QLS Classic: The Jacksons

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What Up People?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
June is here and that means it's Black Music Month,
and that Quest Love Supreme now the Quest Love Show.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
We've taken this month seriously.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's our chance to celebrate black music, document it's history,
and recognize the impact it continues to have on our
culture around the world.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Throughout June, We'll be bringing you an episode every day.
My team and I have gone.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Back through the archives and pulled together conversations, stories and
moments that help tell a biggest story about black music
and the people who shape them.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
We also got four brand new Quest Love Show episodes
coming your way, spotlighting artists, figures, innovators, cultural shifters, pollutionaries
from across the spectrum of black music, past, present and future.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks for spinning. You're a part of June with us.
Happy Black Music Month. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome
to another episode of Quest of Supreme.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm your hosts Questlove.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
We have Teams Supreme with us. We have unpaid Bill. Yes,
there you are. How you doing, Sugar Steven?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:25):
How you doing?

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Hi?

Speaker 5 (01:26):
Mayor Hi Jackson's Sugar Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yes, we have uh fan Telo, Yeah, man busting down
a saturn and a and a crab cake.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
I'm sorry, you know, I'm watching trying to watch.

Speaker 7 (01:44):
My figures all day. I said to let you know
I could give it up. It was in the I
had it on blast before.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I been waiting on this in all day broke. Finally
we have.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
The the first lady of the show her. How are
you right now?

Speaker 4 (02:01):
You feel?

Speaker 8 (02:03):
I don't care. We got a paperwork? Can you feel
it yet?

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Can feel it?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Anyway, Ladies and gentlemen, I will just say that we're
given the honor right now of having a conversation with
an American I guess I can say an American institution, Yes,
an American dynasty. For over damn near six decades, our
guests have blazed a trail of hit records, have sold

(02:34):
out concerts of Disney and choreography of ground baking videos.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Basically, I'll be pressed to.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Find one human being on earth who's not, in one way,
shape or form, been affected by their legacy. And it's
apropos that they're on the show now, their entire sony
catalog has just caught up with their motown catalog, and
that they're self titled seventy six album seventy seven is
going place and Destiny from seventy eight have finally, after

(03:03):
all these decades, gotten the remastered treatment finally on streaming platforms,
and you know, basically words I'd never thought i'd say
in this lifetime. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest
Left Supreme the Jacksons.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yes question, Well, thanks, all right.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
So you know slight disclosure, were cheated already by talking
to Tito.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Actually, what our second episode? Correct?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Since since we've been the iHeart right our second episode,
so this might be rerun city, but I you know,
figure i'd figure out creative ways to ask these questions.
I guess my first question off the bat is if
one says twenty three hundred Jackson Street, what is your
first immediate memory that comes to mind automatically?

Speaker 9 (04:01):
Well, I'm gonna this is morning, so I'm gonna jump
in first. Since I'm the youngest out of the out
of the three here, it should be this should be
the last one, No, brother, not in these days? Yes, Uh,
that house on twenty three hundred Jackson Street. That our

(04:22):
house in Gary, Indiana. The first thing that pops in
mind to me that that huge house when I was young,
and when I go back to visit that little house
that we all grew.

Speaker 10 (04:33):
Up in and we all practice.

Speaker 9 (04:35):
That's where we got our start from, from that house
on the corner of twenty three hundred Jackson Street.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
So you're saying that as a young as a youngster,
you thought that that was an average sized house.

Speaker 10 (04:48):
No, that was a mansion when we were young.

Speaker 9 (04:51):
Wow, Yes, it sure was. We did everything in that house,
played hide and seek and rehearse U. We put to
pull the furniture back and my father would.

Speaker 10 (05:03):
Rehearse us in the living room.

Speaker 9 (05:04):
It was only a two bedroom house with eleven people,
but we managed to make it work.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Marlin's garage is bigger than that house.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Right now, Jackie, what do you what are your memories
of twenty three hundred Jackson Street.

Speaker 11 (05:20):
Well, like Marlon said, you know, it's a place where
we all grew up in the house and a lot
of fun memories there. Loving parents and we love each other.
We were bonded together. We had a two bedroom house
and uh and I remember, you know in our bedroom
we had like bump beds that were stacked up together
like fis.

Speaker 10 (05:40):
Like the three stooges.

Speaker 11 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and my sisters, my sisters, they all
slept in the living room. There was a count's bed
that let out, and my mother and father slept in
the other bedroom. But there was a lot of love,
with a lot of rehearsing in that house.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
We bonded together.

Speaker 11 (05:56):
And there was a lot of small concerts in that
house because we had already as people coming from the
neighborhood speaking in the windows is watching us rehearse every
single day and we and uh, that was pretty much
our audience. And that's uh, there's a lot of fun memories.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
It was just an open door policy, like one could
just it just come up to the window. Oh, just
come to the window, not walk inside the house.

Speaker 9 (06:18):
And no, no, you can walk inside the route.

Speaker 10 (06:22):
They will fight to get the best position.

Speaker 9 (06:24):
In the window to look we were doing.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah usually and they're watching these rehearsals. Then how how
long would these rehearsals last?

Speaker 1 (06:34):
For a couple of hours?

Speaker 11 (06:37):
Yeah, two hours at least, yeah, sometime three, you know,
so we get it right, we take a break and
take a fifteen minute break and go back.

Speaker 12 (06:45):
At it, you know, Okay, because most of the time
we had rehearsals prior to doing the gig, because we
would gig on the weekdays after school. We're rehearsed and
go to that gig about seven o'clock in the evening
in Chicago, what have you?

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (07:04):
Then be back, get back home somewhere around one to
two in the morning, get up and go to school.
Which I did not mind because when we were when
we played shows in Chicago, people would throw money on stage,
and so Michael and I, you know, we're doing splits
left and right, and we get to keep the money.

Speaker 10 (07:21):
Shoot.

Speaker 9 (07:22):
So when I lent to school, we used to stop
at the store and get the pocket full of candy,
then go to class. So Michael and I, we always
had money.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
In the second grade. Okay, had a dollar. I wanted
to know, I five.

Speaker 9 (07:43):
Penny, Tino, you got five for a penny back in
those days.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Okay, I know that you guys were an official five
some uh what sixty five? But back when the group
was just a trio, back when it's just Jackie, Tito
and Jermaine and what was the what was the arrangement
of the group then before Marlon and Michael came along.

Speaker 12 (08:06):
Like well, we were just basically a bedroom group. We
hadn't done anything out in the public or anything like that.
We were just three brothers trying to be the brothers Temptations,
trying to figure it out, trying to figure it out,
trying trying to figure it out. How did temptation sound
like this or the Miracles or whoever. We were just

(08:30):
putting to get you know, getting it together.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
But in a trio situation, who was the lead person?
Who was the in that particular situation.

Speaker 11 (08:40):
At that time, Jermaine was singing a lot of leads. First,
we were all singing at that time too. But uh,
later on then Michael and Marlin joined and Michael came
in playing you know the Quaker oat mill boxes.

Speaker 13 (08:54):
Oh wow, he called to playing.

Speaker 11 (08:56):
The bungos on that Michael did, and uh he has
some with him and Marland had so much dancing ability
and energy.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
So we decided, hey man, we got to put them
in the group, you know.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Okay, yeah, So.

Speaker 11 (09:08):
That's how that started, you know, And so we shot
them in the group, and then we started doing all
these talent shows, you know, all these talent shows. In
time for my high school. We had a lot of
talent shows going on. We would join these talent shows
rehearsing for the talent shows, and we would win these
talent shows all all over the regional part of the state,

(09:30):
you know of Indiana. We go to Michigan, different places
like that, and uh and just win all these talent shows.
And on these shows there was Denise Williams when the
fires on some of these shows, and you know, these
talent shows like that.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
You know, I was going to say, yeah, one one
of the Hutchinson of the Emotions. Yeah, and Sheila I
believe as well, told us that they would often run
into you guys doing.

Speaker 10 (09:57):
Yeah, yeah, we did.

Speaker 9 (09:59):
We did what they called the chilling circuit. And actually
not only them, the O Jay's, it was the Shylights
and us and and like you said, the Emotions. And
we used to do a place in Chicago called the
High Chaparral and Maurice White was with another band and
they would play.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
It was the drummer was the drummer Simmons was the
name of that band.

Speaker 14 (10:24):
It was Yes then Simmons.

Speaker 9 (10:27):
And when we did do those places one time I
remember so well, pig Meat Markham was the main act
and they would have us on the judge yeah. And
when we did the the Apollo, you know amateur stuff
you had Moms Maybley or Edda James where the acts
that came in or Simon Dave were the headliners and

(10:50):
came on Amateur Night and did our thing and people
enjoyed us.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
How many shows we used to do?

Speaker 9 (10:56):
What seven shows a night or something like seven shows
a day?

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Yeah? Yeah, day?

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Really?

Speaker 2 (11:01):
So you would do Amateur Night each time around or
was it at some point where you guys were sort
of out of Amateur Night and just a featured act.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Where's Amateur Knight it was?

Speaker 9 (11:10):
And then we then we would do the talent shows
and the Five stair Steps.

Speaker 15 (11:14):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (11:15):
We had a rivalry I guess between us and the
Five Stairsteps.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
And Michael would cry.

Speaker 11 (11:19):
Michael would cry his butt off because you know, sometime
before that came on before us, you know, the crowd
started throwing eggs at him and stuff. I think they
were there, and Michael would cry, if you forget, they're
gonna do the same thing to him. So we would
try to comments and Mike, just do your thing, Everything's
going to be okay.

Speaker 9 (11:36):
You know.

Speaker 11 (11:36):
He would cry like a baby because he didn't want
them throwing eggs on him on stead grabbing a hook
and hooking them off stage.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
That's what That's what they did.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Sim I was gonna say, I know that.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Well, of course everyone knows the legend of the Apollo,
But for those other spots that were in the chilling circuit,
like either the Regent or the Uptown and Billy or
the Fox and Detroit, was it also the same way,
like if you were new you were someone booing you
off the stage or anything, or.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Was that just the Apollo? Like could you relax if
you if you were at Chicago or any other place?

Speaker 14 (12:16):
It was more so as Paula.

Speaker 12 (12:18):
But they'll believe if you're not good Regal Theater or
wherever uptown, they're gonna bully you.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
You know.

Speaker 14 (12:26):
But but people don't play.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
You know.

Speaker 15 (12:30):
Happened to the Jackson's.

Speaker 14 (12:33):
Though, No, no, no, yeah, we never got the boom.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (12:39):
So, uh, we were scared of the book. So we
did the best that we could do. I say, stay
away from that book.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wait, yes, Tito, the world kind of knows the story
of you discovering your your father's guitar. Uh huh, But
I always wanted to know how was your able to
learn the bass. Was it was it a similar situation
like who taught him how to play the bass?

Speaker 12 (13:06):
Well, I gave Jamaine based guitar lessons on the bass,
based notes on the guitar, She'd say, because when my
father bought him the second guitar, he started playing the guitar.
That I was sneaking from my father and I was showing,
you know, the little things on the on the on
the guitar, but it was based up. So he was

(13:28):
playing bass on the guitar because as you know, the
first first yes, same same thing, yeah.

Speaker 11 (13:36):
And then what he did he started studying James Jamison
Motown because he listened to Motown songs and he started
studying James Jamison. He was he used to play dislike
him Jamaine as a young kid. He I mean he
had it down, you know, singing and playing at the
same time.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Okay, So before you guys went to Motown, you were
on Steel Town. What was the story Fie Town? Like
who owned the label? How did you guys wind wind
up recording a single for them?

Speaker 9 (14:07):
Well, Still Town was just a local record company and
Gary Ander.

Speaker 10 (14:12):
We really didn't I.

Speaker 9 (14:13):
Guess we were so young we didn't know we didn't
know a lot.

Speaker 12 (14:18):
My father is basically who took us and was controlled
all the activities of the little boys at that time
because we were really really young. I remember seeing a
picture of the band recording the song I'm a Big
Boy Now, and we were all quite small, little kids,

(14:38):
you know, and it just happened.

Speaker 10 (14:41):
One take and that was it.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
I mean, right, it was.

Speaker 9 (14:45):
The budget wasn't big, it was nothing. You know. We
could have recorded this song in our in our living room.

Speaker 14 (14:52):
In and out, yeah, in and out.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
Like you said, you were so young, Like, how did
you look at all the rehearsals and all the shows
and all the and all the things you were doing.
Did you did you think it was the most fun
thing you could do. I mean, I think it is,
But but at the time, did you think that we had.

Speaker 14 (15:14):
When they say keepers of the dream, we really had dreams.

Speaker 12 (15:17):
We all wanted to be like Jackie Wilson and James
Brown and the Attempts.

Speaker 14 (15:23):
We wanted to be entertain the stars.

Speaker 16 (15:27):
We wanted to go to Holly, California or wherever the
stars lived and see it was fun too, That's the
main thing.

Speaker 14 (15:37):
We had a lot of fun along the journey.

Speaker 12 (15:40):
But we never realized what the mark was making in
the world when we were younger, because we were constantly
busy and we would go to different parts of the
world and and uh get back to school and we
could tell the class everything about the place.

Speaker 10 (16:00):
Don't don't get us wrong.

Speaker 9 (16:01):
There were times that we didn't want to rehearse, trust me,
we'd rather be outside playing. And the kids used to
laugh at us sometimes and tell us you are not
going to get anywhere, and and you know with the rehearsing.
But my father, you know, made sure that we rehearsed
before we did anything rehearse. We used to take breaks
sometime and watch Batman or the Green Hornet, then back
to rehearsal.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
You watch the Three Stoodents, that's what.

Speaker 9 (16:23):
Oh, yeah, we watched them dog three Stoodents?

Speaker 10 (16:26):
Yes, we did.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
Did you play any sports in in school?

