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Analyzing Michael Jackson: The Genius Behind the Music-Chicago

CherubimII

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www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-live-0928-jazz-michael-jackson-20100927,0,2495985.column
chicagotribune.com

Analyzing Michael Jackson: The Genius Behind the Music

Howard Reich

Arts critic
12:51 PM CDT, September 27, 2010


Was Michael Jackson a genius?
No doubt about it, according to experts who convened over the weekend at the Harold Washington Library Center to explore the topic.

For more than three uninterrupted hours, the Jackson aficionados played audio tracks, showed video, traded anecdotes and otherwise analyzed one of the most prolific careers in American music – albeit one cut short by the singer-songwriter's tragic death last year, at age 50.

With a throng of Jackson admirers queuing up an hour in advance on Friday night, the connoisseurs were preaching to the choir – and they did not shy away from the "g" word.
"He IS a genius," proclaimed reissues producer Harry Weinger, refusing to revert to past tense.

By way of proof, Weinger played tracks from early Jackson recordings – many still unreleased – drawing from Weinger's work on forthcoming Motown and Jackson 5 catalog reissues. In one excerpt after another, listeners heard Jackson as a child, singing with remarkable prodigiousness.

The most shattering cut was an a cappella version of "Never Can Say Goodbye," a pre-teen Jackson phrasing like a master. Without the benefits of instrumental or rhythmic support, Jackson easily keeps time, but he also finds ways to stretch it. He unerringly holds his pitch, until he decides to bend it, for expressive purposes.
The yearning intensity of Jackson's tone, the disarming "oohs" and "aahs" he improvises at key moments in the song, the silvery clarity of his high-pitched voice simply defy rational explanation. No one under 12 can sing with such craft, ardor and musical wisdom without the benefit of extraordinary gifts.

Jackson's talents, of course, eventually made him an object of adoration around the globe, the crushing attention perhaps explaining some idiosyncracies of his personality.
"The guy was painfully shy," said keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, who recorded and toured prolifically with Jackson.

"You may wonder, 'How could he be so shy?'" asked Phillinganes, pointing to a performer who appeared fearless on stage.
"If you were chased (by fans), and you had to run for your life, if that's what you experience from 11, you would be a little different, too."

The real Michael Jackson, explained Phillinganes, was the man who stood before the microphone – particularly in the recording studio – and let all that glorious music flow out of him, without qualm or inhibition.

When Jackson was recording "She's Out of My Life," with Phillinganes on keyboard, they kept reworking and refining the performance, the pianist remembered.
"And at the end of every take, he'd cry," said Phillinganes. "And it was real."

All the panelists in the symposium, which was organized by the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago, concurred that Jackson was thoroughly "hands-on" in recording sessions.

Though he didn't play instruments – with the exception of a rare turn on drums – he routinely "would sing percussion parts and bass lines" and other musical details, recalled singer Siedah Garrett, who wrote "Man in the Mirror" with Jackson and duetted with him on the single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You."
Yet for all Jackson's involvement with musical and production aspects of his recordings, he often would playfully wreak havoc in the midst of sessions.

"Michael would make it his business to make other artists mess up," recalled Garrett, with a laugh. "He would sing his part. Then when I would sing my part, he would throw peanuts or something at me.
"And Q (producer Quincy Jones) would say (to Garrett), 'You're wasting studio time!' "

The cumulative effect of all these insider recollections and newly unearthed recordings proved quite moving, especially to those in the audience who already revered Jackson.
"You gave me the soundtrack to my life," one observer told those on the stage, a lineup that included Jackson drummer Ricky Lawson and former record executive Ed Eckstein.

Toward the end of the evening, 79-year-old Oscar Walden Jr., a Chicago TV and radio producer, got up from his seat in the crowd and, leaning on his cane, prepared to read a poem he had
written for Jackson.
"I love Michael," he told the crowd, which fell to a hush.
"He was a genius."

Here it is:
"Never Can Goodbye" Acapella
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[youtube]XK0R2dBhmsk[/youtube]
 
great read and the man was a Musical Genius who had that "IT" before he was a teen. I mean he just knew his place and he knew how to bring it. he was truly one of a Kind.
 
Thanks for posting the article. It's nice to see how more and more people start to appreciate Michael's talents.

Being an extraodinary vocalist is just one of Michael's many talents. The man can dance like no others. The man was also an amazing songwriter. The man also had a heart made with gold.

When God created Michael, God definitely put more time and effort in the process.
 
Michael Jackson, as a child had an IQ of about 108, as a teenager, 119, and before his death, 164, meaning he was off the chart, towering over profound intelligence by 24 points.

