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International Press Conference

Date range assessed by the fact that the weekly music newspaper “Record Mirror” first reported on the press conference on March 21, 1981; this most likely occurred a week or two before the “Record Mirror” publication.

Danny Baker, “New Musical Express” (April 4, 1981) (archived)

There's about an hour or so before the car arrives and I'm whisked to meet the group. (Actually, 'car' is far too weak a word for something that rolls down the boulevards like Windsor Castle on castors). I buy a notebook and tear it in half. One section I label "Light" and the other I call "dark". I figure that as soon as my subjects become too uncomfortable with questions that require long answers--and with US bands I've found that lasts about 34 seconds--I can dip into the "light" and pep them up:

"Who's your favorite actor, Mike? Whaddya have for brunch, Tito? What's six and eight, Marlon?"

You know, the type of stuff pop groups usually figure you've flown eight thousand miles to ask them (I'm not lying!)

...Dzzzsshoooom, Windsor Castle glides up. I climb in and make my way down the corridor into the backseat. I'm touched NME have been given an exclusive "one on one" interview with the boys after which the boys will face the world at a press conference.

...My driver reaches for his megaphone and yells back to me that we have arrived in Century City. That's where CBS live--in Century City. (City in this place means much the same as village. They're named after the big film studios. This being 20th Century Fox's layout.

...Up on the seventh floor I sit cradling my two notebooks and a glass of Heineken. As "the boys" arrive one by one, I'm struck by a terrible thought. Jesus wept. I can't place the names to the faces.

Let's see. There's Michael and Tito and Marlon and... and... oh sure, Randy, the little one, and uh... er... Dopey, Happy, and Doc. No, this is serious, help. I'm shaking hands with each member as they arrive, grinning away, and I'm trying to think of the album credits. So far there are three, but which three? Everyone knows Michael, but [illegible] has only used my name in intros, believing all the others to be instantaneously recognized. Then, God be praised, somebody in the next room is talking into a phone, and I overhear that we're only waiting on Michael and Jackie. Good ol' Jackie Jackson, who can forget he of the double surname!

OK, so I figure that the young one sitting in the shorts is Randy--yes, we all laughed at his name, don't fret--and by merely asking Tito about the weather, I assumed that the one who didn't answer me was Morty. Sorry, that's Marlon. OK, we're nearly off, in bounds Jackie in a tracksuit--Jackie in a trackie? Are you nuts?--saying hi to all and taking a seat over by the window where he will remain throughout our hour saying very little.

The Jackson brothers don't live together. That much is made plain by their enthusiastic gossiping while we await the arrival of Michael. Ten minutes slip by in which Tito manages to slip in the fact that he's recently taken ownership of a new white Rolls Royce. Not his first either. A white rolls--what a hoary old cliche, but then, this is Hollywood.

Suddenly, I hear a raiing of vocal octaves and an increase in the nervous giggling from the outer office, Michael's here. In he comes waving meekly to the kin and smiling benignly at my forehead as we shake hands.

He shakes hands like I imagine Queen Mother might.

All united, the family begin requesting all manner of manna from the press office people. I see they may be a few seconds, so I take a stroll outside the room. Here, Jim from Epic, catches my arm.

"Hey, Danny, you ok?"

Sure, great.

"Now, you know there are a couple of subjects that are strictly out, don't you?"

No, I don't. I'm dying to know.

"Ok, so one is the Osmonds."

The what?

"The Osmonds. The boys are fed up with questions putting them with the Osmonds."

I'm staggered. Two-thirds of my questions just peeled away.

"The other thing is astrology, you know--signs and stuff."

Well, there goes the other third. Goodbye.

"No, you see, they are followers of Jehovah and they don't hold with anything like astrology--dates, birthdays, Christmas, nothing like that. They keep it all very private and have been known to walk out of interviews because they objected to questions."

Good grief.

"And has everyone told you about Michael?"

I'm beginning to go numb. No, Jim, nobody's 'told me' about Michael.

"Well." He sighs as if before a major declaration. "Be easy with him. He's very, very shy. but has got a lot better."

Better? I'm bewildered.

"He can seem odd to people who don't know him. Like you may find that once you've asked him a question, he'll need one of his brothers--usually his sister Janet--to whisper it in his ear. He might seem to drift off, but he's still with it--it's just the way he is. He likes to have one of the family explain questions to him before answering. I think it's down to confidence."

