished with the help of so many talented artists. When I think about the joy he and his company have brought to millions of children - and adults - the world over, I am in awe.

I loved being a cartoon. It was so much fun to get up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons and look forward to seeing ourselves on the screen. It was like a fantasy come true for all of us.

My first real involvement with films came when I sang the title song for the movie Ben in 1972.

Ben meant a lot to me. Nothing had ever excited me as much as going to the studio to put my voice on film. I had a great time. Later, when the movie came out, I'd go to the theater and wait until the end when the credits would flash on, and it would say, "'Ben' sung by Michael Jackson." I was really impressed by that. I loved the song and loved the story. Actually, the story was a lot like E.T. It was about a boy who befriended a rat. People didn't understand the boy's love for this little creature. He was dying of some disease and his only true friend was Ben, the leader of the rats in the city where they lived. A lot of people thought the movie was a bit odd, but I was not one of them. The song went to number one and is still a favorite of mine. I have always loved animals and I enjoy reading about them and seeing movies in which they're featured.

When Jermaine married Hazel Gordy, our boss's daughter, people were winking at us, saying that we'd always be looked after. Indeed, when "Get It Together" came out in 1973, it got the same treatment from Berry that "I Want You Back" had gotten. It was our biggest hit in two years, though you could have said it was more like a bone transplant than the spanking little baby that our first hit was. Nevertheless, "Get It Together" had good, tough low harmony, a sharper wah-wah guitar, and strings that buzzed like fireflies. Radio stations liked it, but not as much as the new dance clubs called discos did. Motown picked up on this and brought back Hal Davis from The Corporation days to really put the juice into "Dancing Machine." The Jackson 5 were no longer just the backup group for the 101 Strings or whatever.

Motown had come a long way from the early days when you could find good studio musicians supplementing their session pay with bowling alley gigs. A new sophistication turned up in the music on "Dancing Machine." That song had the best horn part we'd worked with yet and a "bubble machine" in the break, made out of synthesizer noise, that kept the song from going completely out of style. Disco music had its detractors, but to us it seemed our rite of passage into the adult world.

I loved "Dancing Machine," loved the groove and the feel of that song. When it came out in 1974, I was determined to find a dance move that would enhance the song and make it more exciting to perform - and, I hoped, more exciting to watch.

So when we sang "Dancing Machine" on "Soul Train," I did a street-style dance move called the Robot. That performance was a lesson to me in the power of television. Overnight, "Dancing Machine" rose to the top of the charts, and within a few days it seemed that every kid in the United States was doing the Robot. I had never seen anything like it.

Motown and the Jackson 5 could agree on one thing: As our act grew, our audience should too. We had two recruits coming up: Randy had already toured with us, and Janet was showing talent with her singing and dancing lessons. We couldn't put Randy and Janet into our old lineup any more than we could put square pegs into round holes. I wouldn't insult their considerable talent by saying that show business was so in their blood that they just took their places automatically, as if we'd reserved a spot for them. They worked hard and earned their places in the group. They didn't join us because they ate meals with us and shared our old toys.

If you just went by blood, I'd have as much crane operator in me as singer. You can't measure these things. Dad worked us hard and kept certain goals in sight while spinning dreams at night.

Just as disco might have seemed like a very unlikely place for a kids' group to become a grown-up act, Las Vegas, with its showcase theaters, wasn't exactly the family atmosphere that Motown had originally groomed us for, but we decided to play there just the same. There wasn't much to do in Las Vegas if you didn't gamble, but we thought of the theaters in the city as just big clubs with the club hours and clientele of our Gary and South Side Chicago days - except for the tourists. Tourist crowds were a good thing for us, since they knew our old hits and would watch our skits and listen to new songs without getting restless. It was great to see the delight on their faces when little Janet came out in her Mae West costume for a number or two.

We had performed skits before, in a 1971 TV special called Goin' Back To Indiana , which celebrated our Gary homecoming the first time we all decided to return. Our records had become hits all over the world since we'd seen our hometown last.