Speaker 11 (16:33):
We played a lot of basketball baseball because the baseball
field was right behind our house and if we weren't
doing music, was playing baseball most of the time. That's
what we did.

Speaker 10 (16:43):
Cricket, cricket in the alley, Yes, cricket.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Wait, black people play cricket. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy, right.

Speaker 9 (16:52):
Yeah, we played ghetto cricket, but we played its.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Tell how the game goes wrong.

Speaker 9 (17:02):
We used to set up like three cans on the
ground at each end, and we had a stick. We
all had sticks to bat. Either you throw at the
can or you roll it and you hit the ball
and you go back and forth counting, and whoever got
to a certain point a certain number one that won
the game. And it gave you skills because Jackie and

(17:25):
Jermaine and they used to try to see if they
can hit it all the way to the other field
over the fence, and they did. And you can imagine
someone running trying to get that ball and throw it back.
And if you stick it up and they knock down
your cans, is that these the other teams turn to
come up and take a back. That's what we did,

(17:46):
outside of moving cylinder bros from one end of the
yard to the other end of the yard. Uh choy
that my father gave us.

Speaker 7 (17:56):
Yeah, that's not a sport, yea, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
That's exactly what.

Speaker 9 (18:06):
No.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Well, when we saw that on uh the American Dream. Uh,
I guess Jackie had to keep moving the bricks. What
was that like? Just something to keep you occupied for
an hour or so?

Speaker 13 (18:18):
Or keep us occupied, keep us, keep us from the
gangs in the streets.

Speaker 10 (18:23):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
And it took all day, It took.

Speaker 10 (18:26):
All took all days. It takes no hour. It took
all day.

Speaker 9 (18:29):
And Michael and I couldn't pick up one, so the
two of us carried one. And yeah, he would make us.
When I get home from work, I want to see
those bricks from that end of the yard to over
that other in the yard.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Okay, So explain to me the environment that was Gary,
Indiana in the mid sixties, Like, what is what is
your father trying to keep you from?

Speaker 1 (18:52):
What is that? What is outside of twenty three hundred
Jackson Street.

Speaker 9 (18:55):
Well, there were gangs then, lurking to recruit new young members.
And and I guess my father felt that with my
sons would not be a member of those gangs, so
he kept us occupy and and and we did go
out and play sometime in the streets, hide and seek
or whatever. But majority of the times we, uh, we

(19:16):
were working moving those bricks around or rehearsing. But there
were games sometime. And Jackie and Tito can elaborate on
this more. Because I was still in elementary school.

Speaker 12 (19:28):
No, No, there was a lot of games around carry
there was they were shooting. You're can be it on
your porch at night because the ladies of the neighborhood,
meaning the mothers, we get together and you know they
mosquitos are bad.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
So they have a.

Speaker 12 (19:47):
Garbage canned fire going and join the smoke keep it.

Speaker 14 (19:52):
And all of a sudden you started hear.

Speaker 12 (19:55):
Cars speeding down the street and people started running and
duck and so there was a lot of gang activity.

Speaker 11 (20:01):
Right, but the gates, but the games never didn't mess
with us. They always protected us when we walked through
the game.

Speaker 9 (20:08):
Yeah you guys, yeah, making some positive noise. I guess
I don't know.

Speaker 15 (20:16):
Okay, all right, were you guys first generation Gary, Indiana?

Speaker 8 (20:21):
Or were your parents from there as well? I don't remember.

Speaker 12 (20:23):
No, no, no, my parents aren't from there, but they
were first generation from Gary.

Speaker 8 (20:31):
Yeah, okay, so where were your parents from? I'm just curious.

Speaker 9 (20:33):
I never my.

Speaker 12 (20:35):
Mother's from from Arkansas, and now my father's from Arkansas.

Speaker 14 (20:39):
My mother's from Alabama.

Speaker 10 (20:42):
What city she's Abama?

Speaker 14 (20:45):
Girl?

Speaker 10 (20:46):
You know, I think I don't. I think it's Herbsborough.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay, I thought it was a mobile.

Speaker 14 (20:53):
Yeah, the Columbus.

Speaker 8 (20:54):
Either way, her childhood was but so sweet my.

Speaker 14 (20:57):
Father from Little Ross.

Speaker 7 (21:01):
Oh oh wow, I read once your that your mom
she was like a country western singer that she used
the sing country.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (21:09):
What happened was with that, you know at that time,
you know, our television broke and we didn't have money
to get it fixed, you know, so we were we
were singing. She was an avid country western fans. She
loved country western music. Yeah yeah, yeah, wow, different people.
And uh, we was harmonized with her singing with her,
you know, and uh because no television were singing with her.

(21:33):
And she came to my father one day said, Joe,
your boys can really see they can harmonize. He said, kay, can,
he said Joe. So she said, Joe, they really can sing.
So he is so see. You know, we sung for
him and he got all excited. That's when he started
buying in going out buying instrument as far as all

(21:53):
the instruments.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
So when you guys were kids, was he gigging at
all or was that part of his life done with?
Because I know that he did a few when he had.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
A little local band called the Falcons.

Speaker 11 (22:06):
He had a band himself, and if they would come
over to the house and play with my uncle. His
brother played guitar and he played guitar, and we used
to watch them play all the time. Sudden just washed
them this gig and to us they were like big professionals,
and we watched them all the time.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
And they would play at the house.

Speaker 11 (22:23):
It was great watching him play and that's how we
learned about music and just listen to all the Motown
songs on the radio, stuff like that, you know, and
sliding the family Stone, Yes, lining everybody.

Speaker 9 (22:33):
Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
So Marlin, I know that you brought it up earlier,
but I always heard about the legend of Mister Lucky's,
which I guess was like sort of like your home spot.
But what Yeah, what was Mister Lucky's a strip club
today or like.

Speaker 10 (22:52):
No, it wasn't a strip club.

Speaker 9 (22:53):
It was a little nightclub that was Jeroniana.

Speaker 10 (22:57):
And they paid us.

Speaker 9 (22:59):
We got paid eight dollars for our first show and
Mister Lucky's. That was the first gig that we got paid,
and we were so happy about it. I mean, but
eight dollars back in those days take you a long way.

Speaker 11 (23:11):
And those were the shows that Michael and Marla would
they would throw money on the floor and they would
do the splits and grab the money, and and Marlin
and Tito and I and Jermaine would be because they're
getting all the money.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
We weren't getting one there.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Oh yeah, you know we've we've heard different accounts, but
I never heard it from you guys verbatim. I mean,
I've talked to Gladys Knight and she told me she
was the one. And then Tommy Chug of Cheaching says
that you know Bobby, Bobby and the Vancouver's. I didn't

(23:49):
know that he wrote because you guys did a cover
of it. I didn't know that he wrote does your
does your mama know about it? I didn't know that
damn Cheaching Chong like or Tommy Shung motown legends. So
what is what is the real story? I know I
know the angle, but who literally made it happen? Yes,

(24:11):
I'm gonna introduce you to this person that leads a barrier.

Speaker 11 (24:14):
I'm gonna set the record straight. I'm gonna set the record. Well, well, well,
we played a concert in Gary, Indiana and uh for
our Mayor Richard Gordon Hatchard, who's no longer with us,
he's at the time, and so he was campaigning at
the time. Some Gladys Knight was his his guest there,

(24:35):
you know, and we happen to play the same show.
So she happened she saw us on the concert and
she went back to Barry Gordon, to Barry Gordon, there's
some guys in Indiana. That's that's incredible. You've got to
sign these kids. It was glad who discovered us first,
and Bobby Taylor did this show the then next year
he saw us to say well, he went back to
Barry Gordy said the same exact thing with both of

(24:56):
those people. But Dinad Ross was his biggest artist, the
one who brought us out because it was his biggest suck.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
And its us to the world marketing presenting.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
It was Gladys Knight and Barbetary was the ones who
discovered us.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
That's true, all right, well, true story, they're true. Moving
moving to Los Angeles from Gary, Indiana. How how much
of a fish out of water situation was that for
you guys? As far as uh watching what the world
that you see on television, which is.

Speaker 11 (25:30):
Hot because I used to watch all the football games,
and all the football games.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
We got Chicago.

Speaker 11 (25:35):
Bears, we got Cleveland Browns and snowing outside freeze, and
then they were shown in an afternoon game they would
show San Diego Chargers.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
All's rams. Right, So I'm watching TV.

Speaker 11 (25:47):
I'm in the snow, freezing my butt off, and I'm
watching TV seeing all these people.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
They show the palm trees and show the people in.

Speaker 11 (25:54):
The stands having a great time. I said, that's where
I want to go. I want to go to Los Angeles.
I don't know how I'm going to get there, but
that's where I'm going to go. That's where I want
to live. That's what I said to myself. I don't
know how, Yeah, I don't know how I was.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
Going to get there.

Speaker 11 (26:08):
And some kind of way, we were signed with Motown
and Arry going to decide it to move his office
over to Los Angeles because he wants to get into
the film business.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Right, you know.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
So he moved his whole entire office from Detroit.

Speaker 11 (26:22):
He still had office, he still had office in Detroit,
but then moved his operation to Los Angeles, California, and
he brought us over there with him.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Was there ever talk of you guys moving to Detroit? First?

Speaker 11 (26:33):
To be matter of fact, we did go to Detroit.
It was in Detroit recording our music first and then
we went on to we was how long were we
in Detroit?

Speaker 4 (26:41):
About a year? Two years guys recording, about a year.

Speaker 9 (26:46):
We signed with We signed with Motown in nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
But we told everybody, and people didn't believe it was
because we didn't have.

Speaker 9 (26:52):
Any music out. It took over a year before we
even got in the studio.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Yeah, longer than that moment.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Okay. So some of that first album was recorded at
the Hitsfield studio.

Speaker 12 (27:04):
And yeah, yes, a lot of it, Yeah, a lot
of it.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
The Tempts and all of them would come around.

Speaker 11 (27:12):
We would see all those casts, all those people would
come around and give us all kinds of support, and
they was saying hello to us. And Jermaine was trying
to hit on Barry Gordy's door at the time.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Jamames, you succeeded.

Speaker 7 (27:27):
Yes, one question I had if I'm Jackie, you're the oldest,
you may have the best memory of it. I was
always curious to know about the corporation, Freddy Parry and
Larry Mizell. Do you have any riches of working with
those guys Deep Richards, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14 (27:45):
H.

Speaker 11 (27:46):
Yeah, they had just got out of they had just
got up college from Howard the University.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Dis graduate from Howard University. And they were incredible.

Speaker 11 (27:55):
There were incredible musician songwriters, and Barry Gordy put them
with us and we used to.

Speaker 9 (28:01):
Laugh at Freddy Perrin and Finds Myself because they were
We would go into the studio, we see them and
they're on a little mope head scooter, two of them, right, yeah.

Speaker 17 (28:16):
You know, yeah yeah, And we passed them up on
the street and they were coming to the studio.

Speaker 10 (28:28):
But they had to hit.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
A lot of our especially from a hip hop perspective.
I mean, I don't think a lot of people, uh
are contemporaries even equate that, you know, the Mazel Brothers,
their their seventies cats and all the stuff that they
did on Blue Note Records, you know, with Donald Bird
and even the stuff they did with like a Taste

(28:53):
of Honey and all that stuff. Like, I don't think
they even equate that these are the same guys that
also wrote I Will You, I Want You Back in
all those things, I.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
Love You and all that. Oh yeah, they were incredible.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
And they don't even know that their nephew was jam
Master j from run DMC. They never put two and
two together with that, but yeah, so yeah, I was
gonna say, when you first get to Motown, what is
what is the basic uh work operation? As far as
you guys learning songs?

Speaker 9 (29:25):
Because well, let me be let me let me bag
it up for you. I think you find it's interesting.

Speaker 10 (29:32):
From from from Gary, Indiana, mm hmm.

Speaker 9 (29:36):
We went to Detroit to audition for Barry Cordy, right,
and so we did a lot of Motown songs. And
so Barry had this huge house, had a golf course
in the backyard and the back nine head indoor swimming pool.
You go down downstairs for the ay, all the gangs,

(29:56):
and so we get indo, Michael and I playing in
the pool in the great time. Jackie walking around biting
his nails.

Speaker 10 (30:03):
Damn near ate up his.

Speaker 9 (30:04):
Fingers because he was so nervous, and he used to
get after Michael and I.

Speaker 10 (30:09):
This is serious, guy, this is our chance.

Speaker 9 (30:11):
You'll fooling around playing with all the games and stuff.

Speaker 10 (30:13):
Get serious.

Speaker 9 (30:14):
I mean we were kids, and all of a sudden
we get ready to do our show.

Speaker 11 (30:18):
Well, no, all of us were back. All of our
equipment was set up around the pool.

Speaker 12 (30:28):
Jackie, let me back up because Martins we had already
auditioned from Hotown the day before. Very decided, yeah, I
want to sign these kids. So he acts. He said,
tomorrow's Dining Ross's birthday. I'm having a party for her
at my house, and.

Speaker 14 (30:46):
I want you guys to perform.

Speaker 10 (30:49):
And so we round the at this party.

Speaker 14 (30:51):
Tell him who was at the party.

Speaker 9 (30:53):
Man, We round the pool waiting, and we do a
lot of more times, and all of a sudden, I
see Marvin Gate come through the h the Temps, the
Temps walk through the door, then down Stevie Wonder.

Speaker 10 (31:06):
Smokey Robinson, the four Times come through the door.

Speaker 11 (31:12):
And also we've got to sing their songs. That's all
the songs we knew, that's all the big hits on
the radio. We didn't have any new original material. Were
singing all these Motown songs in front of the right.

Speaker 10 (31:23):
Navid Roughing come in.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Wow, you know this is the first time you made it.

Speaker 9 (31:29):
No, yeah, it's the first time. We mean yeah, first time,
and this is their first time seeing us and we're
doing their stuff.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
I assume that the show went well because you're here
right now talking about it.