I float back into the meeting with my thoughts all of a heap. It seems that one peep outta line, and I'm gonna be conducting this piece with five empty chairs and a rubber plant. It's not as though it's going to be tough--there they all are smiling and joking, genuinely wanting to meet their fans--as they put it--through the press. But all of a sudden, they don't seem like the five funky kids  who fought their way up from Gary, Indiana, the gritty sharp Jacksons of the wizard pop and sex appeal. God forgive me, but they've take on the sheen of...of... so help me, The Osmonds.

I sit and fix a grin like a man who's just been slipped a note that his dinner guest is a schizophrenic axe murderer. One of the press office attendants closes the door--but remains in the room--and announces that the interview may begin. Half expecting a gong or a starting pistol, I take off.

You don't think much to interviews, do you?

Marlon: No, the brothers don't like them. Ain't that right, fellows?"

General hubbub of agreement.

...Why do do you do them?

Marlon: "We like to talk to our fans, let them know how we feel. We feel we have to do that."

Tito: "Y'see, we know we *have* to do 'em, but we don't get into, uh, interviews that much, because they will misquote you."

Jackie: "Definitely."

Tito: "But like he says--you have to speak to the fans... every so often."

Why do you think "they" misquote you?

Tito: "Strictly because they wanna sell their papers and bad news sells better than good you see."

The brothers are gathered around a table, except Jackie who sits behind on a chair and Michael who is reclining over by the wall on a square couch affair. He speaks, in his light, almost feminine voice.

"What paper you from?"

I tell him.

"The NME? Enemy? Oh wow! Haha."

Somebody chips in with the obligatory "enema", and there's much suppressed giggling. Happy days.

Do you scream at each other much?

Marlon: "Very seldom. We don't scream."

Tito: "You can take more stuff from your brother. Like if you told me something, well, we might get into a fist fight. But it must help when you've grown up together, y'know, slept together, peed the same bed."

Marlon: "Ah, he did the peeing, I didn't."

They all erupt into small verbal exchanges. At the back, Michael cuts in.

"Yellow Mattress, that's a good album title."

It's already becoming pretty clear that they'd all rather be someplace else. Before we began, they'd all been extremely keen to find out when they'd be free to get off that day. They're all crazed baseball followers and get to most games they can. It seems to me that they mightn't feel safe out in the open like that.

Tito: "It's cool. In this town, it's cool."

So, how do stars of your bracket react to something like the Lennon murder?

Pow! The room goes still, punctuated only by a few, "Oh God, that's awful"'s.

Michael: "We... we don't even like to think of it. We don't wanna talk of it."

Ok, so let's get some stories rolling. What was it like growing up in public as The Jackson 5?

Marlon: "The good part of it was we got off school. We had just three hours school a day which is great compared to six hours, right? It was great getting to all those different cities--hey, we even met the Royal Family! Then again, it was work. We do the Apollo Theatre and stuff, making all those runs to Chicago and Philadelphia seven shows a night."

Seven shows a night? Seven shows a night for two weeks each date. That's right. Just waiting to be noticed by the world.

Tito: "Those were fun days."

Michael: "We talkin' bout Motown?"

Tito: "Nah, I'm talking about the Peppermint Lounge, Guys and Gals..."

Michael: "Oh, yeah..."

Tito: "I'm surprised you remember it."

Tito: "See, Michael and Marlon were known as the dancers, and--OK, when your good people'd throw money on the floor--these are not dimes, these are *bills* we're talking about--so they'd do spins and then splits and grab a ten and stick it in their pockets."

Marlon: "Me and Mike, we used to sell our photos. Can you believe that? Who would want our photo then? This is when we were working the night clubs 'til four, five in the morning and be up for school at eight. Yes sir."

What did your schoolmates think of your life?

Tito: "They'd tease us--actually laugh at us. Saying really cruel things like you guys'll never get anywhere, what are you practicing for? We were barely being paid--our first performance was eight dollars. Mr. Lucky's club."

Jackie: "But that's a lot of candy in those days."

What sort of material did you start with?

Marlon: "Temptations, James Brown..."

Michael: "I think the song that really tears the house down was "Skinny Legs and All", by Joe Tax.

With all the theatrics?

Michael: "Oh yeah. You know I used to go in the audience and lift all the girls' legs up! God, I'm so embarrassed about that. I would never dream of..."

He trails off in a chuckle, raising his hands to this cheeks.

Marlon: "Favorite part of the act--lifting up all them skirts."

