Besides an old adage of Oscar Wilde’s has often been translated for American use: trust the art not the artist. We also know Michael Jackson cracked it when he won full control. CBS loved him “Off The Wall”!
Jackson and family are now ensconced in California but they were reared in Gary, Indiana, apparently a grim industrial outpost. The family fraternal music tradition goes back at least one generation; with his brothers, father Joe worked in the Falcons, a local R&B band he disbanded due to the pressure of his growing family.
Joe then got work as a crane operator so though the family wasn’t on the breadline, chances are that Mrs Jackson bought marge more often than butter. Meanwhile as Michael was in the cradle, his elder brothers were already learning their harmonies.
Born August ’58, by age five Michael Jackson had played his first paying gig as lead singer in the family group. But he couldn’t be the typical spoilt brat of a child star: Gary was hardly Hollywood. Besides he wasn’t emulating Shirley Temple. Instead he was already observing and mimicking Brown, Jackie Wilson, and Smokey Robinson.
Gradually Joe Jackson was steering his sons to a more professional grade. Still a shadowy figure, he can be added to the small but quality group of father/managers that also includes John Weller and the Beach Boys’ Murray Wilson. Musically aware but frustrated in his own career, Joe Jackson seems to have realized early his sons’ potential. Allegedly, rehearsals were more work than play: Joe Jackson realized he had sired the family business.
Slowly the Jackson 5 gained a reputation in Gary and the neighbouring cities. Performing regularly for one local black pride organization, they made one useful connection. It had been led by a Gary politician, Richard Hatcher. By '68, Hatcher had become the city's first black mayor.
With Hatcher's approval, they performed at a civic "Soul Weekend". Headlining the event were Diana Ross and the Supremes and according to an enduring legend, Ross was instrumental to signing them to Motown. Recently though, Ross has amended the record. She says that Motown chief, Berry Gordy was already aware of the group.
Whatever the exact facts, Ross has always been a close friend and supporter of Michael Jackson, a relationship artistically consummated when he produced her "Muscles" single. It isn't hard to hear her breathy influence on his singing.
As the Jackson 5 signed to Motown in 1969, the company was changing. Its assembly-line method of hit-making was becoming outmoded as producers like the Holland-Dozier-Holland trio cut loose in search of both increased financial reward and artistic freedom elsewhere.
Furthermore the album revolution had both downgraded the single and increased the status of musicians and singer-songwriters. Compelled by the new styles in vogue, Motown retooled. Early to respond were senior Motown acts like The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.
Under the guidance of producer Norman Whitfield, the Temptations' vocals were re-modelled in a new "psychedelic soul" sound that was the laleb's response to Sly Stone's innovations. Meanwhile both Wonder and Gaye became black singer-songwriters catering for the album market and parading their independence from Motown's old paternalist policies as they negotiated advances and guarantees of artistic control unprecedented for black acts.
Through these three, Motown nailed down the older black audience and retained their influence among white album-buyers. The role of the Jackson 5 was to open a new front for the label.
While psychedelia still monopolized the scandalized headlines, a teeny counter-revolution was happening. Single-handedly the Buddah label had developed "bubblegum", almost the Big Mac of pop, sugary and addictive - though hardly nutritious for the 11 year old brothers and sisters of the hippie generation.
Berry Gordy neither followed the sound nor the simple-minded rhythms of "bubblegum" but he was alerted by its principles. He reasoned that if such a white audience existed, there must also be their young black counterparts. The Jackson 5 would satisfy their need for their own generation of heroes.
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Bill Graham 