Speaker 6 (31:43):
Yes, try out by fire.

Speaker 5 (31:45):
How much shit older were guys like Marvin Gay and
Smoky than you at that time?

Speaker 14 (31:51):
All they had about fifteen, ten and fifteen years?

Speaker 13 (31:55):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Should should they? Stevie was kind of appear right, kind of.

Speaker 9 (31:59):
Yeah, well yeah, I think Jackie, you were like fifteen
or sixteen at the time.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
I heard your sister mentioned that Stevie actually might be
related to you guys. Is that true?

Speaker 9 (32:12):
Rue, he's on my mom's side of Yes.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
When did y'all find this out?

Speaker 4 (32:17):
A lot of people don't know that my first cousin.

Speaker 9 (32:19):
Second, you got to ask my mom. But all this
is to me, this is funny because we were we
were somewhere and Stevie tells them, uh, and I was
talking with Stevie this is at my at my father's funeral.
And then then all the way he told me, he said, Amelia,
give them all on my numbers since we because.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Does he call in the morning as well? He's famous?

Speaker 9 (32:53):
Yeah, we we You know, I've been We've been blessed.
We had some great times. You know, it's what you
do with that time and how you treat it. And
we've had some great times.

Speaker 5 (33:04):
Okay, I'm sorry. I got to follow up on this,
So did you and Stevie? Did you guys and Stevie
wanted to know you were cousins back then? Or did
this come up recently?

Speaker 9 (33:13):
No, we did not know. Matter of fact, Stevie did
a couple of songs on us during the Motown days
and and uh, we didn't know that we were cousins.
And those songs that Stevie did on us, they were
never released, you know. And I think Butterfly, no butter
Cup have but not that you have, not nothing, nothing song.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
That's one question is talking.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
About, well, you're supposed to keep your love for me
from the original? Was there any other besides butter Club?

Speaker 9 (33:46):
Of course, Buttercup, you're supposed to keep your love for me.
I think there was one or two more others. I forgot. Man,
we did so many songs. Motown got so many songs
that we we can when I hear so we did
that right, we lived in the studio.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
That's what I want to get to you, guys. I've
seen at least the the Motown faults. I've seen them
and seen the catalogs, and to me, it's staggering.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
How big is it?

Speaker 8 (34:14):
A mirrorkell?

Speaker 1 (34:15):
People? Please?

Speaker 8 (34:15):
You know we want to be.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I mean, you know, it was over two hundred songs,
but the thing is like they're two hundred completed songs
and half the stuff didn't see the light of day.
So like, what is can you walk me through how
you guys get like do you have like mere seconds
to learn it? Do you at least get a work
tape the night before to figure out your arrangements?

Speaker 4 (34:40):
We walked through to we go in the studio.

Speaker 13 (34:41):
They put the off to school after school, Jackie we
go after school.

Speaker 11 (34:47):
There's the studio recording studio right and the recording studio
was right around the corner right on Fair Facts, and
half the kids at the school never knew that we
were going to the recording studio recording I Want You
Back ABC. They've been know that not even a block away.
We recording to him record these songs. And they put
up the track and we learned it and singing and

(35:09):
all that. We pretty much do a song today. But
we came back to finish it the next day. The
really really completed finish it the next day. It took
us a day and a half to finish the whole song.

Speaker 9 (35:19):
That's because we had and the reason being is that
we were youngsters, and we had a social worker that
came with us, so she made sure that they didn't
work us over three hours, so they only we only
had three hours to you.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yes, you did all that work in the three hours.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, that's a lot of songs.

Speaker 11 (35:41):
And Michael was going there and Michael would ad lib
and do his own ad libs, and he made all
that stuff at all this at the end of that's him.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
They didn't tell him that he made up all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeh, wow, that's exhausting.

Speaker 9 (35:53):
So yeah, So and that was every That was almost
every day.

Speaker 14 (35:57):
Yeah, in the weekends, even the weekends. Weekends were longer.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (36:05):
So the next day we come back to school on Monday,
and we're on the Ed Sullivant Show and all we
come back to school and all the kids noticed that,
Wait a minute, these after Jackson's they noticed us being
on the Ed Sullivant Show. We go back to school
the next day, I'm in the classroom and all of
a sudden, I'm in the classroom sitting in the classroom

(36:27):
and all these kids from all the other schools come
to come to Fairfax High School from all the other
kids come over and just screaming at to do the
screen like pandemonium, and the kids wondered, what's going on?
Why they screaming or they saw me in the classroom
and they start screaming like crazy.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
They didn't know we were the Jackson They didn't.

Speaker 9 (36:46):
Now, let me tell you something. This is my first
time hearing Jackie's story about that, and I have to say,
Michael and I we were going to Emerson Junior High
School and we were the same. Thing happened to us
to the point that kids just started going crazy and
they had to pull us out of school because we
were disrupting class the whole school, and they put us

(37:10):
in private school.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
So you went to a regular school first, Yeah, we
went to regularly. No other contemporaries of yours were in
like Fairfax Hide, none of these Thames.

Speaker 9 (37:21):
No we went I went to when I when we
got here, nobody knew who the Jackson five were. So
I went to Bancroft Junior High. Michael went to Gardenet,
I mean my Gardener Gardener Elementary School, then the Falling Street.
Michael and I went went over to Emerson Junior High.
We only was able to go for two weeks because

(37:42):
we were disrupting the classes and the kids were going crazy.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Wow, So you didn't get uh so, what's the like
in private school? Is it more different because all of
you are industry kids or we were.

Speaker 9 (37:56):
Going to school with with some of the main celebrity here.
They would go to the same school with us, and
even well, this is a funny story, Joe McClean to.
If you know who John McClean is.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Wait, this is what you're gonna get the most elusive
we've been dying to get it on the show.

Speaker 9 (38:21):
It's oh so John, So John to tell history. He
said his mom brought him.

Speaker 10 (38:27):
To this private school and he said, Mom, I don't
go here.

Speaker 9 (38:32):
I don't want to go I don't want to go here.
And John said, all of a sudden, he's he loves
Tito Walking across, he said, Tito Jackson, Hey, mom, I'm fine.

Speaker 8 (38:44):
I tell y'all popularity. Did everybody have to go to
the special school?

Speaker 15 (38:57):
Now?

Speaker 8 (38:57):
Like the girls too? And I don't know Randy was
here by now everybody just have to.

Speaker 9 (39:04):
Eventually they did, Yes, yes they did eventually. Yeah, but
you know it's it's that's what took place, That's what
happened with us.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
It's you know, I know that your parents' concerns over
gang culture in Indiana was one thing, but most of
us that don't live in Los Angeles, most of us,
especially when you're thinking of like for young black people,
like gang culture was a part of life, Like, how

(39:36):
is that avoided?

Speaker 9 (39:37):
Well, my father made sure, I mean he laid down
the law. M hm, that's it. We had to be
inside before the street lights came on to Yeah, that's
what it's supposed to.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
That's how I came up to.

Speaker 9 (39:54):
Same thing set you better not get caught up, would
do street lights on?

Speaker 1 (40:01):
So okay, was it still okay? What was what was
the chores situation at the house like was that yeah,
I mean I'm certain that you sure had to.

Speaker 9 (40:13):
Oh yeah, we had to.

Speaker 10 (40:14):
We had chores. We had chores.

Speaker 9 (40:18):
We had to wash the dishes. Even even after we
made it with the Jackson five and came out, we
still had chores.

Speaker 8 (40:25):
Well, y'all still lived in the house together, right, So yeah.

Speaker 9 (40:27):
So yeah, it was I think Michael and I week
to do the dishes, and Jackie and somebody else had
a week. Yeah, somebody you know had a week.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
Yeah, So there was in the house yeah, we had chores.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
Is the family resident still Uh? Is that still where
your mother is?

Speaker 11 (40:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (40:48):
But if we were on Queen's Road, Yeah, we were
on Queen's Yeah.

Speaker 9 (40:53):
And we first got here, we were on Queen's Road. Well,
we first stayed at the Tropic Camp in a motel
a while on Santa Monic because that on Santa Monica,
Little Santa Monica or something like that.

Speaker 11 (41:07):
And when I got there, the first time I got
the cat of Los Santles, I couldn't believe how people
were living.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
Almost cried, I said, even living like this all all
my life, living this good life like this and driving
ferrari and rolle voyages down the street.

Speaker 13 (41:21):
I mean it was just amazing. I mean people living
in the hills and the palm trees and you know
what I'm saying, and I'm guarante Ana freezing on my
butt off, and these people living like this.

Speaker 9 (41:36):
We lived that. We lived in the Tropicana for a while,
and then, uh believe, before we went to Queen's Road,
we lived with Donna Ross. Yeah, yes, and she she
had she had a house with white carpet everywhere and
white walls, and I think some of the furniture was white,

(41:58):
and she.

Speaker 11 (41:59):
She told the house with us, we all too that
paint on the walls and paint the walls like she
was like, yeah, yeah, we had fun.

Speaker 10 (42:07):
Yeah, they also had a.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
Lot of money, but you a lot.

Speaker 10 (42:10):
Of money.

Speaker 9 (42:18):
Like that.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, I was for the other side of the story.

Speaker 11 (42:21):
Mary Wilson would come over to the house. It was
so kind of so it's amazing. Mary would come over,
you know.

Speaker 10 (42:28):
For how's my babies.

Speaker 9 (42:33):
So we you know, we were young kids, but we
had fun and they made sure that we had fun too.
I mean, you know, they used to pick us up
and take us to the movie sometime down matter of fact,
down Ross pick Michael and I when she first had
her first baby, and this is where she lived on
Maple and Beverly Hills, and.

Speaker 10 (42:53):
We all went upstairs.

Speaker 9 (42:55):
We were all went upstairs and she wanted us to
paint some drapes because she was having a baby at
first kid. So we painted the drapes and do figures
on it for the kid. And we had a great time,
you know, I mean.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Really yeah, Well, I want to know from Tito and
Jackie because you two are older. I guess in my
mind because I see the Jackson's as kind of the
first family of post civil rights movement, like all the
struggle that happened before nineteen sixty eight, Like you guys

(43:31):
are the first to flourish and to post civil rights activity,
But you guys are also teenagers in Los Angeles and
you're successful at that. So I'm certain that there's also
moments where, like you're in situations in which you're the
only black person there, or you're driving an elaborate car

(43:52):
that normally isn't.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
You know, associated with people that look like you. Like
how hard was it to.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Navigate in Los Angeles as teenagers where it's not so cute?
I mean, it's one thing when it's like Marlon and Michael,
who are like eleven twelve younger. Was it different for
a young black teenager in nineteen seventy two, seventy three,
seventy four, like the first half of the seventies.

Speaker 14 (44:20):
I had an experience once when I was about I
was in my.

Speaker 12 (44:28):
Late teens or early twenties, and I had got myself
for the Mercedes the three fifty essal I think it was,
and that's when I had stopped to get gasoline for
my automobile and this is the time when they put
gas in your car.

Speaker 14 (44:47):
You didn't have to do it.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
They do it for you.

Speaker 12 (44:50):
And I pull in that I say, what do you want?
I said, fill it up and can you check the oil?
So I pulled the lever for the thing. And you
know all the car, you know, there's two levers. There's
one outside as well.

Speaker 14 (45:06):
So got yankee and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, let
me let me. So I go out and show him
how to do it too.

Speaker 12 (45:13):
He slams my hood, then pulls pumps my gas and
drip gas all on the side of my car and
then takes Then I go inside and I noticed he's calling.

Speaker 14 (45:27):
It on my credit card. So I told him, I said,
I don't want to pay for the service. So he
goes to the people on the phones. Wait a minute.

Speaker 12 (45:35):
He goes to a drawer, pulls out a gun, holds
it to my head and said sign it. Of course
I signed it. I signed it. I immediately, This is
before cell phones. I go to a stop as a
phone booth, call our security Bill Braid. Bill, who's a detective.
He rushes out to Chatsworth where I was immediately and

(46:00):
go to the police station explain the story to them.

Speaker 14 (46:04):
They go over to the station, picks up.

Speaker 12 (46:08):
The guy, come back, and then they tell us that
if we if we arrest this man, we're gonna have
to rest mister Jackson too, for not for refusing to
pay for service.

Speaker 14 (46:22):
So the guy walked, that's that's how that's how it ended.

Speaker 12 (46:26):
Yep, of course it was. And this guy, I guess
he wasn't used to seeing the young black guy of color,
whether he's young or not. You know, it was such
a nice automobile because back then those Mercedes were very
high items, and I was the only nineteen driving one.

Speaker 9 (46:45):
So well, my my story is is a little different.
This is we had our TV show, The Jackson Show,
and yeah, and you know, and we lived in the
Sino in a lot and we were shooting that shows
somewhere and not at the CBS slot, but somewhere else.

(47:05):
So I will come through Beverly Hills and over the
hill to go home. And my first car was a Porsche,
a Porsche, and the police saw me driving, so he
pulls me over and he walks up to the car
and said, is this your car? I said yes.

Speaker 10 (47:25):
He said driver's license such and such. I gave it
to him. He sees Encino on it.

Speaker 9 (47:31):
Why are you going home this way? And I'm looking like,
what do you mean while I'm going home this way?
And yeah, you can go home any kind of way
you want.

Speaker 6 (47:41):
To, and who says I'm going home right?

Speaker 9 (47:44):
And then and then he says, well, where you get
the money to buy a car like this from? And
I tell him, you know, I'm an artist, I do
records and whatever, and he wrote me up some phony
Ticke wrote me up a ticket for whatever it says it.
I gave it to our people to take care of.
But I think Jackie, all of us used to get

(48:06):
pulled over all the time, asking us, uh, I got
a real funny story for you after this used to uh,
used to give us tickets and pull us over just
to harass us.

Speaker 10 (48:19):
But here is my real funny story.