Five minutes of bandying about tales of yore seems to perk them up. It's Tito and Marlon who do most of the answering from here, and although there's no signs yet of Michael getting whispered assurance, he does seem to wander mentally sometimes. Transcribing the tape was a pretty dull affair I might tell you. Unlabeled, I figure it could be anyone of a hundred bands yakking. It's the way US Big Bands see the whole much-maligned beauty, dynamics, and power of music as just so many shades of gray.

...Marlon: "If you listen to the lyrics on 'Can You Feel It?', we're not pretending everything is alright. We're saying everyone's got to get together."

Michael: "There is hope."

Tito: "Our main effort is to bring everyone together."

But how??

Marlon: "It's easy. It's the easiest thing in the world if they wanna do it."

Tito: "But a lot don't want to."

...Tito and Marlon do have a point when they say:

"Disco music was one of the greatest things that happened in the world. Never before did we see blacks and whites under the same roof, dancing to the same things. It stopped people giving attention to the color of a performer's skin. It did that. They all had a good time--and it wasn't just on the night either. I believe they took that attitude outsider and home with them."

Do you think there's a black music in America?

Tito: "A black music? It's... Well, it's not.. I dunno, there's... er, yes."

Marlon: "I call black music the blues. The old blues songs."

Michael: "Or jazz, or how rock and roll started. But like that Blondie song "Rapture"--that was originally done by a black artist, but it didn't cross over. She did it, and it became a big hit."

Don't you resent that somehow?

Michael: "Resent it? No, I don't resent it. I'm proud for her, but I wish they were more equal", he struggles for the right phrase. "Just... more equal."

OK, so do you think these are good times we're living through?

Tito: "Naw. No times is goos times. I don't think it's as bad as yesterday, but not good times."

What keeps you going?

Marlon: "Trying to sell more records. Sell more than the last one."

And if they don't?

Tito: "We never think about that."

But just say it happened.

Tito: "Well... I wouldn't think it was because people didn't like it. I'd think it was mistakes in marketing and those things.

How much of an ego do you have?

Tito: "Well, we don't walk on air, I know if I step out that window, I'm going to to the bottom."

Well then, who are your rivals?

Marlon: "Everybody. Everyone."

Tito: "Whoever is in that number one spot, that's who we gotta beat. We gotta move 'em out."

Jackie: "Rod Stewart. Mick Jagger."

The Jacksons refer to what they do as "show business". I wondered if they pay the same attention as film people to awards. They grab at it.

Michael: "We like Grammys."

Tito: "Oh boy, we want a Grammy badly. Whew, I tell you."

Why?

Tito: "Why? We've put a lot of years into this business, a lotta years. And we want one. We want it."

Jackie: "We like awards."

When you make an album, do you ever ask yourself about risks in your style--what you can get away with?

Marlon: "see, you can't just write. A good dee can come in the shower!"

Dee?

Tito: "I say good dee--I mean melody."

Everyone laughs at parrot "dee" street jive style.

Jackie: "I've got a tape recorder by my bed and many times I've woeken from dreams and written down a song."

What did they sound like in the morning?

"Well", he says sitting back in his seat, "they weren't hits."

Michael Jackson is allegedly a big fan of classical music. He fails to elaborate on why, but Tito puts in a nice angle.

Tito: "I don't like that. Well, actually, I heard some classical music once--I can't remember it now--but it really impressed me, and I didn't expect it. But I don't think I can waltz with my wife to it though..."

The opening to the new album is quite grandiose though, right?

Tito: "Well, Michael wrote that hit--hey, Michael, Y'wanna tell him how you wrote that?"

(Here's a doozy.)

Michael: "Ah well, that opening... I thought... would be a good opening for an album."

Full stop.

You may have found it hard to distinguish between my earlier mentioned "light" and "dark" posers. So have I. However, these must have come from the light.

Anybody got favorite actors?

They all agree on Richard Pryor. Michael goes further, "De Niro for me. And Brando and Pacino."

I find this list-ette surprising from somebody who, I hear, is very DOWN on swearing. The boys go on to list James Earl Jones and Diana Ross. "You know", they say, "the Greats."

Alright, Michael, so just what's all this about you and Diana Ross?

He looks to the floor and flounders a bit.

"We're just good friends."

All my life I've been waiting for an interview that contained that exchange. Now, I feel, I am a proper journalist.

What, or rather who, makes The Jacksons laugh is in little debate. Especially with Michael who really springs to life for the first time here.

"Oh wow, Benny Hill!"

Really?

"Uh, are you kidding--every day! I love Benny Hill. I like him better than Monty Python!"

What is it you like?

