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"Beat Instrumental" Magazine Interview

Publish date of March 1974 confirmed by Chris Cadman

Beat Instrumental (March 1974)

Congratulations, dear reader. You have just win a free trip to go on tour with The Jackson Five. It doesn't matter where they are going, just pack a pair of track shoes, a bottle of vitamin E pills, a camera and leave your appetite at home, for it is sure to be sorely neglected.

Regardless of what you think of their music now, at the end of this trip you are going to be in awe of this moving funky family at entertainers, and in your secret dreams you are going to want to change places with 15-year-old Michael Jackson.

If anyone had told me that when I embarked on tour with The Jackson Five, I probably would have laughed in their face. The first thing any journalist learns is that the artist you love on record and in concert is usually a completely different person on the road. 'Natural' performers are usually neurotics backstage. Superstars act one way with the Press, and another with their roadies. If you want to end up hating anyone whose music or stage presence you love, just some time on the road with them.

The Jackson Five are indeed an unusual phenomenon. Their British success does them no credit because you can't see the greatest effect they have had on the record-buying market by chart positions alone. To say that The Jackson Five have done for black youth what the Beatles did for everyone a decade ago would be close to accurate. They are amazing. Just like the all-in-one veg-o-matic machines you see on T.V.

They can take any audience, from the Queen Mother in England to 15,000 ghetto kids in the United States, and turn the place upside down with effortless grace. They make it look so simple that after the shows quintets of kids dance their way home singing "A.B.C." in attempted coordinated style. Even Fred Astaire dances along with them on Soul Train in the States.

Put the veg-o-matic machine on the road and you find a family that can deal with anything. When the maid didn't show up in their suite prior to a Press conference, they gave each other a look, shrugged shoulders, and all set to work making the beds, folding up breakfast trays and stashing dirty ashtrays and clothes away. When the barman left to spend a pennt, Michael began taking orders for drinks form journalists while answering questions.

SUCCESS

They are not herded around in a group with head counts, everyone does what they want. Eleven-year-old Randy, who plays congas and percussion for the group on stage, walked himself to the hotel coffee shop in one city, called over a waitress and ordered a three-course meal without even seeing the menu. He has also been known to order a case of beer by brand name for one of his older brothers when they're not looking. He likes coke, himself.

"What you have to understand.", 19-year-old Jermaine explained to me, "is we weren't always successful. People forget that. They think we must hate being cooped up in hotel rooms all over the world, but not so long ago places like London and Tokyo were just places we read about in geography books.

"We would work on weekends. Dad would have our equipment set up in the living room, so we could practice everyday after school and Friday afternoons we'd all rush home, jump in the van and drive to wherever we were playing. We set up our own equipment, tested it, arranged our own songs, and tried to get people interested in us. By comparison, we're pretty pampered now."

The Jackson's entourage includes the six performing brothers, their cousins Ronnie Rancifer and Johnnie Jackson, who play organ and drums, their father Joseph Jackson, their manager Ronnie Wiggins and a security man named Bill, their tutor and welfare officer the distinguished Mrs. Rose Fine, costume, lighting, and sound people plus the backing group and local Motown people.

Take that plus visiting journalists, photographers, etc., and you have between 40 and 50 people. On overseas trips the boys' mother. Katherine Jackson, or one of the staff's wives may pop up. But usually Mrs. Fine is the only woman to be seen.

A typical day starts at 7 a.m. when Mrs. Fine tutors the younger boys tor their required three hours a day session. By 9 a.m., everyone else is up and packing their toothbrushes. Breakfast is usually grabbed while boarding the bus or string of cars, and by the time the tutorial session is finished its traveling time.

While the adults traveling together spend each available second sleeping or mumbling or planning ahead, the Jackson car or bus is having fun. Journalists get hooked into card games they inevitably lose. Michael will appear with a bag full of streamers, masks, and noisemakers. He's a sucker for hats. During their U.K. tour he spent much of his time backstage trying to swindle an authentic policeman's helmet. He didn't succeed, but managed a pilot's cap instead.

FANS

The older Jacksons read the music papers and study the charts with the intensity of a medical student taking his final exams. New records, or ones they haven't heard, are quickly jotted down for hearing later, during trips to local record shops.

Lunch is served whenever the entourage arrives at the next destination, which can take hours. And at 3 p.m. stomachs and dispositions are in desperate need of refueling. In large cities police escorts are mandatory, and fans appear from nowhere, trying to take the bus apart for souvenirs. Two girls almost made off with the tailpipe.