It was even more fun to do skits with nine of us, instead of just five, plus whatever guests happened to appear with us. Our expanded lineup was a dream come true for Dad. Looking back, I know the Las Vegas shows were an experience I'll never recapture. We didn't have the high-pressure concert crowd wanting all our hit songs and nothing more. We were temporarily freed from the pressures of having to keep up with what everyone else was doing. We had a ballad or two in every show to break in my "new voice." At fifteen, I was having to think about things like that.

There were people from CBS Television at our Las Vegas shows and they approached us about doing a variety show for the upcoming summer. We were very interested and pleased that we were being recognized as more than just a "Motown group." Over time, this distinction would not be lost on us. Because we had creative control over our Las Vegas revue, it was harder for us to return to our lack of freedom in recording and writing music once we got back to Los Angeles. We'd always intended to grow and develop in the musical field. That was our bread and butter, and we felt we were being held back. Sometimes I felt we were being treated as if we still lived in Berry Gordy's house - and with Jermaine now a son-in-law, our frustration was only heightened.

By the time we began putting our own act together, there were signs that other Motown institutions were changing. Marvin Gaye took charge of his own music and produced his masterpiece album, What's Goin' On . Stevie Wonder was learning more about electronic keyboards than the experienced studio hired guns - they were coming to him for advice. One of our last great memories from our Motown days is of Stevie leading us in chanting to back up his tough, controversial song "You Haven't Done Nothin'." Though Stevie and Marvin were still in the Motown camp, they had fought for - and won - the right to make their own records, and even to publish their own songs. Motown hadn't even budged with us. To them we were still kids, even if they weren't dressing us and "protecting" us any longer.

Our problems with Motown began around 1974, when we told them in no uncertain terms that we wanted to write and produce our own songs. Basically, we didn't like the way our music sounded at the time. We had a strong competitive urge and we felt we were in danger of being eclipsed by other groups who were creating a more contemporary sound.

Motown said, "No, you can't write your own songs; you've got to have songwriters and producers." They not only refused to grant our requests, they told us it was taboo to even mention that we wanted to do our own music. I really got discouraged and began to seriously dislike all the material Motown was feeding us. Eventually I became so disappointed and upset that I wanted to leave Motown behind.

When I feel that something is not right, I have to speak up. I know most people don't think of me as tough or strong-willed, but that's just because they don't know me. Eventually my brothers and I reached a point with Motown where we were miserable but no one was saying anything. My brothers didn't say anything. My father didn't say anything. So it was up to me to arrange a meeting with Berry Gordy and talk to him. I was the one who had to say that we - the Jackson 5 - were going to leave Motown. I went over to see him, face to face, and it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. If I had been the only one of us who was unhappy, I might have kept my mouth shut, but there had been so much talk at home about how unhappy we all were that I went in and talked to him and told him how we felt. I told him I was unhappy.

Remember, I love Berry Gordy. I think he's a genius, a brilliant man who's one of the giants of the music business. I have nothing but respect for him, but that day I was a lion. I complained that we weren't allowed any freedom to write songs and produce. He told me that he still thought we needed producers to make hit records.

But I knew better, Berry was talking out of anger. That was a difficult meeting, but we're friends again, and he's still like a father to me - very proud of me and happy about my success. No matter what, I will always love Berry because he taught me some of the most valuable things I've learned in my life. He's the man who told the Jackson 5 they would become a part of history, and that is exactly what happened. Motown has done so much for so many people over the years. I feel we're fortunate to have been one of the groups Berry personally introduced to the public and I owe enormous thanks to this man. My life would have been very different without him. We all felt that Motown started us, supporting our professional careers. We all felt our roots were there, and we all wished we could stay. We were grateful for everything they had done for us, but change is inevitable. I'm a person of the present, and I have to ask, How are things going now? What's happening now? What's going to happen in the future that could affect what has happened in the past?

It's important for artists always to maintain control of their lives and work. There's been a big problem in the past with artists being taken advantage of. I've learned that a person can prevent that from happening by standing up for what he or she believes is right, without concern for the consequences. We could have stayed with Motown; but if we had, we'd probably be an oldies act.