"He just *does* things. You think, how can *he* think that way to come out with that joke! You never know. He just cracks me up--a genius."

The Benny Hill thrill causes me to realize that Michael has put down the telephone receiver that he has had to his ear for a good stretch of the interview. He never spoke into it, just had it to his head. Several times. when I particularly wanted his answer to something, he would apologize for it. What he was listening for/to remains unclear.

Just before the press officer called a close to our audience, I couldn't resist one purely selfish--for us smug Brits--question.

I wonder what y'all made of the Sex Pistols?

Marlon: "The Sex...?"

Tito: "I don't remember them."

Randy: "Sex Pistols?"

Jackie: "Sure, I think we were in London when that shooting happened."

Michael: "They never broke open big here."

Maybe not broke open, but they certainly broke up.

Michael: "They broke up?"

Jackie: "You remember that shooting, Marlon?"

I explain the confusion vis-à-vis the sordid deed.

Michael: Ha! I love that name--Sid Vicious."

It was at this point that an ugly flavor crept into their comfortable cheery manner. You see, we needed some photographs and Michael: "You want some pictures, like, now? Will we get to see these first? How come you're not using CBS's pictures?"

The excellent folk at Epic press try and explain the NME to a risingly alarmed MJ.

Michael: "Oh, come on. Look, the only thing is we don't like the way the covers come out, because they're not what we like them to be. How come... I mean, we don't have make-up on! I'm sorry, really, but we wanna look good for the girls. I don't wanna be photographed like this."

He looks healthier, better, and thinner than you've ever seen. But I guess when you're used to make-up and the whole bit, you need them for more than just covering zits. It's not *safe* without them.

Anyway, off go the boys to get ready for the impending press conference and Epic promise to arrange another photo sesh tomorrow or maybe Thursday. Looks like we're staying, Joey...

THE PRESS CONFERENCE

...The Jacksons re-emerge smiling, but all sporting huge jam-tart sized sunglasses. Michael's are very mirrored. Ninety-five percent of the questions are aimed at him, and this time, Randy really does whisper in his ear the whole time.

The questions are real tat. "Ven fill hue be visiting Sweden, Michael?" "Are you a close family, Michael?" (to which the family Michael showed a keen drollery in snapping back, "No sir.") "Can you give us information about your new record?"...

It was pretty bleak until this one poor wretched Japanese-looking bloke committed the cardinal sin of any press conferences--he tried to crack a joke. Oh, but he did. Y'see there's a track on their new LP called "Heartbreak Hotel" and this bloke--who had little command of English anyway--thought he had cooked up a real zinger.

"Ah, Michael", he stuttered, seizing his chance. "Ah, if you had not been a hit with your LP, ah, would you have gone to, ah, Heartbreak Hotel?"

In the ensuing audience, the wind blew, crickets chirped, and you could plainly hear the guy swallow hard as the apologetic grin froze on his chops, it turns out that nobody understood him. Tito asks him to repeat the "question".

"Ah, Michael, i-if your LP had n-not been success...w-would you have, ah, have gone t-to Heartbreak Hotel?"

By now, most of us hacks have caught on to what's being said and the less valiant turn away and clear their throats. The guy is still grinning, although he has stopped blinking by now, and is wobbling perceptibly.

A Jacksons aide steps in. "Er Yoshi, what do you mean?"

"Ah, Michael. If your album h-h-had not been su-su-success wouldyouhavegonetoHeartbreakHotel?"

Michael shakes his head and Jackie tires, "OK, I got Heartbreak Hotel, but that was on our LP--what’s it to do with Michael?"

Poor old Yoshi is drenched in flop sweat. He's darting his eyes around looking for an ally. His neck has gone to semolina, and his palms perspire like the Bolder Dam.

"I-I-I'm playing with words, you see."

Nobody sees, and Yoshi's grasp of the lingo falls an inch short of the word "joke".

"P-P-Playing with words... words."

The eyes of the world are burrowing deep inside that tweed jacket of his. He's trembling like a sapling in monsoon and smoke is starting to belch from his ears. Then--a voice at the back ends the torture.

"I think the guy's trying to make a funny."

"Yis! Yis! That's a!", babbles the released spirit. "I'm making funny! Funny!"

As he begins to appeal for clemency, the final cruel blow sounds. Amidst the unnecessary sighing, the aide says:

"Hey Yoshi. This is a press conference, man. Save the funnies, huh?"

