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"Jet" Magazine Interview

Date range assessed by the following excerpt from a 1980 “Blues & Soul” magazine interview: “Blues & Soul: ‘We know you are busy on several other projects right now -- would you like to give us an outline of them?’ Michael Jackson: ‘Well, I've done a single called "Night Time Lover" on my sister, LaToya, that will be released on Polydor real soon.’” In the same interview, Michael mentions speaking with Neil Diamond two Sundays prior about how his movie was going, and Neil responds that “he was going to dance for the first time”, meaning filming hadn’t started yet / was underway. Filming for his 1980 movie “Jazz Singer” was filmed from January 7 - April 28, 1980, confirmed in AFI Catalog.

Jet Magazine, “Michael Teams With Sister LaToya Jackson” (July 31, 1980)

“I'm interested in making a path instead of following a trail and that's what I want to do in life—in everything I do," is how musical genius Michael Jackson of the popular Jacksons vocal group begins his upbeat conversation with JET.

Seated at the piano as his slender, restless fingers glide across the keyboard in their Encino home near Los Angeles, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter is busy composing songs for the first album of LaToya, his 24-year-old sister. Teamed with the young singer, who is as talented as she is beautiful, Michael talks about his involvement as composer and producer.

"It's an album project that I did and it will be coming out soon and it's on my father's label," says the popular performer who wrote hit songs for his album, Off The Wall, which has topped 6 million in sales. The idea for the new album was that of their father Joseph, whose Joe Jackson Productions label is distributed by Polydor Records.

“What happened, LaToya quietly picks up the conversation, "is that one day we were watching TV and there was a performer on TV and he (father Joseph) asked, 'Do you think you could ever be able to do that?' And I said, 'Sure, of course.' The next thing I knew he wanted to sign me with his record company.

"When I did realize that I would be doing an album." she allows, "I went to Michael and said I'd like to include the song we had for Donna Summer. He said, 'Fine, but I would have to produce it because I wouldn't want anyone else to do it.’”

The song they had written for the celebrated singer may turn out to be the hit single from the album.

"Actually, about three years ago, we wrote ‘Night Time Lover’ but at that particular time it was called ‘Fire Is the Feeling’ and we had written it for Donna Summer," LaToya reveals. "But we never got a chance to give it to her," she continues. "We were always busy and she was always on the go. Finally, the time came when we had to do an album so we took the song and we changed it and we named it ‘Night Time Lover’."

Although the collaboration on the possible hit single gives him some satisfaction, Michael receives a special joy in doing the album project. "This is her first time ever and I'm really pleased... I think it's really going to be a winner," he exclaims.

Michael is especially thrilled over a song, ‘Lovely Is She’, which LaToya co-wrote with Janet, their 14-year-old sister who won the hearts of entertainment fans for her duets with their brother, Randy, and her dramatic performances on TV's “Good Times” show.

"It's sort of a Latin song and kind of puts you in the mind of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’”, LaToya suggests. "It's about this beautiful girl on the island and she attracts a lot of attention, but she is not really aware of it."

A strikingly beautiful young woman, LaToya also attracts a lot of attention. She first became the object of a lot of ogling when she became a part of the Jackson vocal group in Las Vegas although the debut did not afford her the biggest thrill of her life.

"l think my biggest thrill came looking at the Jackson 5 (then Michael, Marlon, Jermaine, Tito and Jackie) when I first saw them perform because I never really knew what other people saw in them", LaToya says. "I see them differently than the public does. I can recall the first time I saw their first show and all of those girls were screaming, crying, and fainting over them. That amazed me."

She was also amazed when male fans verbalized their expressions of affection for her. Some followed up with love letters.

“l guess it's a happy feeling, at least it is for me to know that people are out there that care enough to write you letters and tell you that they love you." she says.

But meeting males who desire instant romantic entanglement poses a problem. "I get that so often." she sighs, “I hardly ever go out. But when I do, it's always some guy saying that I think you are this and I think you are that and I'd love to marry you. I think it's something that most people in this business have to deal with. The way I do, I sit down and talk to them. I say that I have so much more to accomplish in life. I'm not ready to get into anything like marriage.”

LaToya says she is not even ready to go steady. “I have so many goals in mind, so much to accomplish." she explains. Her immediate goal is to make her debut album a smash hit. With Michael producing and writing, the goal is readily reachable. The strength of the album is as much in Michael's role as a songwriter as it is in his role as producer. Yet, he modestly minimizes his contribution.

“l really don't write anything, to tell you the honest truth," he says. "I can say me, but I really don't think it's from me. I think it's from a much higher source than me", the deeply religious Michael asserts. "Songs come about in the strangest ways. I'll just wake up from sleeping and there is the whole song coming into my head and of course, you then put it down on the paper."

The songs which he penned alone or co-wrote with LaToya for her album came when they least expected them—while riding in Michael's Rolls-Royce. "We love to go riding on Sundays," she says, “riding up and down the beach to Palm Springs. We come back restful and we start singing and that's when we come up with a song.

"Michael has a photographic memory. He remembers everything so well", LaToya says with sisterly pride. "We come home two hours later and he asks me if I remember the song we were composing. I hate that when I forget a song because sometimes the songs are great. But Michael will say the song goes like this. I look at him and think, ‘Well, how do you remember?' He never forgets, he never forgets anything."

Michael never forgets probably because good memory is a gift—and he has a philosophy about gifts and talents.

"To me," Michael insists, "the biggest sin of all sins is to be given a gift, a talent—because it's actually a gift from God— and not to cultivate it and make it grow. That's the biggest sin in the world.

"There are so many brilliant people around who waste their talent and don't try to find out new things. Not exploiting themselves mentally, learning all about their goals, to me that is a sin," he emphasizes.

If talent can be likened to a candle, one can say after listening to LaToya's first album that Michael did not light a candle and hide it under a bush.