I knew it was time for change, so we followed our instincts, and we won when we decided to try for a fresh start with another label. Epic

We were relieved that we had finally made our feelings clear and cut the ties that were binding us, but we were also really devastated when Jermaine decided to stay with Motown. He was Berry's son-in-law and his situation was more complicated than ours. He thought it was more important for him to stay than to leave, and Jermaine always did as his conscience told him, so he left the group.

Gamble and Huff had written enough songs for another album, but we knew from experience that while they were doing what they did best, we were losing some of our identity. We were honored to be a part of the Philly family, but that wasn't enough for us. We were determined to do all of the things we had wanted to do for so many years. That's why we had to go back into our Encino studio and work together again as a family.

Going Places , our second album for Epic, was different from our first. There were more songs with messages and not as many dance songs. We knew that the message to promote peace and let music take over was a good one, but again it was more like the old O'Jays' "Love Train" and not really our style.

Still, maybe it wasn't a bad thing that there was no big pop hit on Going Places because it made "Different Kind of Lady" an obvious choice for club play. It was positioned in the middle of side one, so there were two Gamble and Huff songs sandwiching it, and our song stood out like a ball of fire. That was a real band cooking, with the Philly horns giving it one exclamation point after another, just as we'd hoped. That's the feel we were trying for when we were making demos with our old friend Bobby Taylor before going to Epic. Kenny and Leon put the finishing touches on it, the icing, but on this one we'd baked the cake ourselves.

After Going Places was in the stores, Dad asked me to accompany him to a meeting with Ron Alexenburg. Ron signed us for CBS, and he really believed in us. We wanted to convince him that we were ready now to take charge of our own music. We felt that CBS had evidence of what we could do on our own, so we stated our case, explaining that we'd originally wanted Bobby Taylor to work with us. Bobby had stuck with us through all those years, and we had thought he'd be a fine producer for us. Epic wanted Gamble and Huff because they had the track record, but maybe they were the wrong jockeys or we were the wrong horses for them, because we were letting them down in the sales department through no fault of our own. We had a strong work ethic that backed up everything we did.

Mr. Alexenburg was certainly used to dealing with performers, although I'm sure that among his business friends he could be just as cutting about musicians as we musicians could be when we were swapping our own stories among ourselves. But Dad and I were on the same wavelength when it came to the business side of music. People who make music and people who sell records are not natural enemies. I care as much about what I do as a classical musician, and I want what I do to reach the widest possible audience. The record people care about their artists, and they want to reach the widest market. As we sat in the CBS boardroom eating a nicely catered lunch, we told Mr. Alexenburg that Epic had done its best, and it wasn't good enough. We felt we could do better, that our reputation was worth putting on the line.

When we left that skyscraper known as Black Rock, Dad and I didn't say much to each other. The ride back to the hotel was a silent one, with each of us thinking our own thoughts. There wasn't much to add to what we had already said. Our whole lives had been leading to that single, important confrontation, however civilized and aboveboard it was. Maybe Ron Alexenburg has had reason to smile over the years when he remembers that day.

When that meeting took place at CBS headquarters in New York, I was only nineteen years old. I was carrying a heavy burden for nineteen. My family was relying on me more and more as far as business and creative decisions were concerned, and I was so worried about trying to do the right thing for them; but I also had an opportunity to do something I'd wanted to do all my life - act in a film. Ironically the old Motown connection was paying a late dividend.

Motown had bought the rights to film the Broadway show known as The Wiz even as we were leaving the company. The Wiz was an updated, black-orientated version of the great movie The Wizard of Oz , which I had always loved. I remember that when I was a kid The Wizard of Oz was shown on television once a year and always on a Sunday night. Kids today can't imagine what a big event that was for all of us because they've grown up with videocassettes and the expanded viewing that cable provides.