The dumb questions resumed, but I couldn't take my eyes from the broken Japanese. Ruined, he never [said] another word all afternoon. Today, I suspect he sits in a bathchair in some far off sanatorium, grey haired and twitching, mumbling to anyone who will listen: "The words. Playing with the words, you see... is funny..."

Meanwhile, over on the dark side, I'll never forget how the writer from South Africa informed Michael Jackson that his LP was number one back home.

"Yeah, I saw that", beamed MJ.

"Number one. It made me really happy, I smiled, number one, ha ha!"

...Some fella goes out of his way to say what a large clout his radio show pulls, then reveals himself to be a purveyor of "spiritual songs, gospel or positive message music". He asks whether the band have any plans to make a gospel album. I'd clean forgotten about the Jehovah nix and I swing to catch Michael's answer. The answer is long, bland, and professional. About "music coming from within", and "personal messages". Nothing is given away.

The guy tries again--quite innocently--and Michael nearly lets it slip.

"We have positive messages in all our songs. We don't use terminology like Jesus or whatever, although he's good--but, like the song "Can You Feel It" is saying it all for us. The peacock and what it represents. What more can I say? We just made an animated film for that song. But I don't feel we have to use the word Jesus... ah, it's all in the lyric."

Michael Jackson has a room full of scripts. He likes the part he's been offered in "A Chorus Line" and the story of dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. He's keeping up with his dancing too. Most of his idols are dancers--Russian dancers especially. He's happy enough.

But a cloak of secrecy and protection--over-protection--seems to surround the heartthrob. Whatever lies at its core won't be penetrated in a decade. From all the advice and semi-apologies that accompanies my meeting with him, I might deduce a kid on the edge. He is vague, he is in possession of a butterfly thought pattern, and externally he is painfully fragile. Quite unlike his brothers. He's certainly not a Star, a la wonky Streisand. His aloofness stems more from a childlike shyness and apparent lack of confidence in his own conversational voice.

This was never more evident than when we parted.

As for all the whispering, phone listening, and attention wandering, well, I'm beat. He struck me at times as having just a touch of the character that Peter Sellers played in "Being There". This was never more evident than when we parted. He shook my hand very lightly.

“See you, Michael,” I said. “Mind howya go eh?”

He stood for a second, unblinking and with that ever-present, almost hippyfied smile.

“Thank you,” he began with absent-minded sincerity. “Thank you. I will. I will mind how I go.”

And he slowly walked toward the lift.

Danny Baker, “The Times” (June 18, 2005) (archived) (mirror) (archived mirror)

I was a writer at the “New Musical Express” and even back then we were stunned by the wisdom of his advisers. “The NME?” we gasped, “Why does he want to give a world exclusive to the NME? Has he ever read the NME?” True, at the time, the NME was the biggest selling music weekly in the world but, equally, it got that way because it pioneered the kind of flip, raspberry-blowing irreverence toward celebrity that so overwhelms us all today. We were hardly going to glowingly salute the King of Pop. There would be absolutely no suggestion of “copycontrol”. Yet Michael had okayed it and was apparently “really looking forward to opening his heart” to this unknown British hack. Are you sensing a pattern here?

I remember he arrived late, very late. I had already been in Los Angeles for a couple of days and was told that the interview would take place only when Michael felt “ready”. In the meantime Epic Records had cushioned me in the Sunset Marquis Hotel with an unlimited tab and a chauffeur on permanent standby in case I wanted to go somewhere.

When the photographer Joe Stevens and I were eventually scrambled to the appointed meeting nothing happened for about three hours. Well, when I say nothing that’s not entirely true or fair. The other Jacksons began turning up in dribs and drabs. First to arrive was Tito, a surly hunk of seniority among the brothers, who launched right in by saying that any questions I had I should direct by name to whichever Jackson I felt was best suited to answer. “So if you are gonna talk about the business or how we came to be what we are today or what our plans are,” he continued without meeting my eye, “there’s no point asking . . . I don’t know . . . Michael, for instance.” Uh-oh. It was as if the air-conditioning had suddenly gone into reverse. I could see that there were going to be two big problems with this proviso. The first was that I suddenly couldn’t recall a single other Jackson brother’s name. Indeed had Tito not been wearing a baseball cap with the word “Tito” on it I might have believed he was called Harpo. Maybe they would all wear name hats; that’d be a reprieve. Otherwise I was sunk. Suddenly the junior suite at the Sunset didn’t seem so free any more.