Speaker 9 (48:22):
This story is so funny that I could Jackie, you know,
don't give a tell. So Michael's first car was a
Rose Royce.

Speaker 10 (48:31):
He was and he was eighteen.

Speaker 9 (48:33):
But Michael, he parked anywhere he didn't know. So one
day I'm he didn't care.

Speaker 10 (48:42):
I'm driving down the street.

Speaker 9 (48:43):
I thought it was so funny. I'm driving down the
street and the police got Michael handcuffed to a bench.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Wait, he was.

Speaker 10 (48:57):
Because he had a lot of parking tickets.

Speaker 8 (49:04):
Did you stop?

Speaker 1 (49:06):
They never heard that story. Journalists are asking the wrong questions.

Speaker 10 (49:13):
Yeah, yeah I did.

Speaker 9 (49:14):
But you can't say you couldn't say too much. And
and they let they let him go after it. I mean,
you know, it's back in those days.

Speaker 8 (49:22):
You could you couldn't say you pull up the street
and you just looking from behind in the mirror.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
All right, Yes, tell him the story.

Speaker 11 (49:31):
When we went down to Alabama, uh, for my mother's Uh,
they took Michael.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
He went into this. Michael went to this. Yeah, he
shot down South.

Speaker 9 (49:43):
Tell him what do Yeah, yeah, Mike, because Mike, Mike
like antique. So the security was with him. So Bill say,
I'm gonna go to the restaurant right quick. And the
owner of the store, I don't know if he called
the police whatever, he thought Michael was trying to steal
stuff out of the store. He didn't know who he was.
I think he and he got a gun. And then

(50:04):
Bill's and they took Michael somewhere looking for Michael and
looking for Michael Jackie.

Speaker 10 (50:10):
I didn't forgot some of this stuff.

Speaker 11 (50:12):
He took Michael to the back room somewhere and tied
him down. Michael was in the back room somewhere, like
in the.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
Back ship. This is like, this is like in hies,
late seventies.

Speaker 9 (50:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (50:26):
Yeah, we're looking all over Michael and they had him
tied down in the back ship. It's almost like the
clamor was gonna take him away somewhere, and you know
they were saving.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Them for that. Yeah, the story started with Alabama.

Speaker 11 (50:43):
Yeah, so we're looking for Michael all over the place
and this guy had him tied down the back room
and this was like an antique stuff full of books
and all kind of antiques.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Michael liked the old stuff. He like buying stuff like that, right,
And it took him.

Speaker 11 (51:03):
They thought he was trying to steal something and he
took him in the back room and we went in
the store. We couldn't find him. He was in some
other kind of ship behind behind that store.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
He was in another kind of.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Jackson.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (51:16):
Hard to get him released.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Yeah, we got a release and they realized school he was.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
But we we didn't.

Speaker 9 (51:21):
We let it go.

Speaker 4 (51:21):
We didn't put it in the press. We let it
you know what I'm saying, yeah, if it.

Speaker 7 (51:25):
Wasn't him until now a regular, it was any other Jackson, right,
it was Michael Johnson.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Right, speaking speaking of Bill Bray. So I came across
this this this like raw footage of a concert. I mean,
I guess it was the Destiny era. But I was
just looking at this footage and I'm noticing that the
way that security is handled is not like it is now.

(51:53):
Like there was no separation gait or something. The whole
fans back like basically fans were one inch away from,
you know, climbing on stage. And there's a point where
I guess Bill Bray is giving you guys like a
pep talk backstage on you know what my signals are?
How often did you guys have to prematurely cut a show.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Man all the time? So getting through a show was
actually a hard thing to do.

Speaker 8 (52:28):
It was was it a song that popped them off?
Or was it just like the moment you stepped on.

Speaker 14 (52:32):
Stage, the moment they said, the moment they set eyes on.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Me in the morning it was a pandem morning yea.

Speaker 9 (52:53):
And believe it, believe it or not, there was a
few times where we had bump threats. You know, and
at one time they did find a bomb under the stage.
He brought in the police dogs and all that stuff.

Speaker 10 (53:04):
So it you know it, it's been different.

Speaker 9 (53:08):
So it's been different. We've been through a bunch of
the We used to go to shows in armor trucks
because even on the Vision Tour we had death threats.

Speaker 6 (53:17):
We sure did it really?

Speaker 14 (53:19):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (53:19):
Yeah, you're all brave for a bunch of fucking musicians.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, what was the decision to not?

Speaker 2 (53:30):
I mean, you know, we live in a time now
where you know, especially in social media, just everything's transparent
and there's you know, nothing that's not revealed.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
What was the decision and not.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Ever releasing these stories that things have happened for fear
that copycats might try to follow, or.

Speaker 9 (53:50):
It's just never dawned on us. We you know, it
was part of our life, and I don't know, as
we talked it just you know, we would try to
We weren't crazy about you know, putting stuff in the
press and and and those things. You know, we just
move on with our life and keep going. I remember

(54:10):
one time, long time ago, uh in Chatsworth again, Chessworth, California.
My kids were at a park and my son drew
it in the grass, and a whole bunch of people
stood up and they were the KKK and uh, and
some other friends came and and my wife and Jackie's

(54:32):
wife and all jumped in the car car and took off.
They came with bats and chains and uh. And somebody
called the police and said there was a bunch of
black ladies with afro wigs, I mean huge afros and
and driving in the Mercedes down the streets flying And
none of them had not none of them had an afro,

(54:54):
but they just saw the color of your skin and
they just said afro and and it was crazy. It
was they were coming after him to kill him. They
were having the picnic, and they jumped in the car,
got all this stuff and just took off. And these
guys with chains and bats coming after females.

Speaker 15 (55:16):
Were you guys able to share these situations and lean
on some of your peers, because I'm sure y'all weren't
the only ones going through stuff at the time.

Speaker 7 (55:23):
Like who do y'all talk to about how to navigate
all this stuff at that time in y'all lives?

Speaker 8 (55:27):
Not to mention you got parents from the South, but still.

Speaker 14 (55:30):
Sometimes we take care of it ourselves.

Speaker 6 (55:39):
Question love it was the way the bullet, that's what says,
you know, ask answer this question.

Speaker 8 (55:58):
When he came before, who is the first Jackson to
pop off? You said, Jermaine is the first jackson?

Speaker 14 (56:04):
Uh to want to I would run home the mama.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Start he started to fight.

Speaker 14 (56:15):
He started to fight me fighting and run home and
tell mama, I'm fighting.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Wait, Marlon, I have a question.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
So one of one of my favorite J five albums
was Get It Together, and in particular, I mean, I
realize that now when when I was older that that
was accidently no, no, no, uh mama h the cover
of uh Mama got Randon new thing. Don't say no,
I'm realizing that you singing on it?

Speaker 1 (56:50):
How are you guys?

Speaker 15 (56:51):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (56:52):
What would you what would you say, fante, I'm having
lost a wards? You call it the would you say
the operation of uh the division division of labor? Division
of labor?

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah? What what is the division of labor? As far
as who gets what part or no?

Speaker 9 (57:08):
Well, that song was was produced by how Davis, so
he would tell us who's going to sing this, who's
going to sing that, Who's going to sing this? Even
in the corporation. You're gonna sing this part. You're gonna
sing this part and and that's how and that's what
we did when it, you know, and and that's what
and that's what we did.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
And did you sing on any other Jackson songs that
didn't make it?

Speaker 10 (57:33):
Or like I think body Language is another one that
I sung on too.

Speaker 14 (57:41):
He said that didn't make it?

Speaker 10 (57:43):
He said, quest has been so long ago.

Speaker 9 (57:49):
I got c R S.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
I remember what CRS disease?

Speaker 9 (58:02):
Yeah, I should do, you know, after after, after you
get past fifty you know stuff, come and go?

Speaker 8 (58:08):
Can I ask can I ask you a dancing question
that that you may remember?

Speaker 9 (58:12):
I mean that Wait, wait, that don't mean them answering.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Somebody the moment right now, right for real, for real, Marlin,
for the moment right now? You do mean?

Speaker 6 (58:26):
Man, yeah, that too.

Speaker 15 (58:28):
But I was going to ask you, like your dancing story,
like you talked about you and Michael being fans of
Jackie Wilson and being a fan of the dance.

Speaker 8 (58:34):
But I'm just curious, like as.

Speaker 15 (58:36):
You evolved, as dance evolved, like who are some of
the folks that you started looking to like.

Speaker 9 (58:41):
We we believe or not we used to watch James
Brown like you, said Jackie Wilson. We used to watch
fred the Stare Gene Kelly.

Speaker 6 (58:51):
J Rogers.

Speaker 9 (58:52):
No, no, no, no, we won't tip.

Speaker 10 (58:55):
We were walking on our toes.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
Now Michael knock on Freda's store's door.

Speaker 9 (59:02):
No, no, let me tell us jack Jackie. I got
so so one day, uh you know, Michael said, Marma,
come come pick me up. I don't feel like driving
to the studio. I said, okay, I'm gonna come get you.
And we drove Michael's car. His roll here out in
the car, Michael said, well, Marma, I want you to
go this way. I said which way? I said, why
are we going this way? He said, just go this way,

(59:23):
and then we go in through Beverly Hills. He said,
tear down this street. I said, said, well, you're not
going to the studio, Mike. He said, Dad is to
drive down there. Mike, I'm not driving down somebody's driveway. Marma,
just drive down the driveway. He get out the car
and knock on the door. It was Freddie Stair's house.
You know, you out the car, knock on the door.

(59:45):
Fredis Stair wasn't home. I don't know where he was
and I said, who, man, that's that's where Freddie Staire lives.
That's his house. And somebody answered the door and told
him that Freddie's Stair wasn't home at the time. And
then we went on to the studio.

Speaker 4 (59:58):
But say this, stay Davia's house too, right, walking time?

Speaker 9 (01:00:04):
What time we were in?

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (01:00:07):
Sometimes figure out why we were there though we were
so we Richie Pride lived in North in the North
threege so we Michael and I. I don't think I
ever told you all this, Jackie. So Michael and I
we stopped. We went to Richard Pride's house. Right, we
knocked on the door. He come in. He's talking to us,
and what was so funny to me?

Speaker 10 (01:00:23):
That we're leaving?

Speaker 9 (01:00:25):
And Richie goes to us, he said, yeah, that that's
the Mercedes I shot the tires out of which he
tried to.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Wait where she tried to leave.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Right. Remember that.

Speaker 15 (01:00:44):
I was also asking, like after fredstare like as the
time went on the seventies and eighties, where the other
folks too, did you were like? Because I know Michael
implemented new styles and dance and form into his thing.

Speaker 8 (01:00:54):
But Marlon, I mean, I know you do your thing
I seen you. You still do your thing, you.

Speaker 10 (01:01:00):
Appreciate it, trying to do something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Wait, can I add to that question? What did you
guys work with Charlie Atkins at all?

Speaker 13 (01:01:07):
No?

Speaker 10 (01:01:07):
No, never did.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Who is the choreographer for the Jackson five?

Speaker 10 (01:01:12):
Jackie?

Speaker 12 (01:01:14):
In the very beginning, we got assistance from Suzanne to
pass uh. She had a choreographed some of the I
want you back stuff, the Sullivan stuff. But after that
is basically even before that, it's always been the groups
on their own thing.

Speaker 9 (01:01:31):
Yeah, Jackie Michael and I we fool around. Jackie Michael
and I. We until we realized we running out of time,
didn't we say we better get serious with this.

Speaker 10 (01:01:39):
That's what That's what we did on Motime twenty five.

Speaker 9 (01:01:42):
We spend almost two or three hours in the room talking, look, hey,
the shoot tomorrow. We don't have any choreography before Wait.

Speaker 6 (01:01:48):
What Wow, y'all did that the night before y'all did that?

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:01:53):
Yeah, yeah, yes, what yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:01:58):
So my question what was y'all thought? This movie means
the world to us, but to y'all. Want to know
the v H one American Jackson's American?

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yeah, the music?

Speaker 10 (01:02:10):
You got to ask Jackie Tito that I've never seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
You are lie, seriously, No, I've never seen it.

Speaker 9 (01:02:16):
I've never seen it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Model me too.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
All right, wait seriously, part of it.

Speaker 9 (01:02:24):
I've never seen it.

Speaker 11 (01:02:25):
But can I tell you something. My father wasn't like that.
They made him like he was so I mean, he
wasn't like that. They made like a real bad.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
Guy and he was not like that.

Speaker 8 (01:02:39):
Just strength.

Speaker 4 (01:02:40):
Yeah, it's for the movie. I mean, my father disciplined
us because he had six boys, you know, and around
gangs like that. He wasn't like that.

Speaker 9 (01:02:47):
But matter of fact, that's how we learned how to
dance dodge.

Speaker 7 (01:02:55):
I was going to ask all that too, just so
particularly about your dad because you know, he's pasted and
I was watching the other day they showed the they
have a new Tiger Woods documentary this on uh this
out now, and yes, you know there's the kind of
the telling you know, you think of just the strict
father that's just kind of driving the kids, and your
dad has always kind of been just the symbol of
just the hard, you know, disciplinarian father. And so I

(01:03:18):
was just curious to know from your guys on words,
you know, what was that relationship like I mean, you know,
he's been kind of demonized in a lot of ways.
But since his passing in just over the years of
y'all have has have y'all as y'all have grown as
men and become fathers yourselves.

Speaker 10 (01:03:34):
How is that?

Speaker 6 (01:03:34):
How how do y'all look at y'all relationship with your dad.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
Now when you realize, you know, you go back and
realize what he was doing was right.

Speaker 11 (01:03:42):
I mean, we came from a bad neighborhood Guarantiana, and
he I mean he kept us out of that situation
by keeping us busy, keeping us rehearsing. He saw we
had talent, and he said, if you want to be something,
you got to work at And that's what he did.
And in those days, you know, you know her parents
raised kids was different.

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
You know, even your neighbors, your parents, I mean, your
neighbors would get you.