I had seen the Broadway show too, which was certainly no letdown. I swear I saw it six or seven times. I later became very friendly with the star of the show, Stephanie Mills, the Broadway Dorothy. I told her then, and I've always believed since, that it was a tragedy that her performance in the play could not have been preserved on film. I cried time after time. As much as I like the Broadway stage, I don't think I'd want to play on it myself. When you give a performance, whether on record or on film, you want to be able to judge what you've done, to measure yourself and try to improve. You can't do that in an untaped or unrecorded performance. It makes me sad to think of all the great actors who have played roles we would give anything to see, but they're lost to us because they couldn't be, or simply weren't, recorded.

If I had been tempted to go onstage, it would probably have been to work with Stephanie, although her performances were so moving that I might have cried right there in front of the audience. Motown bought The Wiz for one reason, and as far as I was concerned, it was the best reason possible: Diana Ross.

Diana was close to Berry Gordy and had her loyalties to him and to Motown, but she did not forget us just because our records now had a different label on them. We had been in touch throughout the changes, and she had even met up with us in Las Vegas, where she gave us tips during our run there. Diana was going to play Dorothy, and since it was the only part that was definitely cast, she encouraged me to audition. She also assured me that Motown would not keep me from getting a part just to spite me or my family. She would make sure of that if she had to, but she didn't think she'd have to.

She didn't. It was Berry Gordy who said he hoped I'd audition for The Wiz . I was very fortunate he felt that way, because I was bitten by the acting bug during that experience. I said to myself, this is what I'm interested in doing when I have a chance - this is it. When you make a film, you're capturing something elusive and you're stopping time. The people, their performances, the story become a thing that can be shared by people all over the world for generations and generations. Imagine never having seen Captains Courageous or To Kill a Mockingbird ! Making movies is exciting work. It's such a team effort and it's also a lot of fun. Someday soon I plan to devote a lot of my time to making films.

I auditioned for the part of the Scarecrow because I thought his character best fit my style. I was too bouncy for the Tin Man and too light for the Lion, so I had a definite goal, and I tried to put a lot of thought into my reading and dancing for the part. When I got the call back from the director, Sidney Lumet, I felt so proud but also a little scared. The process of making a film was new to me, and I was going to have to let go of my responsibilities to my family and my music for months. I had visited New York, where we were shooting, to get the feel for Harlem that The Wiz 's story called for, but I had never lived there. I was surprised by how quickly I got used to the lifestyle. I enjoyed meeting a whole group of people I'd always heard about on the other coast but had never laid eyes on.

Making The Wiz was an education for me on so many levels. As a recording artist I already felt like an old pro, but the film world was completely new to me. I watched as closely as I could and learned a lot.

Chapter Four

I had actually first met Quincy Jones in Los Angeles when I was about twelve years old. Quincy later told me that at the time Sammy Davis, Jr., had said to him, "This kid is gonna be the next biggest thing since sliced bread." Something like that, anyway, and Quincy said, "Oh yeah?" I was little at the time, but I vaguely remembered Sammy Davis introducing me to Q.

Our friendship really began to blossom on the set of The Wiz , and it developed into a father-and-son relationship. After The Wiz I called him and said, "Look, I'm going to do an album - do you think you could recommend some producers?"

I wasn't hinting. My question was a naive but honest one. We talked about music for a while, and, after coming up with some names and some half-hearted hemming and hawing, he said, "Why don't you let me do it?"

I really hadn't thought of it. It sounded to him as if I was hinting, but I wasn't. I just didn't think he would be that interested in my music. So I stammered something like, "Oh sure, great idea. I never thought about that."

Quincy still kids me about it.

Anyway, we immediately began to plan the album that became Off the Wall .

My brothers and I decided to form our own production company, and we began thinking about names to call it.

You don't find many articles about peacocks in the newspaper, but around this time I found the only one that mattered. I had always thought peacocks were beautiful and had admired one that Berry Gordy had at one of his homes. So when I read the article, which had an accompanying picture of a peacock, and revealed a great deal about the bird's characteristics, I was excited. I thought I might have found the image we were looking for. It was an in-depth piece, a little dry in places, but interesting. The writer said that the peacock's full plumage would explode only when it was in love, and then all the colors would shine - all the colors of the rainbow on one body.