The second snag was that . . . Oh how should I break this to him in terms he could understand? Well, how about this: Tito, you may find this hard to believe, but nobody in the entire world gives a rat’s ass about the Jackson 5 any more. It’s over. In effect, since the release of Michael’s Off the Wall, there’s just John Lennon and His Four Ringos, and you, my ageing bro, have the biggest nose of them all. But of course, Tito Jackson didn’t need to be told that. He and Jackson 5 plc knew it only too well; hence his clumsy attempt to chop his kid brother off at the knees before his arrival could reduce his once acclaimed siblings to mere shadows. This barely concealed panic at Michael’s staggering talent and runaway success was to become the overriding tone of the meeting among the brothers. But let us first get him into the room.

Michael Jackson arrived last, accompanied by his sister Janet. At that point the world hadn’t heard of Janet Jackson and at first I thought she might be his PA. She showed him to a chair and then, taking the seat next to him, appeared to run through an elaborate itinerary in barely a whisper. At this point of his life Jacko was still recognisably human. He was still clearly a black guy and not the eerie wraith we have now learnt to gawp at. However, he was plainly not about to crack open a beer and ask about the sports scores either. He wore the most enormous mirrored dark glasses and once seated — and this really threw me — picked up a phone and held it to his ear. “Should I wait until he’s through?” I said to Janet. “Oh no, he’s not talking to anybody,” she replied with a smile, “it’s just something he feels comfortable with.” And she giggled a little giggle. And Michael giggled a little giggle. And the brothers slumped back in their chairs, scowling. “Also,” she went on, “any questions for Michael? Could you ask them to me and I’ll get your answer for you.” This was too much. “What, he can’t just answer me himself?” I shot back at her. “Oh he will eventually, he just has to feel comfortable with everything first,” she replied calmly. “But he’s only sitting four feet away,” I pointed out and, regrettably we lapsed into bickering. Meantime, Tito, Randy, Grumpy and Sneezy were all saying, “Hell. What’s wrong with us? We’re here too, you can ask us anything you like!” At this point I suddenly realised we were all talking over and around Michael Jackson as though, well, as though he wasn’t really there at all.

An Epic press officer entered and asked if everything was OK. Janet told her with a light laugh that I had a problem adjusting to Michael’s “ways”. So I was asked to step outside and the EPO gave me a little talk. “Danny, Michael is a very individual individual. It is important to understand that. It has taken us a long time to get him to where he is now. Now, he will speak to you but you must let him judge that moment. Actually I’m glad we have this time because I didn’t get a chance to tell you what he regards as off limits for this interview.”

Oh brother, this was getting better and better. “Individual individual”? “Where he is now?” What on earth did that mean?

...So, what was “off limits”? “OK now,” she continued. “Firstly, no swearwords. Secondly, Michael is a devout Jehovah’s Witness, so no talk about birthdays and Christmas.” I ask you to picture my face at this point. “Lastly,” she went on, “he will under no circumstances be drawn on what he thinks of the Osmonds. Are we cool with that?” The Osmonds? The Osmonds hadn’t had a hit in ten years. This man had just finished Thriller. Good God, where was this kid’s mind at? And now, of course, suddenly all I wanted to ask about was the Osmonds. Anyway, back in I went. Michael remained serene and glued to his phone and, if I wanted him to respond to anything at all, it seemed you had to ask things like “Who’s your favourite actor, Michael?” To which Janet would whisper, “He wants to know who your favourite actor is.” Then Michael would mutter, “ Robert De Niro,” to Janet and then Janet would say “Robert De Niro” to me. Was I confused? Intimidated? Freaked out a little? No, I was loving it. I was an NME writer and I was getting plenty here.

I also noticed that when the brothers answered questions they wouldn’t talk to me. They would talk, bellow even, at Michael. It was as if this was a rare get-together and they were using it as a surrogate therapy session. They had plenty they wanted to get off their chests before he disappeared into another level of fame altogether. For example, when I asked what it was like in the days before the Jackson 5 were famous one of them, let’s say Marlon, said: “Oh, see, that’s something Michael wouldn’t remember. We were on the road 365 days a year back then. We had no help, no crew. Tito, Jackie and me we had to haul the drums, the microphones, everything ourselves. Set it all up, take it all down, move on to the next town. Seven shows a week, man. Michael — he’d be asleep in the bus, man. Just come on, sing and dance, then be too small to do the real dirty work.”

When I inquired about what sort of music they started out playing I got: “I remember we had this one Joe Tex song Skinny Legs and All – it was Michael’s job to run out in the crowd and lift up all the girl’s skirts during that. He don’t remember those days.” The siblings all broke up at this. Michael didn’t and seemed uneasy. “Oh please, don’t say that. I’m so embarrassed by that now. I would never dream of . . .” They wouldn’t let him off the hook. “Embarrassed? Damn it, Michael, that was your favourite part of the show!” More laughing.