Speaker 11 (01:04:07):
You know, that's how it was back in those days.
You can't do that stuff today. It's a whole different today,
it's different.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
But not just the way it was back then.

Speaker 9 (01:04:14):
You know, today today those jokers break their knuckles down
in ninety one one.

Speaker 8 (01:04:20):
Yeah, something as parents and grandparents now seeing the way
the kids are like disciplined, Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:04:32):
I called it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
It was a different time when I look at you know,
just when I think about, you know, your your dad,
your dad's legacy, and just what he was able to
help y'all build. You know, it's just you know, whenever
I see people being real harsh about you know, men
of that time, I'm just like, listen, dude, Like white
folks just ran up in the capitol.

Speaker 6 (01:04:52):
What was they doing in nineteen fifty nine?

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
You know what I'm saying, Like, what would you know
what I'm saying? What think about what those guys.

Speaker 7 (01:04:58):
Were up against back then to raise you know, you
know all these kids keep him out of trouble, nine
children and working in a steel mill, Like, come the
funk on, dude, Like, you know, you got to put
that in context.

Speaker 14 (01:05:09):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:05:10):
So I was always to hear your thoughts on it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
When I went to the steel mail one time and
some where my father worked. Man, they looked up that
steel door and all that heat.

Speaker 11 (01:05:19):
And fire key out, and I said, oh my god,
how does he work in a place like this all
the time?

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
I mean, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 14 (01:05:26):
Yeah, Jackie took us home and wanted to rehearse even more.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Better than being in. I don't Jackie, were you at
one point seriously trying to consider uh a career in
baseball at all?

Speaker 15 (01:05:44):
Wait?

Speaker 9 (01:05:44):
Wait wait, wait, wait wait wait, Jackie, back that up.
Not consider the white Sox was looking at him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 8 (01:05:55):
Talk about it, Jackie, Come on.

Speaker 11 (01:05:59):
No matter fact, we all played baseball. We all grew
baseball players, all of us. And I was a short
stop and a picture and and they was after me
and and stuff like that. But you know, I think
I thought I made the right move by sticker with
my brothers, because the singing career last whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
You can sing forever, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
And you can sing with bad knees.

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
Yeah, but uh, you know I did the right thing.
We did the right thing to stay with the group
and stay with the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Boys, because I would see you know often in like
ride on magazine or whatever the periodicals were at the
time of like you guys actually had your own softball team,
Like how how was that arranged? Like like celebrities softball
games versus each other would just be a thing of
you calling them up?

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Or was it like some official.

Speaker 11 (01:06:53):
We had some of the coldest baseball teams we had.
We had Willie god on our team.

Speaker 10 (01:06:59):
We had uh we.

Speaker 11 (01:07:03):
The US and football. We had the Colders. And all
those guys play baseball too, you know we don't. They
played college baseball. We win the championship every year.

Speaker 9 (01:07:14):
So Billy Christal, Billy Christ, Billy CHRISTI, they gonna get
their team, Him and Rob right there and all of them.
The story they big, they gonna come and play us.

Speaker 11 (01:07:32):
You know. You know Sam Watson, You know Sam. Anyone
knows Sam Watson. He's always in the ring all the
time of the Fighters.

Speaker 8 (01:07:39):
And uh but said the words that you're not supposed
to say, but only he's supposed to say it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
He said, Sam, Yeah with the Fighters, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:07:49):
Yeah, Sam was on our baseball baseball Sam is the
great baseball player.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
He can play. Oh yeah, can play.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
You know, because I would notice all your appearances on
Soul Train, Marl, let me talk the most junk about you.
Guys are sports prowess and in basketball and softball. I
didn't know if that was like an actual thing, Like
there was.

Speaker 9 (01:08:14):
A no, it's serious, and then there's a there's a
picture somewhere. I saw Jackie playing basketball. Jackie used to
play Marvin gay all the time at Marvia Gaye's house.

Speaker 10 (01:08:26):
Didn't you Jackie, you'll go one on one?

Speaker 11 (01:08:28):
He would call me over. We played one on one.
He said, jack ain't paying no damn taxes and he
wrote a song about it. I can't pay my taxes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Make me want to holler right right.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
We used to play all the time, one on one,
all the time at his house.

Speaker 11 (01:08:46):
He called, but he would push you around. Marvin played
really rough though dirty.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
Okay, yeah, when you're in when when you get to
l a like who and older? Who were your peers
or like who would you hang with? Was it just
in house or did you guys have like a relationship
with the Silvers or anybody that was your age or anything.

Speaker 11 (01:09:12):
Except we just hung together. We stayed in the recordings
to be all. That's all Cord Cord record even on Sundays.

Speaker 9 (01:09:23):
They recorded all the time, and and then we would
go out and do concerts. We had a curfew, so
we had to be in bed at a certain time
and moms would come and tell our security, I know
my daughter is up in there with Winnam Jackson. Like
you said, I can guarantee you they an't way wasn't
name Jackson's. They might be with one of them band members,

(01:09:44):
but they ain't with with nothing of them.

Speaker 14 (01:09:45):
Jackson's because I just did bed check and they.

Speaker 11 (01:09:47):
All our very first, our very first big concert. Mm hm,
you know where it was, Mormon, the very first big concert.

Speaker 9 (01:09:58):
You know where it was at the Forum with No.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
I'm talking about that one, the very first big one.
Guess where it was, jack.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
He said, that's where it was, remember, man, the first
big start off. That's where Philadelphia. That's where it was there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Okay, So there's there's a folklore tale. One of the
most famous graffiti writers in Philadelphia's name is Cornbread. The
legend of Cornbread is like the places that he would
tag his his name, and the reason why that Philadelphia show,
the reason why I know about it, even though I
wasn't old enough to know about it, is that somehow

(01:10:41):
Cornbread had managed to tag the Jackson five airplane with
his name, which basically set his legend into like the
graffiti world, like he tagged the Jackson five airplane from
their Philadelphia Spectrum show. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean he's
still living off that vocalo, right, now he's like sixty

(01:11:03):
three years old. He finally signed a jacket for me
after decades, a big and for it. I want to
ask about the move to Epic. You know, between there's
sort of that period in which past the beginning stage
of Motown where you guys are putting the Vegas Act together,
about to do the Variety Show, and of course you

(01:11:28):
moved to Philly International Epic. What was basically I mean,
were you guys trying to develop your music even before then, Like,
were you guys writing actively writing and producing by that
point or yeah, we.

Speaker 11 (01:11:47):
When we learned so much, you know, by then with
all the Motown writers and the producers. It's like going
to school there anyway, because you learned so much they
teacher at the same time. And all the wonderful hit
that we had with Motown who put us on the map,
Barry Gordy and the whole crew and crew of writers.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
It was just amazing with the done for us.

Speaker 11 (01:12:08):
And at that time our contract was running out, we
felt that it was time for us to start writing
some of our music because at that time we felt
the mes was kind of young and abc and a
little bit and kind of kind of bubble Gummers.

Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
But it was the top of music that was geared
to everybody to love. But we decided it's time let
us to start writing some music, you know.

Speaker 11 (01:12:30):
So we decided to no longer side with Motown, to
go to another label where we can show them our
ability to write songs and also produced records.

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
So they put us with Gammel in Huff, you know,
And we were so excited to be with those guys
because those guys were known for writing hits on groups
like Teddy Pendergrass and the Old Jays.

Speaker 9 (01:12:53):
You just the list goes on.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
And on the Cowboys the Girls.

Speaker 9 (01:12:57):
That's my favorite game, Cowboys the Girl.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
But what that group.

Speaker 11 (01:13:04):
And we figured that we if we get with the
Jackson Gid with Gambling Huff, it's over with, It's gonna
be a big time, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
So, what are your thoughts on those albums? Now?

Speaker 6 (01:13:14):
Like now, over time?

Speaker 4 (01:13:16):
Incredible, incredible, man, Gambling Huff.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
We got there.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
We spent time just talking.

Speaker 10 (01:13:22):
And talking, and we call the whole album in two weeks.

Speaker 7 (01:13:26):
In two weeks, man, I would say, my favorite material
is still I mean the Gambler stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
I mean, it's enjoy yourself and show you. I mean,
those are plazas.

Speaker 7 (01:13:35):
But for me personally, man, I just love when y'all
wrote your own stuff like that was that's that's that
ship with jamming.

Speaker 6 (01:13:42):
I just like y'all y'all doing your own material. Man,
that ship was just it was great.

Speaker 11 (01:13:46):
So we wrote, you know, first we wrote to We
wrote two songs on the on the album. Then we
gamble wrote the rests and songs, and all of a
sudden they gave us a whole album.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Start writing because I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
I guess, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
My elementary school was right next door to Philly International,
So oftentimes, like first second grade, I'd see you guys
running to your car.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
On Broad Street.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Really yeah, my I went to a performing arts school,
which was if Philly International, I think was three ten
Broad Street. My school was three thirteen, So oftentimes you'd
see like Teddy Pendergrad, you'd see everyone outside. But you know,
of course I knew when the Jacksons were in proximity
because every girl in that school just run outside, and

(01:14:38):
it's like, oh, the Jackson's must to be next door
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
But I asked that question about the seventies because it
just hit me. Can you tell me who the group
MDLT was? Because I collected a lot of records and
probably one of the highest priced forty fives that someone
tried to get me for it was a Jackson five
produced song called What's Your Game by M d l T.

Speaker 9 (01:15:07):
What's Your Game?

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
It was like they were m d l T was
like a I think the legends that they were on
Ivory Tower. Yeah, Ivory Tower.

Speaker 10 (01:15:19):
Like four Girls yea was my father's group.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Okay, so they just saw like the Dinah Ross thing.
They just use the and of course the Sucleite me
comes along. It's like, yeah, I'll pay thousand for that. Okay,
I get it now. So that was just on his label.
But you guys didn't specifically produce that single or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Correct.

Speaker 9 (01:15:40):
I don't remember producing we're doing anything? You did?

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
Yes, we did. You don't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
He's right, we did that, Okay. I at least don't
feel ripped off of pain for that.

Speaker 9 (01:15:56):
We did.

Speaker 10 (01:15:56):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
So Jackie, I've meant I mentioned this and and your
and your brother's documentary for Off the Wall that one
of my favorite moments, and discovering that that demo on
shake your body down to the ground. Was you yelling,

(01:16:19):
I can't wait for the begs to hear this ship?
Oh my god, yeah, it's my favorite thing ever. It's
rights right. Do you end the demo and it stops?
He's the bgs to hear this ship?

Speaker 11 (01:16:34):
My mommy was at your house? And then that's a
song we were doing like half a song. We was
messing around this this messing around with a groove and
we was making up something, remember that, And I said
something like I can win the bgs here.

Speaker 4 (01:16:49):
He's right.

Speaker 18 (01:16:49):
I said that, and they caught that stuff, and I
staid with viral, didn't it? A lot of a lot
of people did with viral?

Speaker 9 (01:16:57):
Yeah, Like what what were your I don't remember that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
I mean at that at that point, I know that
you had to, you know, something to prove. And this
is like the moment that you guys are going to
step to the plate and produce your own material. But
were you guys seriously eyeing like, Okay, they sold twelve
million units, that's us, Like that's what we want?

Speaker 9 (01:17:15):
Like what?

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Yeah, in your mind? Was were they the standards of
who to be? Like why not Earth went and Fire
or p Funk.

Speaker 15 (01:17:22):
Or I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:17:24):
Maybe I don't know, maybe say that about the BG.
It just came out, BGS. Here this ship, it just happened.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
I just named the BG.

Speaker 18 (01:17:32):
It could have been I could have been just you know,
it just happened. It was we was in sane something
like the little group, just making something as we go along,
and I said, wait, this ship or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:44):
I remember something like that.

Speaker 9 (01:17:45):
Yeah, okay, ironically we all get inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 14 (01:17:53):
Together, oh together, all that came out b G.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Also, I also asked your brother Randy this question. So
in terms of presentation and theatrics, like, you guys definitely
raise the game higher. I mean, by that point in
seventy seven, you know, earth wind Fire is bringing theatrics
to the game, and p Funk definitely was bringing theatrics.

Speaker 14 (01:18:19):
To the game.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
But yeah, man, then I always wanted to know, though,
why was Randy the designated agitator? Like usually any explosions
were because of Randy either throwing you guys in a
pit or throwing some flash paper and exploit, Like, why
was he the one? Like you know, it's like you

(01:18:43):
guys are brothers in the first twenty three minutes and
then Randy does this terrorist.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
Act like Okay, then I'm to this fire and it's
gonna explode and we'll have on new outfits like well.

Speaker 4 (01:18:56):
Because you're right, I've never looked at it like that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
But you're right, though, Why was he the signated that
guy to do?

Speaker 9 (01:19:03):
Because he was because he wasn't in the Jackson fire.

Speaker 10 (01:19:06):
That's why.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
How did you guys conceptualize those shows? Though?

Speaker 3 (01:19:15):
I told you just to cry.

Speaker 11 (01:19:16):
When we used to go on the road and drive
down and drive our driveway going out the gate heading
for the airport, he would cry like a baby sitting
the driver because he thought he was coming with us,
you know, so he thought.

Speaker 19 (01:19:28):
He pushing the butt, he pushed the button for the
gate for the car to leave, did y'all y'all.

Speaker 15 (01:19:34):
Didn't initiate him when he came when he finally became
a part, did you like, he was always there.

Speaker 9 (01:19:42):
But he was around, but he was hanging around before
he became, you know, full member.

Speaker 11 (01:19:48):
And when they became a full member. I remember doing
this concert one time. This is so funny, packed to
the rapt us all the way around, number of people.
So n he's on the state. He's get his shot
to be on the stage. And he was playing his
ass because he can play some Kol's bungles and all
that stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:20:06):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:20:07):
That's all of a sudden, it's time for Randy to
do a solo, right, all of a sudden he gets
the spotlight get on it for him to play and.