Everyone is panicking, except the Jacksons who are waving and trying to slip autographed photos through the tightly-sealed windows.

Once inside the hotel the group head for their rooms and begin finding whose room has the best view for waving to fans from. They alternate washing up and waving and eventually make their way to the coffee shop, where orders for hamburgers take top preference.

There have been many occasions of arriving in a hotel and being met by hoards of anxious reporters and photographers who want to do an impromptu Press session before lunch. The group had often done it, posing several times over to the beat of rumbling stomachs. But nobody in the tour party races for the kitchen. Either we all eat or nobody eats. The courtesy and equality the Jacksons extend to all members of the tour party is unique indeed.

By mid-afternoon the sound and light people have already made their way to the theater for the night to set up the sound system and the group is catching up on local radio and T.V. The backing group is bussed to the venue and frequently the Jacksons don't leave the hotel until the first part of their concert show has begun. New security becomes the name of the game, and it's a tough one to play. Fans have resorted to pulling out hair, turning over cars, assaulting security people and stampeding stage doors. It's the one time of the trip it's relieving to be part of the tour party, not the group.

SOUL

The fans rate an article themselves. They look almost like the group. They wear tipped caps like Michael, color coordinated outfits, with hand-stitched "J5"s on everything. They know more about each brother off the tops of their heads than most of the record company people do. The Jacksons have given black youth something realistic to reach out and touch.

Diana Ross is unobtainable glamor that fantasies are made of and most of the other soul groups are old enough to be their parents, but the Jacksons are old enough to be their boyfriends. “You work for Tamla Motown?", squeals one girl to the record company rep. "Oooh, can I have your autograph?"

The stage show is something in itself. Color coordinated costumes which don't look dated, dance routines that come off as smooth as cornish ice cream. The Jacksons on stage are as cool as their cartoon characters. They move as if they were one, without losing the punch that gave them their reputation in the first place. The fans don't care what they do, but it‘s the cynics and reporters whose faces are worth watching. It's like watching an atheist discover God.

RIOTS

After the show while thousands of fans fight it out with an equal number of policemen, the Jacksons, in full stage dress, jump on to the coach and change. Sometimes they are asked by the city not to stay the night or there will be riots so they travel to the next stop, often arriving at three or four in the morning.

If they stay in the city a scout may provide the name of a disco to go to. But usually it's dinner at 1 a.m., and a pillow fight for the boys. For the older members of the staff, trying to go to sleep next door to a pillow fight is often enough incentive to try and bed down early. And at 7 a.m. the following morning it all starts again.

The crazy thing is that youth is not only on their side, it is what makes the whole organization tick. Kids are curious, and the Jacksons are kids. They are intelligent, perceptive, and serious when it;s called for. But most important, they are enthusiastic. They don't really belong with the managers, promoters, and record company executives, but should be outside with the fans.

"I think I was the biggest Temptations fan in the world.", said Jackie who at 22 is the senior member of the group. I wanted to do everything that they did. I used to watch how they moved, what they wore, what they did to be different from anyone else who was out at that time. We understand how the kids feel, because we had a dream too. and ours came true.

"We are a live group. We were that before we were recording artists. As long as we can perform we will be dealing with our audiences directly. It's easy enough to be just a recording group, but I think you lose something when you only make your music for an engineer and each other."

Jermaine, more than any of the others, was aware of how a teeny-bop label was limiting the group’s potential audience. "All of us can play at least two instruments, but you don't see that in our stage act. I just hope we don't get put in a position where we can't sing anything but 'A.B.C.' for the rest of our concerts. People keep saying how similar we are to the Osmonds. But we're a soul group. If anything. I'd like to see us following behind the Temptations or War."

LAWYERS

In the meantime, the Jackson family’s moving road show carries on moving around the world, giving an awful lot of people something to get excited about. Music and basketball are the two things they like doing best, with making records in third place. Their attitude towards themselves is as healthy as that of any championship basketball team.

Perhaps nothing better summed up The Jackson Five's attitude toward their lifestyle then a survey taken by NME‘s Julie Webb. She asked each of the teeny idols whether or not they felt they were being exploited for what they did. Donny Osmond said he didn't understand what exploited meant. David Cassidy informed Miss Webb of his age and the fact that he wasn't born yesterday Then she asked Michael Jackson if he felt that he was being exploited. He looked her straight in the eyes and said: "Don't worry, we have lawyers to take care of that kind of thing."