Addressing the subject of Michael’s success, I received the following heart-warming response: “Well, his sales are good for us because people who buy one of his records will probably look in the section behind and get one of ours too.” All the time Michael looked as though he would rather be somewhere else. I really started to feel for him. Small slips got pounced on. Here he is on the opening track he’d written for the latest, and as it turned out last, album with his brothers. “Well, I wrote that opening track in that way . . . because I thought it would make a good opening track.” There was a pause and then Tito, with some justification, said: “Oh great answer Michael.” More laughter and Michael became further detached from proceedings.

Later, when most of the others had left and there was just him and me, he became a different person. Well, more animated anyway, although, sadly, just as trite. The peacock on their new album sleeve represented “colours coming together”. He didn’t feel there was such a thing as black music and was happy for Blondie to have hits with rap songs because they knew how to “cross over”. He considered what he did neither rock nor soul, but just showbusiness. Benny Hill was a genius. The Sex Pistols were cool because Sid Vicious was a funny name. He asked where I went to have fun in London. Often his thoughts would peter out in mid sentence as if he had just caught the sound of his own voice and had no confidence in it. Incredibly, it seemed that Michael Jackson just wasn’t used to being listened to.

...I last saw him in Los Angeles a few days later when he acquiesced to a photo session. (The camera had really panicked him at the initial meeting.) He was far more relaxed and friendly now and kept reminding me of different Benny Hill sketches, even asking me to do bits of Monty Python stuff “in a British accent”. He was fun. But then, he was away from everyone and wearing stage clothes and make-up. I bade him goodbye at the lift. “Take care, Michael,” I said, and he reacted as if he’d never heard the phrase before. “Yes. Take care. Yes, I will ‘take care’,” he said chuckling. “You take care too, Sid Vicious!” he said. Mercy, a joke even.

Then he caught himself again, and stopped still. For a moment he didn’t know what to do. In that instant a PA said he was wanted on the phone. His voice became small again. “Do you know who it is?” he asked. The assistant said she wasn’t sure. He looked uneasy and walked back down the corridor. That was my last glimpse of what was left of the real Michael Jackson...

"Record Mirror" (March 21, 1981) (archived)

"We're just getting going now", says Jackie, "there's still so much more to achieve." Immediately this involves a partially animated short movie and a tour of Europe. "All those places like England and Scotland", says Tito. Their first visit.

...This is an international press conference. All the journalists are white and come from such places as Israel, Spain, South Africa. Every now and then one of the company's English will break down and the CBS International press officer will patronizingly translate. This is the pre-rock press, dailies, and entertainment mags, the kind that used to patronize the Beatles. Beginning interviews with questions like: "Well, Beatles..." They haven't done their homework and clearly know little or nothing about Black American music.

Except for Danny Baker out here in a trip for NME who has just had a private audience with The Jacksons upstairs. He is in something of a sweat, partly because he's yet to find the seamy fun, which he expects from LA and partly because of what it's like interviewing The Jacksons.

They keep it bland, no secrets on their sleeves. Danny has two notebooks, one marked "light" and the other either "heavy" or "dark". Probably "heavy" to be safe. So, I started off with light stuff like, "Who's your favorite movie star?" And they got really confused and say, "That's a difficult one", and think about it for five minutes.

The press today are looking for an angle and naturally doing their best to drive a wedge between Michael and his brothers. Michael's star quality and solo success do make him an insatiable focus. Not everyone [illegible] his million copies of their solo album in America alone last year. How do the rest of you feel about Michael's success, says the probing and patronizing press?

"It makes me very proud to know that my brother is a star and that he has some of my blood in him", says Jackie, cracking up. Are you brothers still very close? "NO!", answers the brothers in unison. They've come prepared, walking with reserve on alien and treacherous territory.

...Like the Isleys and EW&F, they talk the language of universal love, a mixture of pop and some vague California positive-think religion, Danny tells me they are Jehovah's Witnesses. How much they belong to Babylon is unclear.

"We're not into politics but music, and we sing about brotherhood, about bringing the world together through love and music. We don't use religious terminology or speak directly about 'Jesus', but the message is in the music.

"Look at the first track on 'Triumph', 'Can You Feel It'? Now what's that about if it isn't love?"