Speaker 14 (01:20:15):
Do a solo right right, and the music breaks.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):
And Randy from up.

Speaker 11 (01:20:25):
Randy looked up and so all these people start looking
around around like this, around seeing all this.

Speaker 4 (01:20:30):
He forgot his solo. He did plays play keep looking
around all these twenty thousand people in there. Oh man,
yeah he didn't play man. Then he came up later. Yeah,
he came in later. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:20:48):
Now I'm gonna tell you a story.

Speaker 9 (01:20:49):
On the thirtieth anniversary, was doing you know, Shakey Body,
and we went to one corner of the stage. We
run to the other corner of the stage. So we
ran to the y'all didn't even know this was happening
on stage. We ran to the corner stage and we
do our break and we freeze and were just waiting there,
waiting there, waiting there, and Michael goes, what's next, what's next?

Speaker 10 (01:21:12):
I said, Michael, you're supposed.

Speaker 9 (01:21:13):
To count it off.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
What this is going on?

Speaker 10 (01:21:18):
This is going on stage and you didn't even know it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Oh he didn't know the next cue?

Speaker 9 (01:21:26):
No, the next cue was here. He's about to go
to start the band again. Oh, and he's telling us
what's next? What's next?

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
That's for television, what's the next? I remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Yeah, so for for those for those shows, though, how
much preparation goes into that, and like who decides what
musicians come aboard? Who decides like Duck Henning is now
I'm assuming that's Duck Henning that helped the.

Speaker 9 (01:22:00):
First The only thing Doug Henny did, what's the what's
the magic?

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
That's all he did, even introducing magic to a show
like who who? Like what what's the pre meeting? The
pre meeting? Uh situation like before that, even.

Speaker 9 (01:22:17):
Before Jackie you you might not know. Before you all came,
Michael and I went and we met with Doug Henny
to look at all whatever magic he had, and we
picked the one.

Speaker 10 (01:22:29):
We picked the one that.

Speaker 9 (01:22:32):
Goes up and explosion there that that would work for
the show. And then you all came. The second time
we used making it wasn't Doug Canny Jackie?

Speaker 10 (01:22:39):
Who was?

Speaker 9 (01:22:40):
I forgot who.

Speaker 19 (01:22:41):
He's on the Come on Copperfield, David Copper He's right right,
he's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
But what was the decision to add those elements to this?
That just came out of nowhere?

Speaker 11 (01:23:04):
Because you know, at that particular time, a lot of
acts were doing something similar to that. You know, they
had something special like so like an illusion or something
like that, right, yeah, And we decided we add this
to the show.

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
It's going to be something incredible, you know, you know
when I.

Speaker 11 (01:23:21):
Show, because we we've always had a high energy type show,
you know, okay, people dancing and a lot of a
lot of energy and pretty much a nice sized production.
So we decided we add this to the show. It
would just go over the top, you know, right, That's
how and that's how we were thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
I was going to say, I'll let my look, I'll
let the listeners know that, especially watching all this as
like a nine ten year older, no one has utilized
slow motion effects better than the Jackson's. Like practically every
variety show they were ever on, there's a movement. I mean,
I thought you guys could fly because there's always some

(01:24:04):
point in that performance where you guys either running or
airlifting like seven feet up in the air, and I
was like, Yo, the Jacksons could really fly like that.
I didn't realize untill later that you know, that's called
post editing. But I just thought, you guys at magic
flying ability.

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
I want to know how you guys, you know we
were talking about we were talking about the CBS years.
How when you guys left Motown and you know, how
did y'all kind of repair that relationship with Barry Gordy
later on? Like how did he, you know, take y'all
leaving and you know, where's the Joab's relationship at with him?

Speaker 9 (01:24:39):
Now?

Speaker 10 (01:24:42):
We're cool, always.

Speaker 14 (01:24:45):
Cool.

Speaker 9 (01:24:46):
You know, business is business. Just a business decision, and
we were young. It was a decision that my father
actually you know, you know, made and and so we
moved forward on it. But I think one of the
I remember someone telling me, Jackie, you might have that.
Barry Gordy said, the worst thing he ever did is let.

Speaker 10 (01:25:07):
The Jackson five get away from Motown.

Speaker 14 (01:25:10):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Yeah, And there was no like space or room for
any discussion of Okay, how many songs do you want
to produce? Or or I'll call your bluff and see
if you guys would like Did he really think you
guys wouldn't leave or anything.

Speaker 12 (01:25:28):
I don't know the details, but I think basically he
felt that it wasn't broke. Why try to fix something
that's working, you know? So basically I don't think he
had that. We had never wrote or produced anything publicly,
so I think he just felt why changed things?

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
Yeah, I have questions about the Triumph album because that's where, individually,
you guys really came into your own as far as
songwriting and producing is concerned. Side note, Jackie, you you've
actually written my favorite Jackson song of all time, like

(01:26:12):
Your Ways is like my all time favorite song in life.
Oh oh god, yeah, no, no, no doubt. I mean,
no offense to you other Jackson's, but you know that's
you go where you go off all your ways, that's
the way I go up forgive it up? I love
I know Marlin, like that's you you sing in lead
with Michael on that one man. I love, I love

(01:26:34):
that song man.

Speaker 7 (01:26:35):
And I thought y'all really was y'all was that in
sence y'all trying to go for kind of the yacht
rock kind of I guess that you know that kind
of song.

Speaker 9 (01:26:42):
No, it just said that's what the song called for,
So that's what you get it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
I love it.

Speaker 9 (01:26:48):
There's the magic that happens in the studio when you're working.
All of a sudden somebody hit you with someone the
song needs this, bam, so you do it. You know,
it's it's uh, you know, it's just work. It's just
you know, you can't go in and say I'm gonna
do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that.
It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 14 (01:27:08):
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:27:08):
It's it's a feel listen. You know. That's why I
try to tell some of the kids today. And with
all these electronics that they use, and I tell people,
how are they supposed to get the sound the way
that instrument really sound if you never heard that instrument? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
And and and and these these these three albums that
were just released a couple of days ago.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 11 (01:27:31):
They have great songs on the songs that never get
that attention, you know what I'm saying. But your Ways
now they sticking those out and they did some remixing.
They sound great, really, I mean.

Speaker 9 (01:27:42):
It's the blues Away used one of my favorite Yeah,
they sound great and that's what you get for being
polite and things.

Speaker 4 (01:27:49):
Yeah, that's on there too. Yeah, all that stuff here.
It sounds great. Different mixes on it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
How do you guys write the songs together?

Speaker 9 (01:27:56):
Well, we started, we started writing. We started writing the
deaths in the album when Michael was doing the Wizz.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
You know, That's why I wanted to know, how is
it like? How what was the process of doing Destiny
while he was doing the Whiz? Did it come out
before or after?

Speaker 1 (01:28:12):
Wells was after the Whiz? Correct?

Speaker 9 (01:28:15):
Yes, right, we were getting the studio and just start
writing songs. We you know, meet up at noon and
we're going to spend you know, four or five five
hours in the studio and we're going to come up
with some stuff and write some songs.

Speaker 11 (01:28:27):
And sometimes we do. Tito had this big camper, you know,
with the three stooges on it. We would take it
out to the beach and sit by the ocean and
write lyrics. And we would do things like that and
go out in different plant areas and go in to
camper and just write lyrics and come back, you know,

(01:28:47):
spend about five or six hours out you know, the
Pacific ocean, at the beach and park the camper sideways
and just look at the ways, and we have food
in their sandwiches, and we write lyrics and write songs. Yeah,
they go back in the studio record because we all
had a whole recording.

Speaker 7 (01:29:07):
Oh okay, gotcha, man, I must know for all the
people in my generation. So this song came out. I
guess I was four the video for can You Feel It?

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Dude? That was the.

Speaker 6 (01:29:19):
Scariest, most awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Can I piggyback on top of that? On top of that?
See you were four with can You Feel It?

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
But try explaining to a seven year old this reflection
ship for blaming on the boogie, which absolutely scared the
ship out of me as a kid because Soul Train
would come on at one in the morning. So watching
you guys with this reflective ship and like here my
dad's musicians say, like, oh, that's what the anassd trip is,
like a mere Like again, I know you guys are

(01:29:50):
one step ahead of technology with everything that y'all have done,
But what was I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
Yeah, blame it on the boogie and can you Feel It?
They were big right, Yeah, I was like the big
niggas just frequently I could run away from it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
I think by that point you guys are in your
mid twenties, almost thirty, so it's different. But when you're
you're watching, when you're watching under the age of ten,
it's a whole another.

Speaker 14 (01:30:26):
It's a different thing.

Speaker 1 (01:30:27):
Yeah, Blame It on the Boogie used to actually scare me,
like just to watch because I couldn't understand this whole
reflection thing and free it.

Speaker 8 (01:30:37):
That scared me became Michael with thrilling.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
Thanks Thriller.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
We were after scaring us for two years with that
ship as big as marbles chain, said Michael. And don't
stop to get enough, like we were used to it
at the time. But yeah, even when making Okay, so
in doing the Blame It on the Boogie video, was
that just like fifteen minutes out of your life?

Speaker 9 (01:31:02):
Like what do we do?

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
We go over there, we dance, Okay, that's it, like
and those are.

Speaker 4 (01:31:06):
Just effects we put on there afterwards?

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
You know, you know how long did that whole process
take in Like just to record you just did like
a couple of takes of it and then that was it. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:31:15):
Yeah, all the all the work is really done in
the editing room on a lot of those videos. Watch it,
and it is done on a greens A lot of
stuff is done on a green screen or a chroma key,
whatever you want to call it, right, Yes, and I
mean today they have it a lot easier. You can
do stuff on your computer and everything is at your fingertips.

(01:31:38):
But it wasn't that way back in the day, not
at all.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
Who chose the musician personnel for those records? Because you
guys had like the monsters, you had like feeling gains,
Nathan Watts and great feeling gains. Yeah, explain work with
great feeling gains.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
Those guys basically hung out with her. They were like
trends of ours.

Speaker 9 (01:31:57):
We hung out.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Yeah, Yeah, we hung out a lot together, all of us. Williams,
Ray Parker all the show. We all hang out. We
all hung out together.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:32:13):
Ray Parker played on a lot of Jackson's material.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
You know David Williams, Yeah, he's David Is I feel
like an extension of I mean, he's Billy Preston as
far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (01:32:26):
To you, guys, Beatles like his guitar sound is like.

Speaker 9 (01:32:29):
It is people even our band members. Man, David got
some bad guitar leagues. You know, how did he get there?
I said, we we told David what we wanted him
to play. So so we we come up with a
guitar in our head, and we tell him how to
play it and how we wanted to sound, and and

(01:32:51):
then we go back and what made that? David's the
guitar playing They already had bite but to make, but
to make it even stronger than what it was we were.

Speaker 10 (01:33:04):
He would he was a massive locking it down, locking it.
He wouldn't lock it, but.

Speaker 4 (01:33:15):
He just like he would bite it when he played
like he's like he's pulling the strings.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
Sounds like that.

Speaker 10 (01:33:23):
Okay, David, we gotta do another take.

Speaker 9 (01:33:24):
Okay, wait a minute, let me get a pizza of
my chicken. What he has some fried chicken on the side.

Speaker 14 (01:33:37):
He liked to get these fingers.

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
An, I know what I want to ask. Okay, I
cheat it. I have the sim so I've heard it.
I gotta know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
Okay, I'm assuming that because of how time has to
be edited so that an entire album side can fit.
Jackie on wondering who why was Michael's bridge taken out?

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Was it just to cut? Was it just to cut
or edit so that that.

Speaker 9 (01:34:15):
Let me explain what you tell. So the listener is
gonna stand back. If you had too much low in
and you try to master it, it'll spread and eat
up more of the record. You have to master and
get the right sounds and get everything. It's not that
way today, but you know, and we go to Bernie
Grub and mastering all he did all the mastering, and

(01:34:39):
a lot of times we'd be in the studio. I mean,
how many minutes is it? You know, because we only
can put so many minutes on a record. Yeah, yeah,
and if you got to sell, if you got a
record like Shake your Body with a lot of low end,
then your minutes get less because it's gonna eat up
more space. And so we will always keep track of

(01:34:59):
the time. Oh how much time that we had to
put on there and get in there, and sometimes we
had to make edits. That's right, so it'll fit.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
So my question is though, I mean, you know, walk
right Now is a guardiange Wan time song seven minutes right,
Like why not edit from walk right Now instead of
taking like Michael's part out of wondering?

Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Who?

Speaker 2 (01:35:25):
I mean, no one misses it because no one's ever
heard it. But I thought that was a very curious
edit and always wondered like.

Speaker 4 (01:35:33):
Why did you take his part out?

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Well, you could have saved twenty three minutes. You could
have shaved twenty three seconds from walk right now.

Speaker 19 (01:35:41):
But instead you don't know that answer, No, Jackie, don't
know that.

Speaker 9 (01:35:50):
It just happened. We weren't filling it and it was
just happening. But on Walk right now, we wanted to
capture it. Walk right now anyway, but we uh, we
had the percussionist of Pauline or the Costa you said, Uh,

(01:36:14):
it used to come in the studio and he have all.

Speaker 10 (01:36:16):
His toys around him and all that stuff, right, and
so he's.

Speaker 9 (01:36:19):
Trying to get some sound. But yes, and he would
be laughing playing but he can play his rump off
and uh, and we want to make sure that we
kept all the stuff. He did keep all the stuff
and on walk right now, what we one of the
things we did is we took the tape. We splice it,
and we took the tape and we played it backwards.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
Yeah, you know, so we because you.