I was immediately taken with that beautiful image and the meaning behind it. That bird's plumage conveyed the message I was looking for to explain the Jacksons and our intense devotion to one another, as well as our multifaceted interests. My brothers liked the idea, so we called our new company Peacock Productions, to sidestep the trap of relying too heavily on the Jackson name. Our first world tour had focused our interest in uniting people of all races through music. Some people we knew wondered what we meant when we talked about uniting all the races through music -after all, we were black musicians. Our answer was "music is color-blind." We saw that every night, especially in Europe and the other parts of the world we had visited. The people we met there loved our music. It didn't matter to them what color our skin was or which country we called home.

We wanted to form our own production company because we wanted to grow and establish ourselves as a new presence in the music world, not just as singers and dancers, but as writers, composers, arrangers, producers, and even publishers. We were interested in so many things, and we needed an umbrella company to keep track of our projects. CBS had agreed to let us produce our own album - the last two albums had sold well, but "Different Kind of Lady" showed a potential that they agreed was worth letting us develop. They did have one condition for us: they assigned an A&R man, Bobby Colomby, who used to be with Blood, Sweat, and Tears, to check in with us from time to time to see how we were doing and to see if we needed any help. We knew that the five of us needed some outside musicians to get the best possible sound, and we were weak in two areas: the keyboard and arranging sides of things. We had been faithfully adding all the new technology to our Encino studio without really having a mastery of it. Greg Phillinganes was young for a studio pro, but that was a plus as far as we were concerned because we wanted someone who would be more open to newer ways of doing things than the seasoned veterans we had encountered over the years.

He came to Encino to do preproduction work, and we all took turns surprising each other. Our mutual preconceptions just dissolved. It was a great thing to watch. As we sketched out our new songs for him, we told him that we liked the vocal tracks that Philly International always put a premium on, but when the mix came out, we always seemed to be fighting someone else's wall of sound, all those strings and cymbals. We wanted to sound cleaner and more funky, with a flintier bass and sharper horn parts. With his beautiful rhythm arrangements, Greg put into musical form what we were sketching for him and then some. We felt he was reading our minds.

A Bobby Colomby recruit who came to work with us then was Paulinho de Costa, whom we worried about because it seemed to us that Randy was being told he couldn't handle all the percussion by himself. But Paulinho brought with him the Brazilian samba tradition of adapting and improvising on primitive and often homemade instruments. When de Costa's sound joined forces with Randy's more conventional approach, we seemed to have the whole world covered.

Artistically speaking we were caught between a rock and a hard place. We had worked with the smartest, hippest people in the world at Motown and Philly International, and we would have been fools to discount the things we'd absorbed from them, yet we couldn't be imitators. Fortunately we got a running start with a song that Bobby Colomby brought us called "Blame It on the Boogie." It was an up-tempo, finger-poppin'-time song that was a good vehicle for the band approach we wanted to cultivate. I had fun slurring the chorus: "Blame It on the Boogie" could be sung in one breath without putting my lips together. We had a little fun with the credits on the inner sleeve of the record; "Blame It on the Boogie" was written by three guys from England, including one named Michael Jackson. It was a startling coincidence. As it turned out, writing disco songs was a natural for me because I was used to having dance breaks incorporated into all the major songs I was asked to sing.

There was a lot of uncertainty and excitement about our future. We were going through a lot of creative and personal changes - our music, the family of dynamics, our desires and goals. All of this made me think more seriously about how I was spending my life, especially in relation to other people my age. I had always shouldered a lot of responsibility, but it suddenly seemed that everyone wanted a piece of me. There wasn't that much to go around, and I needed to be responsible to myself. I had to take stock of my life and figure out what people wanted from me and to whom I was going to give wholly. It was a hard thing for me to do, but I had to learn to be wary of some of the people around me. God was at the top of my list of priorities, and my mother and father and brothers and sisters followed. I was reminded of that old song by Clarence Carter called "Patches," where the oldest son is asked to take care of the farm after his father dies and his mother tells him she's depending on him. Well, we weren't sharecroppers and I wasn't the oldest, but those were slim shoulders on which to place such burdens. For some reason I always found it very difficult to say no to my family and the other people I loved. I would be asked to do something or take care of something and I would agree, even if I worried that it might be more than I could handle.