On similar lines, Michael explains the Peacock symbol that embosses all Jacksons' records: "The Peacock indicates all colors united in harmony. We try to bring all races together through love and music." He explains that The Jacksons started using the symbol before the TV network ABC did and that they use it as a symbol. And a brand name, I'd add.

The brotherhood The Jacksons most resemble however is a black Mafia. They file into the room dressed mostly in jogging suits and shades, Michael in a Warner Brothers jacket. They are polite and very reserved and consult amongst themselves when they answer a question as if this was a congressional hearing.

The press are all white and The Jacksons are either very spaced out or they are playing the old black and white game. Questions get asked and if The Jacksons don't like them, they either don't get heard, or the answer doesn't tackle the question. Every question addressed to Michael is rephrased by a whisper in his ear from his brother Randy. Most of the questions are dumb.

The Jacksons are a business and this is a job. They are very remote.

But Michael. Michael is a superstar. He looks and moves like a black Bambi, all grace and innocence, huge eyes and eyelashes and delicate Egyptian cheekbones. Astonishingly, his voice is as high when he speaks as when he sings. He seems at once dependent on his brothers and off in a world of his own. He gushes with childlike enthusiasm and then loses interest, grows absent.

He likes Russian dancing and scuba diving: "All those leaps and splits and dashes. I dance every Sunday, I need to. I love Baryshnikov." Asked about acting plans, he explains: "My room is full of scripts. I love reading, and I'm always reading them. I'm considering one called 'A Chorus Line' at the moment, they're offering me the best part. It's a very sensitive, very emotional story, but I'm not sure I'll do it."

The press leans back disappointed. But somehow Michael's description seems very like him--very sensitive, very emotional, but not love or hate in particular, just someone arrested in adolescent awakening twisted and blown by storms of EMOTION. It's as if he's never had a childhood proper and as a consequence a part of him has remained a child, hasn't begun. It's in this mixture of child and young man that his grace and delicacy and sexual storm persist.

As for the old days with Motown, Tito explains: "We're still good friends. 'Business is business and friends is friends', that's what Diana Ross told us when we were leaving Motown and that's what we're telling her now."

Diana is currently shopping around, considering leaving Motown. They are friendly with Jermaine and maintain they always were, that the arguments were with Motown itself: "Our next tour is planned with Jermaine already, and yes, we will sing with him onstage, all of us together."

Their parents still make career suggestions", but we pretty much know what we want and where we're going. A career is like a business, it's a chess game. You have to know what your moves are going to be five moves ahead."

What's your next move, the inevitable question follows and the mask comes down, the inevitable answer. "We're not going to give it away or somebody'd jump on it."

Take a listen to "Destiny"--half the songs are about mistrust.

Make no mistake, The Jacksons know business and their music is not separate from it: although it is done for love. "Our hobby is our music, it's not like work", explains Michael. And then he rhapsodies about scuba diving: "I like diving. I used to watch all those old James Bond movies (and he makes an imaginary gun) and I really got into it when I was in the Caribbean. I want to do that some more." And then he drifts off. The room listens transfixed as he talks. It's his gift.

As for "Off the Wall": "We combined all the elements from the very beginning and we used such wonderful people, Quincy, McCartney, Stevie... that's a lot of power when you get a combination like that... we said when we made it, let's go for three million, and we've sold six already in this country alone. I like appealing to everybody, to the masses."

..."We don't like labeling our music--it's Jacksons' music. I hate the way music is categorized away under labels, like rock R&B, whatever."

"You get put in the wrong box, and people will never get to hear you, because they don't like the box. Our music is us, it comes out of our own heads, from us singing together, and it comes from the spirit, not mechanical knowledge."

The Jacksons are very rich and more independent than one might suppose in a programmed industry. They drive away in their own cars, Michael at the wheel of a sports car. They are a tight enclosed music family locked together under the sign of the Peacock, and dedicated to their mother. They refuse to be drawn and though they now work with a white company, Epic, the lines are still drawn, the wagons in a circle. For all this talk of love and pop, The Jacksons are still very much a black family providing positive funk for black America. "Triumph", "Power", "Destiny", they proclaim is vacuum and the family prospers. Epically.

Do you want to be more explicit about black themes, I ask? Tito leans forward with a grin. "But what power are we talking about? A good tune to dance to?" Michael sits there, grinning, impassive, a natural in a state of permanent emotion.

...As The Jacksons leave the building in their jogging suits, the old crow a nest himself, Ronnie Wood, comes in by another door, dressed in his leathers and shades, an English rock star.

Separate categories, same building.