Speaker 9 (01:36:44):
Know, computers today you can do whatever you want to do,
but back in those days, but when you do that,
you've got to make sure that it's insanc. You gotta
be on the downbeat, and it takes. It took a
while for us to get that down just the way
we wanted so it could come right on the down boundary.
It wasn't something that just happened like that. And we're

(01:37:06):
breathing over the over the engineer to make sure he's
splicing at the right time, right spot, because you don't
get a chance, second chance right exactly, you know, And
he's nervous and get the razor blade and you know,
then Spice put it all back together and we listened
to it. It ain't to down be okay. We got

(01:37:26):
to come back reverse and put him you know, So
it took.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
It took some time, you know what I mean, right,
you know, No, I totally look Steve, I'm surprised Steve's
not weighing in. Probably of any album that I've studied,
the mixing and mastering of is probably the Triumph record.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
I asked, uh, well, yeah, the last couple of years
of my life have been.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
You know, yeah, for my fortieth I asked back when
Nellie Reid was president of EPIC, if I could, if
you could send me all the all the the stems
so I could study, and yeah, walk Right Now had
a lot of tracks on it, even that part with
Da Costa's solo with all those percussion things like just

(01:38:15):
the pain sticking, and you guys did it without pro.

Speaker 1 (01:38:17):
Tools, so yeah, yeah, I know you guys had to
make that ship up. Marlon.

Speaker 2 (01:38:26):
By this point, also you were doing producing yourself, working
on a Betty Wright's record, in addition your sister Janet
working on her. Like, what can you talk about your
first four rays into outside producing?

Speaker 9 (01:38:42):
Well, don't stand another chance? Is is a song that
Jump Barnes and I wrote?

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
And can you also explain the cheryline connection with that.

Speaker 9 (01:38:51):
Because there's no Shirlene connection.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Well, the I have a track of of a Sheerln
song singing the same rhythm track, but just new lyrics
of it. I never understood the difference between I've never
heard that. Yeah, it's called.

Speaker 4 (01:39:11):
Love, that's ques love. Chris got stuff you don't even have.

Speaker 9 (01:39:21):
Did you have been up on Mars?

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
I actually asked.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
I was confused about it, and Jimmy Jim had told
me there's yeah, there's a song that came out on
on her Instant not the Instant Love album.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):
But it's called Love Love Rush Love Rush. It's on
the Preppy album.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
So I wanted to know, if you like, what was
what was the working relationship with John Barnes as far
as putting that song together.

Speaker 9 (01:39:52):
We just came in and John John was playing this
song and you wanted me to do the lyrics and
and so I said, yeah, let's get it done.

Speaker 10 (01:40:02):
Let's do it.

Speaker 9 (01:40:02):
And so we worked on worked on it together. John
and John, John Barnes and I used to hang.

Speaker 10 (01:40:07):
Out all the time. He used to come over to
the house all the time.

Speaker 9 (01:40:10):
We're just start writing stuff and doing stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
And working with with Betty Wright also that process.

Speaker 9 (01:40:16):
Betty, Betty is a Betty is a great person. She's ah,
you know, rest in peace. She just passed away, right,
but she she was. She's a great woman. She's a
great singer too. And on that album, Luther did a
lot of background stuff on that album before people knew
who Luther Vandross was, you know. And I had a

(01:40:37):
great time in the studio working with Betty. And you know,
she's funny, she's she's a vocal coach as well. Uh,
you know, and Betty knew every damn body you know,
So when you needed something, she's a don't worry, I
got it. You know, we're calling people to do stuff
for us, and the end, uh. I called in John

(01:40:57):
Barnes to come in because we had this band that
was doing these tracks with us, and and the tracks
kept swimming and the drama just couldn't keep time. And
so the Limb machine, the drum limb machine had just
come out, right, So I told John to stop at

(01:41:19):
my house and grab my drum limb machine, because you know,
I knew how to program that that machine to make
drums sound like to make to make them sound like
rest wrong, like real, like like real, real drums.

Speaker 10 (01:41:35):
And that's the whole key.

Speaker 9 (01:41:36):
I don't want to take it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
Please, actually, Jackie for you as well, I know that
your solo album came out in seventy three. Are you
Are you even aware that Is It Him or Me?
Is kind of held up in high regard and in
sort of hip hop circles.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
That's kind of a.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Well because it has a drum, a famous drum break
on it that you know, an obscure album can suddenly
become like uh no, no, no, no, it wasn't aware
in active Okay, Yeah, I was going to say, like
is it him or me? But I wanted to know
about that song?

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
Is that to you?

Speaker 11 (01:42:14):
Just like it's funny you say that because I noticed
my boys. I got twin boys here, they're very young, and.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
Over the last two weeks they've been playing that a
lot in the house and I was hearing it, you know,
I was upstairs. I was here, who's that singing? And
it was me and you know, and my boys are
like they're seven years old.

Speaker 15 (01:42:34):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:42:34):
It's twin boys, and they play all of our all
of our music, all right, But all of a sudden,
they was playing my solo album. I haven't heard that
stuff in about twenty years, my solo stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:42:46):
Maybe longer than that.

Speaker 11 (01:42:47):
And it was planning and I was really I was
really grooving off of it, you know, thanks to them,
but just bringing you know, to my attention.

Speaker 4 (01:42:55):
It sounds great, you.

Speaker 11 (01:42:56):
Know, yeah, a lot a lot of time when I
toured Aspect, how come you don't do these songs? You know,
when I do the Meet and Wed, how come you're
not doing these songs?

Speaker 15 (01:43:06):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
For again, for hip hop producers, like that album is one.

Speaker 4 (01:43:13):
Of the you know, yeah, it's one of those things that's.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
One of yeah, that just caught on. So for hip
hop collectors, like is it Him or Me? Is like
one of our one of our our favorite songs. But
actually for the both of you, with you Marlon and
with you Jackie working on Baby Tonight and your album
was a be the one, what was what was that

(01:43:37):
process like, like finally working on your solo albums in
that time period like after the after the Victory album
and and those things, like, what was what was that
process like for you working on those albums?

Speaker 9 (01:43:51):
For me, it was, well, I had a studio in
the back of my house, so I'll get up in
pajamas and just going to studios, spin off on a
practice almost all night there and and just come up
with a bunch of stuff or you know, in the
studio and there's a lot of stuff that I have

(01:44:12):
that was never released or you know, hasn't been out,
and uh some good stuff too.

Speaker 10 (01:44:17):
I think I was playing some of some of it
the other day, and.

Speaker 9 (01:44:22):
You know, you've been doing it all your life, so
it's almost like second nature is not something you know
that you whoa.

Speaker 10 (01:44:30):
It's like, Okay, got to get another project.

Speaker 9 (01:44:32):
Done, you got to do this. I mean, we grew
up in the studio, we from from young kids to
to now. So when you get in the studio, you
you pretty much know the ins and out. You know,
you how to work the boards, how to engineer this stuff.
You know what you're looking for. So it was it
wasn't it wasn't that difficult. But it's fun, especially when

(01:44:57):
you start working on some stuff for you for yourself.
You know, you try to make it fun, but you
want to make sure, you know, you try to capture what.

Speaker 10 (01:45:05):
You're looking for. But it was, it wasn't that difficult.
I mean, you pretty much use.

Speaker 9 (01:45:09):
The same guys that you always used on the Destiny.
You call in Greg Field and Games to play some stuff,
David Williams to play some licks for you, some awesome
stuff that you want to do. You know, you get
with Jerry Hale or somebody and give them the horned
links you want to go right out the chart to do.

Speaker 4 (01:45:26):
Let me in on this.

Speaker 11 (01:45:27):
And one thing about these these artists that we had,
these these you know, like I said before, these artists,
they they hung around us as friends, so they know
everything about us.

Speaker 4 (01:45:39):
They know exactly what we were looking for.

Speaker 14 (01:45:41):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (01:45:41):
They were friends of all. We hung out together, and
we we went to dinner together. We did a lot
of things. Matter of fact, they were our age. I
mean they grew up with us, so everything came in
the nature. It was easy, you know, quite easy.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
I was going to say, Marlon, one of one of
the bands that I like is is Critical and I
know that. Yeah, Fred Fred Mayer.

Speaker 1 (01:46:05):
The album with you?

Speaker 11 (01:46:06):
What was it?

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
What was it like working with them?

Speaker 9 (01:46:08):
Fred was cool because it was my first time. Fred
is One turned me onto the AD one. I don't
know if you're familiar with the add one drums drum kit?
Is it?

Speaker 10 (01:46:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:46:19):
It's the same kid that Phil Collins use on I
can feel it in the air tonight.

Speaker 10 (01:46:26):
Yeah, is that is that sounding?

Speaker 9 (01:46:30):
And fred Fred Turm on that And a matter of fact,
I bought one and we came up and we wrote
a lot of stuff together. This I like screaty polity
today you be doing your stuff? Huh.

Speaker 15 (01:46:45):
Like he.

Speaker 4 (01:46:48):
Had a sound.

Speaker 8 (01:46:54):
I got a whole scrits. I got to write that
one down to.

Speaker 7 (01:46:59):
We talked about them on another episode. I can't remember
it was. We went kind of deeply on them.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
I was going to say, no, we're not just thriller
bandwagoners like we're you know we we we know the
whole spectrum of the entire work of you know, all
all nine of you. Actually, wait a minute, we're talking
about scary videos. The one we never mentioned it was
freaking torture.

Speaker 6 (01:47:23):
Oh yeah, I yeah, I didn't. I didn't watch that one. Yeah,
I didn't watch that one with.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
Jackie the Eye in the HND. Why that was.

Speaker 10 (01:47:39):
To Torture is a great song?

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
No, it was. It was a great song. But now
I just think of and like the Slime.

Speaker 4 (01:47:49):
Story.

Speaker 11 (01:47:50):
We're on the Victory tour right the very beginning of
the Victory Tour, and at the time I was dating
Paul Abdul. At the time, I was the one who
I was the one who got her in the industry.
I mean when she was a Laker girl. I remember
sitting on the floor all.

Speaker 10 (01:48:10):
The Abduchie did you get her?

Speaker 4 (01:48:11):
In the nasty video?

Speaker 11 (01:48:13):
Me and Marlin had see some Lake and see on
the floors when Magic Johnson was doing their thing at
the time, and I'm sitting on the floor and every
day I'm on the floor, walks around every day before
the game start.

Speaker 4 (01:48:27):
Dinzel would come over and say hello, tover we come for.

Speaker 11 (01:48:30):
He comes in Lake and I think, I think he
just came off his first big movie, his first movie,
and he would walk around the place and people really
didn't know who he was, and he would come over
and say hello to me.

Speaker 4 (01:48:41):
But he's Dinzel today. But anyway, I'm sitting.

Speaker 11 (01:48:44):
On the floor and all of a sudden, Paula comes
over and another girl comes over, and they want an autograph,
you know, And all of a sudden, I signed an
autograph and she goes back and sit behind the basket,
well you know where the Laker girls sit. Me and
sit behind the basket, and all of a sudden, Sam
Watson come over and says, Jackie, Paula wants to know

(01:49:07):
that you want to have coffee, you have to be
a game.

Speaker 4 (01:49:10):
And I said, sure, go tell her.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:49:14):
I made her after the game, and so we went
to have some coffee and we became very good friends,
you know, and we dated for like four years.

Speaker 14 (01:49:22):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:49:22):
Next thing I know, she's doing Janet videos and put
her with Janet. Me and John McLean put her the Janet.
She's doing all the Janet stuff. And next thing, we
go on the Victory tour and we have way in
New York City. So we had a cattle call of people,
maybe three hundred people to be in this video. And
she helped me arrange the video for torture video. And

(01:49:45):
all of a sudden, I said, paul I want you
to choreograph this video.

Speaker 4 (01:49:49):
She said no. I said, Paula, I believe in you.
You can do it. Don't be afraid. You can do this.

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
And she did and she that's the first video she choreographed.

Speaker 4 (01:50:00):
She put it together.

Speaker 1 (01:50:01):
Yeah, slime in everything, Yeah, yes, okay, oh okay. And
subsequent well, I assume that she also did the body
video as well, because that was well, it was kind
of a video of a cat of the body.

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
She didn't Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:50:25):
No, Michael Peters did that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
Oh Michael Peter, uh, the legendary Michael Peters.

Speaker 9 (01:50:33):
Yeah, Michael Peters are bad.

Speaker 10 (01:50:35):
I don't care what peace man.

Speaker 8 (01:50:39):
And I asked for a question, and you guys were
talking about bands.

Speaker 15 (01:50:41):
I just wanted to ask about your touring bands, because
you imagine that, like whatever the audition process is must
be a must be crazy to audition for the Jackson's.
But I know I was lucky enough, Like I don't know,
seven years ago, to be a production assistant on a
Jackson's tour and you guys have yeah, But I went
to London with y'all. I went to the the Isle
of Wight and I went to a lot I didn't like.

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:51:11):
I was helping out with Bill Brown and Nick and
everybody gap helping you in the dressing rooms.

Speaker 8 (01:51:16):
Listen. I was on a hustle when you get fire
from radio.

Speaker 14 (01:51:18):
You guys, do you know so.

Speaker 8 (01:51:19):
Because I love Bill Brown, I didn't know this, Yuay.
I mentioned the CEO because I took a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:51:28):
Stel fle Yeah. I tour with the Jackson's, you know.

Speaker 15 (01:51:32):
One time I worked for the Jackson's and it was
just amazing to see that, Like the band that y'all
formed was not only just some of them were young,
like your music director of Brandon at the time, he
was like thirty early maybe thirty.

Speaker 8 (01:51:43):
Right, but just a dynamic, amazing, stupendous band. And you
combined it with some ogs. But can you just talk
about the process now for to put together a Jackson band.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
Who's playing bass? By the way, in your current band.

Speaker 8 (01:51:58):
Brandon is young. Brandon, I want to Oscar when he
was for three six Mafia.

Speaker 1 (01:52:04):
Oh, yeah, killing.

Speaker 8 (01:52:10):
And your drummer and your drummer and your percussionists.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
Oh my god.