I felt under a great deal of stress and I was often emotional. Stress can be a terrible thing; you can't keep your emotions bottled up for long. There were a lot of people at this time who wondered just how committed I was to music after learning of my newfound interest in movies after being in one. It was hinted that my decision to audition had come at a bad time for the new band setup. It seemed, to outsiders, to come just as we were about to get started. But of course it worked out just fine.

"That's What You Get for Being Polite" was my way of letting on that I knew I wasn't living in an ivory tower and that I had insecurities and doubts just as all older teenagers do. I was worried that the world and all it had to offer could be passing me by even as I tried to get on top of my field.

There was a Gamble and Huff song called "Dreamer" on the first Epic album which had this theme, and as I was learning it, I felt they could have written it with me in mind. I have always been a dreamer. I set goals for myself. I look at things and try to imagine what is possible and then hope to surpass those boundaries.

In 1979 I turned twenty-one years old and began to take full control of my career. My father's personal management contract with me ran out around this time, and although it was a hard decision, the contract was not renewed.

Trying to fire your dad is not easy.

But I just didn't like the way certain things were being handled. Mixing family and business can be a delicate situation. It can be great or it can be awful; it depends on the relationships. Even at the best of times it's a hard thing to do.

Did it change the relationship between me and my father? I don't know if it did in his heart, but it certainly didn't in mine. It was a move I knew I had to make because at the time I was beginning to feel that I was working for him rather than that he was working for me . And on the creative side we are of two completely different minds. He would come up with ideas that I would totally disagree with because they weren't right for me. All I wanted was control over my life. And I took it. I had to do it. Everyone comes to that point, sooner or later, and I had been in the business for a long time. I was pretty experienced for twenty-one - a fifteen-year veteran. We were eager to take the Destiny band and concept on the road, but I got hoarse from too many shows, too much singing. When we had to cancel some performances, no one held it against me, but I felt as if I was holding my brothers back after the great job they had done while we worked together to get us all back on track. We made some makeshift adjustments in order to ease the strain on my throat. Marlon took over for me in some passages that required holding long notes. "Shake You Body (Down to the Ground)," our set piece on the album, turned out to be a lifesaver for us onstage because we already had a good jam in the studio to build on. It was frustrating to have finally realized our dream of having our own music as the showpiece, rather than the novelty song, and not being able to give it our very best shot. It wasn't long, however, before our time would come.

In looking back, I realize I was more patient than perhaps my brothers wanted me to be. As we were remixing Destiny , it occurred to me that we had "left out" some things that I hadn't talked to my brothers about because I wasn't sure they'd be as interested in them as I was. Epic had arranged in the contract that they would handle any solo album I might decide to do. Perhaps they were hedging their bets; if the Jacksons couldn't make their new sound work, they could try to turn me into something they could mould for the rest of my life. That might seem like a suspicious way of thinking, but I knew from experience that money people always want to know what is going on and what can happen and how to recoup their investment. It seemed logical for them to think that way. In the light of what's happened since, I wonder about those thoughts I had, but they were real at the time.

Destiny was our biggest success as an album, and we knew we had really reached the point where people bought your record because they knew you were good and knew you'd give them your very best on every song and every album. I wanted my first solo album to be the best it could be.

I didn't want Off the Wall to sound like outtakes from Destiny . That's why I wanted to hire an outside producer who wouldn't come to this project with any preconceived notions about how it should sound. I also needed someone with a good ear to help me choose material because I didn't have enough time to write two sides of songs I'd be proud of. I knew the public expected more than two good singles on an album, especially in the discos with their extended cuts, and I wanted the fans to feel satisfied.