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“Sepia” Magazine Interview

Date range assessed by the fact that the “Creem” magazine interview, which this “Sepia” magazine interview includes quotes of, occurred in ~Spring 1971.

“Sepia” Magazine (October 1971) (archived)

The putt-putt of the motor rushes ahead of the minibike that races down the long asphalt driveway toward the huge iron gate. Just before the cycle whips into a sharp U-turn, you catch a glimpse of the youthful face under a blue crash helmet. It is l2-year-old Michael Jackson, one-fifth of the hottest pop music group in the world today.

Michael's four equally famous brothers - Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon - are somewhere behind that electrically operated gate just off a busy thoroughfare in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. So is the rest of the Jackson family; father, mother, two sister, and another brother.

Visitors to the Jackson compound announce their arrival over an intercom built into one of the stone pillars. While waiting for admittance, a cute little girl runs up and climbs aboard the gate. There's a click of the lock and the gate [page missing]

...she used to play clarinet but no longer has time for a musical hobby. "No. I don't travel with the boys", she replies in answer to another question. "I stay here and take care of the rest of the family."

She has no hired household help. "I cook every day", she says with a smile, "and all the children have chores to do--making beds, washing dishes."

Is there a big difference in life now and the way it was back in Gary? "Not really. Of course, we can afford more of everything now, but the boys are still on an allowance, even Jackie. I'm proud of their success, but to me they're the same as they've always been.

The public, of course, has a vastly different view of Jackie. Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael. Their millions of fans have elevated them to the status of pop idols almost overnight. Every phonograph record they make becomes a smash hit; the J-5 single "I’ll Be There" has sold more than 4,000,000 copies. Every concert appearance is a virtual sellout; last July in Milwaukee the J-5 drew 115,000 fans, the largest crowd for a single event in the city's history. The five brothers are mobbed in the streets and besieged at hotels by adoring fans of both sexes, all races, and every age group.

And there's more. The Jackson 5 has moved into a new area of show business--television--and odds are they'll conquer the electronic medium as well. Early in September, the Jackson 5 Show, an animated series, debuted on ABC-TV and is programmed to be the keystone in the network's Saturday morning cartoon festival. Produced by the same animators who did the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine", each weekly cartoon will feature two songs by the J-5. One week after the series started. the J-5 special, "Goin' Back to Indiana", was scheduled to air over the same network on the opening night of the new TV season.

With this added exposure, the already fantastic popularity of the group is expected to zoom to even greater heights. Gary, Ind., seems so long ago and far away.

The musical seeds that were eventually to blossom into the Jackson 5 were sown back in the early 1950s by Joe Jackson, who sang and played guitar in a blues outfit called the Falcons. The weekend gigs at colleges and bars supplemented Jackson's earrings as a crane operator in a steel mill, but did little to advance his ambition to build a career as an entertainer. He was much more successful as a husband and father. The children he and his wife, Katherine, reared formed a large, loving family that was surrounded by music.

If you're around something a lot, you're gonna take part in it", the elder Jackson explains, admitting that the instruments he bought sometimes put a strain on the family budget. "When a woman's a good mother and finds all the money going for instruments, she doesn't like it."

"I used to take my father's guitar out of the hall closet and fool around on it until I learned to play", Tito says. "One night he came home and caught me. I was afraid I was gonna get a whipping, but I didn't. It wasn't long after that he gave me a guitar of my own." Tito's full name is Toriano Adarryll Jackson; he's 17.)

Jermaine, l6, learned to strum bass on Tito's guitar and Tito took the lead in forming a family musical group that included sister Maureen on piano and cousins Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer, who play drums and piano, respectively. With Jermaine singing lead, they would tear into tunes like the Temptations' "My Girl" and Smokey Robinson’s "Going to a Go-Go." Joe Jackson recalls. "When they decided they liked playing I would keep them at it. When they played harder things, they would sometimes get disgusted or frustrated, and then I really needed to put my patience to work.

"You know, kids try a lot of things and many times they are really enthusiastic at the beginning and suddenly just quit. But if somebody is there to give them a little push, they slip right back into it again. I wanted to be real sure they weren't quitting just because it was getting a little hard."

The persistence and patience of Joe Jackson paid off. Soon the group was making tours to Chicago, New York, Boston, and as far away as Arizona, traveling in a Volkswagen bus, with their equipment in a second van.

Marlon remembers it as a rough time. "We'd do a show somewhere Sunday night, we'd get home at 3 in the morning. then we'd have to get up at 8 to go to school."

It was in l965 that the present Jackson 5 first performed in public with six-year-old Michael. The group won first prize in a talent show at Gary's Roosevelt High School, singing the Motown hit, "My Girl". The following year the J-5 won a citywide talent contest and in l967 copped first prize in an amateur talent show at Memorial Auditorium. Then came professional appearances in and around Gary, which led to engagements at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, the Regal in Chicago and the Uptown in Philadelphia. Late in the summer of l969, "we did this benefit for the mayor." Michael says, referring to the political campaign of Gary's black mayor, Richard Matcher. "Diana Ross was in the audience, and afterward we were in the dressing room and Diana Ross knocked on the door, and she brought us to Motown in Detroit and that was it." Not quite. It took the perception of Berry Gordy and the creativity of his Motown organization to make "instant stardom" a reality for the Jackson 5. The rest is show business history of the type that Motown seems to create almost at will for whatever artists it chooses. Actually, it is preparation, packaging, and promotion of the canniest sort.

This in no way downgrades the natural attributes of the Jackson 5 individually or as a group. Their talent, good looks, and youth combine to snare the loyalty of a wide range of fans, especially female. The eldest, Jackie, appeals to older women, of course; Tito furnishes the solid musical foundation for the group; Jermaine is the sexiest of the J-5, with only Michael rivaling him in the amount of sometimes embarrassingly frank fan mail received; Marlon sports the group's outstanding choreography; and then there's Michael.

"Cute", the word most used to describe this incredible youngster, fails to do him justice. He an bend a love lyric with the sophistication of an adult, his poise on stage is that of a pro. Yet, at the same time, he is the instigator of the [page missing]