Speaker 8 (01:52:14):
Yeah, but what is the process now? But what's the
process now? How did you how do you decide who's
good enough.

Speaker 4 (01:52:20):
To well, you know, you know, you know when those
guys come in, they come in knowing the music. They
come in playing it because they grew up on it.

Speaker 6 (01:52:30):
We had years to learn it.

Speaker 11 (01:52:31):
Yeah, yeah, they come in knowing the stuff. You know
when they started playing. Oh my god, these young cauts,
how do they know this stuff like this?

Speaker 10 (01:52:38):
You know, and they grew up playing you know. Yeah,
you just polish him up a little bit, but they
pretty much what.

Speaker 15 (01:52:46):
And another question says, you guys are going to steal
tour right after COVID because y'all have been touring. Okay,
so can you tell people your routines? Your dance routine
seemed the exact same. I mean from the freeze that
you talked about, like everything y'all do your bodies move
the exact same? Is it the exact same? And how
do y'all maintain that? Tito gave me some quick like
this is just what we do. Answer, But I know,

(01:53:09):
Marlon and Jacket.

Speaker 11 (01:53:09):
It is you know, you know, once once we you know,
we can pay all stage for the longest time, and
once we get together, somehow it just comes together.

Speaker 4 (01:53:21):
It comes that way because we've been doing it for
so long. We just know each other's moves. We know,
matter of fact, we know where Michael would be on stage.

Speaker 11 (01:53:29):
You know, any given time, we know exactly where he
would be on that stage, even today if we go
in the States, you know, and that's how it works.

Speaker 4 (01:53:37):
We just it just works that way.

Speaker 15 (01:53:39):
How do you make sure your bodies are still able
to keep up with these moves on the daily?

Speaker 9 (01:53:45):
Well sometimes, you know, you know, when you're on stage,
if you try to if you think of a move
and try to do it, it doesn't work.

Speaker 10 (01:53:55):
That when you just got to feel it and you
do it and don't think about it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:58):
That's that's the bottom of the line, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:54:00):
Yea, brothers, y'all take vitamins and things or like yeah, yeah,
we did.

Speaker 4 (01:54:04):
We stay in shape.

Speaker 11 (01:54:05):
And plus you know, like our show is like a
high energy show and it's like working out. To me,
he could work out because I get a break, workout
aspire a lot, but only yes, Plus you get.

Speaker 4 (01:54:15):
A check at the end. Of the day.

Speaker 6 (01:54:16):
But you know, it's just talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:54:22):
It's like it's like going to the gym. You know,
it's like it's a great workout for we love it.

Speaker 9 (01:54:27):
The main key, the main kids, make sure you get
your rests. We do not go out and party at
clubs after We never did day all night.

Speaker 4 (01:54:34):
We never did.

Speaker 10 (01:54:35):
We go to bed and get our rest.

Speaker 9 (01:54:37):
So we can be ready to go the next day. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:54:39):
I was s curious to know too, like y'all's you know,
because y'all were raised Jovah's witness, and I was scarious
to know how your parents at that time, you know,
when y'all were kids and just throughout your career, how
much did your faith play in you know, I guess
developing that discipline that you guys talk about. And how
did your parents say, Okay, y'all, can you got your career,
but you also will have to I guess worship in

(01:55:01):
whatever way.

Speaker 6 (01:55:02):
How did y'all strike about us?

Speaker 9 (01:55:03):
Well, my mom was different long as you had some
type of spiritual belief or whatever, but they understood that
uh dollar Bill's got you out of Gary.

Speaker 6 (01:55:13):
Let's talk about it.

Speaker 9 (01:55:17):
But we say, but what I loved about my mam
is that she didn't try to force the religion. Yeah, uh,
you know Jehovah Williams, because when I got married, you know,
I I became a Catholic and a Catholic church all
the time, and things.

Speaker 10 (01:55:33):
Got My wife.

Speaker 9 (01:55:34):
As long as you had some type of belief and
and God in your life and tried to do the
right thing, she was comfortable with that. Now my sister,
my sister reb she's different, she's still she thought and
washed towels that.

Speaker 11 (01:55:47):
You and Michael. And Michael was baptized too. Michael got baptized.
He was baptized at one time, and he told me
to story that he was really serious. It was a Saturday,
you know how Joe Woodness knocked on the door and
talked to West towner. So Michael knocked on this girl's door.

(01:56:10):
She opened the door and realized it was him, and
she started peeing. He said, she started peeing, right, she.

Speaker 1 (01:56:22):
You know what to do.

Speaker 11 (01:56:23):
He told me, he's trying to teach her about Jehovah,
the God, Jehovah God, right, and she's realizing, but she
just stopped.

Speaker 4 (01:56:34):
This is a true story, yeah, true story.

Speaker 1 (01:56:39):
That is our clip for this episode.

Speaker 8 (01:56:43):
I can't wait to see it animated.

Speaker 4 (01:56:50):
Yeah, he was really serious.

Speaker 11 (01:56:52):
Bill Brave was waiting for him, because Bill Brave, you know,
he would go waiting at times, you know, standing standing
over the corner and wait for him, you know, and
and he would throw out and people. It was kind
of hard for him to do that at the time,
but he did it, you know, and so and so
some of the things he really wanted to do, he
had to get out of the faith, you know, he
had to get out of your witness due to really
do his thing where he really wanted to go.

Speaker 4 (01:57:14):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:57:15):
Yeah, I'm never going to get that visual up. Oh,
thank you, Jackie. I appreciate that. I can ask questions forever.
Have you guys have done your questions?

Speaker 8 (01:57:27):
I got one family question.

Speaker 15 (01:57:29):
I want to know throughout your lives and actually now
post Roona, how you guys maintained speaking to each other,
how you guys maintain because it's eight it's eight of
y'all Jackson family, right, we.

Speaker 11 (01:57:43):
Do this sometimes like we're doing right now. And sometimes
Tito would come in my house. I'll be Tito at
a park, you know, we meet, you know, his wife
and my wife we meet with the kids and at
a park, you know, we do that sometimes. And because
it's it's really serious out there, you know, with this coronavirus,
and you gotta be real, real care, especially.

Speaker 4 (01:58:01):
In California this way.

Speaker 8 (01:58:02):
Yes, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:58:06):
It's tough. You gotta I mean, you have to mess up,
keep your hands clean. And that's what we do so far.
So far, I'm good. How is Rebe?

Speaker 9 (01:58:15):
Ma?

Speaker 4 (01:58:16):
Reebe's doing well.

Speaker 13 (01:58:16):
She lives with my mom.

Speaker 4 (01:58:17):
She stayed with my mom.

Speaker 11 (01:58:19):
Watch my mom, my, mam and Reebe together and I
love it. They're decorating the house right now, doing it
all over again.

Speaker 4 (01:58:25):
And that's what my mom is doing.

Speaker 11 (01:58:27):
She's so alert. You're talking to my mom. You think
she's around forty years old?

Speaker 4 (01:58:31):
Yo, your mom?

Speaker 8 (01:58:32):
How old is she now, Jackie, she'll be.

Speaker 1 (01:58:34):
Ninety one May fourth, ninety Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 10 (01:58:39):
She's ninety now.

Speaker 14 (01:58:40):
She'd be ninety one. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. She's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
That's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:58:47):
I'm happy when she wake up every morning, you know,
happy to see her.

Speaker 1 (01:58:52):
My last question was I know that you guys often
talk about like you guys try to get together as
a family and all that, but with the kids, until
how how hard is it to organize Jackson family reunions.

Speaker 14 (01:59:10):
Right now?

Speaker 1 (01:59:10):
Does that still happen?

Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
Not right now?

Speaker 4 (01:59:12):
It's very difficult to do that right now. Right now
is very before. We do it all the time.

Speaker 8 (01:59:18):
Three hundred Jackson Street. The video that was like real life, Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
To be the person that cooks that food.

Speaker 8 (01:59:24):
Okay, they got somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:59:29):
No, you know what, I met your I met the
I met your dessert maker, the woman that makes all
the cakes and I forget her.

Speaker 4 (01:59:37):
Name he's talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:59:40):
He's talking about she makes this German chocolate cake that's.

Speaker 14 (01:59:45):
Out of Come on, you know Cordia.

Speaker 1 (01:59:48):
Cordia, Cordia.

Speaker 4 (01:59:50):
Yeah, Cordia. Not only what she does for will Smith too.

Speaker 1 (01:59:54):
No, she does for everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:59:56):
Like, uh, she came to a Janet show and she's
snub I think at the time, Jane's like, I'm not
supposed to have this, and she snuck her like a
Kate coochy like real cover It' style, like back Alley
Deals sort of thing. And then she introduced herself to
me and I was like, oh, you've been making cakes
with the Jackson's how long?

Speaker 1 (02:00:15):
And then she med, well, now she's official. Man, she's
she's great, amazing, amazing question quest.

Speaker 11 (02:00:24):
Can I say something? Yeah, I'd like to thank you man.
You've been so supportive in my family. We would go
to we would go to uh fight Star hotels. Right,
we walk into hotels and on the coffee table be
this big coffee book, right.

Speaker 4 (02:00:41):
And I opened it up. It's you and there you
in the book. Really, there's a lot of hotels.

Speaker 11 (02:00:47):
You were inside the book and you're standing there with
all Jackson parafamilia all all over the place with the
Jackson's albums.

Speaker 4 (02:00:55):
And I would see this and that's how I learned
that you were you know, I think, yeah, I mean,
I said, thank this guy.

Speaker 9 (02:01:04):
You know, the biggest the biggest picture I saw was
in Heartbreak Hotel. Not just kidding.

Speaker 4 (02:01:15):
And I see yo for real in London. Everywhere we go,
we see you in these books.

Speaker 15 (02:01:20):
Man.

Speaker 4 (02:01:22):
On the coffee table, there's London hotels.

Speaker 1 (02:01:24):
Yeah, I must get around everywhere. You know you guys,
you guys are you know our first superheroes.

Speaker 7 (02:01:34):
Yeah, I'm roll to you man, like literally, you'll music
has been a part of my life. I'm for to
your music has been You've been Your music has been
a part of my life, like my whole life, like
I don't ever remember point of my life not knowing
a Jackson song or hearing the music in my house
or my mother playing or whatever. And na, man, I
just give you'all brother's flowers, love y'allowers.

Speaker 1 (02:02:00):
Thank you, except giving was right now give it.

Speaker 15 (02:02:08):
And I remind people again when we go outside, go
see the Jackson's live it is just like it was ten, fifteen,
twenty thirty four.

Speaker 8 (02:02:16):
It's a it's all the same, yes, just the same
as gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (02:02:20):
Thank you very much for this podcast. I really appreciate Tito.
Can I ask one final question? Mark hell I it
came out.

Speaker 5 (02:02:32):
Now just you don't often get a chance to ask
motown legends who their favorite Motown legends are. So I'm
just wondering who, like, as on a personal level, who
your favorite Motown artist or band was, if you could
just pick one, well project besides the J five'll.

Speaker 11 (02:02:48):
Be Barbie Gay, yeah, marm Tito. For me, it's like
the Temptations. They they're the ones who really we watched
a lot of Temptations it was and Dinah Ross. I
hate to say it, I got I got to bring
her up.

Speaker 4 (02:03:04):
I have to and the Pips.

Speaker 10 (02:03:08):
Yeah no, no, no, squad.

Speaker 1 (02:03:14):
Actually, wait, everybody wait.

Speaker 2 (02:03:19):
Steve actually brought up something that we normally asked and
I didn't ask Stevie.

Speaker 1 (02:03:24):
Oh, I'm sorry, Okay, I'm sorry. Of course, cousin Stevie.

Speaker 10 (02:03:29):
Marvi gave my thing.

Speaker 1 (02:03:31):
I was going to say, uh, well, normally.

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
Steve asked this question. But when you guys were in
that in Senio house, what was the record collection?

Speaker 11 (02:03:40):
Like?

Speaker 1 (02:03:41):
Oh, and where is it now?

Speaker 14 (02:03:43):
Like?

Speaker 1 (02:03:45):
How big was the record collection? And who decided what
got played?

Speaker 9 (02:03:50):
We will had our own record collection, I believe.

Speaker 10 (02:03:54):
I mean I listened.

Speaker 9 (02:03:55):
I mean I got a lot of Quincy Jones albums.
I had Marvin's Distant Lovers album. I had Backstabbers, Hell
Mervyn and the Blue Notes eight Yes, Yes, deliver tracks
Science still Delivered, and we, you know, had the stuff

(02:04:17):
on cassettes.

Speaker 10 (02:04:17):
Y'all forgot about cassettes, you know, so we you know, Jackie, Jackie,
it's a blessing to see these numbers.

Speaker 9 (02:04:27):
I know a lot of jumpers don't get to see
these numbers, but uh, you know, we listened. We listened
to all kinds of music, I mean country, Western music.

Speaker 15 (02:04:38):
Uh did.

Speaker 10 (02:04:41):
All kinds of it all because great music is great music.
I don't care what genre is is you know great music.

Speaker 4 (02:04:48):
It's just great music, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):
Amen? Okay, Well, and.

Speaker 4 (02:04:54):
Having said that, I'm Blad Jackson.

Speaker 9 (02:04:56):
You on the Quest Love Show. Babies who need the show?

Speaker 1 (02:05:02):
All right, we'll be having We'll be having everyone.

Speaker 6 (02:05:05):
This is.

Speaker 8 (02:05:08):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:05:09):
We'll see all on the next go around this Question
Love Supreme. Thank you, yo.

Speaker 6 (02:05:19):
What's up?

Speaker 1 (02:05:19):
This is fonte.

Speaker 6 (02:05:21):
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
QLs and let us know what you think and who
should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget
to subscribe to our podcast, all right, peace.

Speaker 1 (02:05:38):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

Popular Podcasts

Betrayal Weekly

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}QLS Classic: The Jacksons