Note: Albert Einstein 160, Bill Gates 160, and Stephen Hawking 160

His Oxford speech and the poems from Dancing the Dream are proof that he was more than a musical genius

IQ Range

Classification
140 and over Genius or near genius
120-140 Very superior intelligence
110-120 Superior intelligence
90-110 Normal or average intelligence
80-90 Dullness
70-80 Borderline deficiency
Below 70 Definite feeble-mindedness
Click to expand...

Yes, he was a genius!!!
 
Last edited:
Great, great article. Thanks for sharing CherubimII. Though fans already know it, I'm happy to read Michael openly be called a genius.

Yet for all Jackson's involvement with musical and production aspects of his recordings, he often would playfully wreak havoc in the midst of sessions.

"Michael would make it his business to make other artists mess up," recalled Garrett, with a laugh. "He would sing his part. Then when I would sing my part, he would throw peanuts or something at me.
"And Q (producer Quincy Jones) would say (to Garrett), 'You're wasting studio time!' "
Click to expand...

:lol: Gotta appreciate his sense of humour too.
 
You guys I attended this. It was awesome. I attended the entire symposium and the event on Friday night. It was wonderful to see Michael honored from an academic perspective. To read that Michael's IQ was that high is stunning. I'm not surprised, it's just nice to hear it. Thank you for posting that information and for the article on the symposium.
 
windy09 said:
You guys I attended this. It was awesome. I attended the entire symposium and the event on Friday night. It was wonderful to see Michael honored from an academic perspective. To read that Michael's IQ was that high is stunning. I'm not surprised, it's just nice to hear it. Thank you for posting that information and for the article on the symposium.
Click to expand...

Oh I'm jealous!!! I wanted to go so bad, but my new job just started and I simply could not afford to miss a day.

Still hoping for a leaked recording or something.
 
love is magical said:
may i ask where you get the IQ info from? i'm not doubting Michael's intelligence. I always know he's extremely smart.

also, his sound engineer said he had photographic memory. he membered the sound of each mix.
Click to expand...

It was in a site in my country and I can`t guarantee how accurate it is, but I definitely think that Michael channeled to those results.
 
CAUTION: Big block of text ahead.

I attended this. While I loved the event on Friday night and the presentation on Saturday, a lot of it was very hit or miss. Some of the presentations were severely lacking thorough research from many of the participants, the most notable one being Gregory Tate. I would almost go so far as to say that he made quite an embarrassment of himself on Friday morning.

While I appreciated his paper on 'Killer Mike' his paper seemed superfluous and he stumbled quite a bit during the Q&A portion of his presentation. Then he, freely, admitted that most of his research came from Taraborrelli's book. Even though the point of his piece was to stress what an astute businessman or 'hustler' Michael Jackson was, upon further questioning he later blurted out that MJ had, simply, become broke in his later years. Then, he had the audacity to say "I think you guys are forgetting that no one was impressed with his later work." When asked about whether he will write a book on MJ's works, Mr. Tate quickly replied "I'm doing a book James Brown." While that is good and all, that was not the question that was asked of him. Also, this symposium isn't about James Brown, it's about MJ. If Mr. Greg Tate could have been so inclined, he could have focused his presentation on the staggering similarities of James Brown and MJ, and how much they had in common or whatever. It was clear that Mr. Greg Tate wasn't even really interested in the subject of the symposium at all as it had become clear in his presentation which left way too much to be desired.

I will admit, in his defense, that researching Michael Jackson is no easy task. Just trying to weed out the tabloid fodder from the truth takes a lot of hard work & dedication. Which is why it would have been easier for him to have just focused on one area, in particular. I felt that he didn't which resulted in his paper & presentation being all over the place. This probably resulted from his lack of interest in the subject though. I ran into him later in the middle of the day. As much as I wanted to approach him about the fact that he made an ass out of himself, my friend, quickly broke the awkward silence by claiming that we were hungry and couldn't wait to get lunch. She told me later that she didn't want to get into a discussion about his presentation so she brought up something else. She's a good friend.

Raquel L. Monroe & Bonnie Brooks had a great presentation about how he took from so many people before him and applied it to his own art. They said that his ability to take from them and make it his own is what made his genius shine even more. They also touched upon how there was a conflict of male and female aspects in his dancing. One female aspect was the focus of movement with the bones and joints. This was in stark contrast with Chris Brown, who they felt, was the only one to best capture MJ's movements. While some in the audience grumbled at the notion, they explained that Chris Brown utilizes his weight in trying recreate MJ's moves rather than trying to fight against it.

Though, the absence of Jeff Daniels being the one to teach him the moonwalk seemed to almost have started a riot in the room. I think that people missed the point of their presentation in that case. Then when someone asked if there were any ballet influence in his dance Raquel blurted out a very quick 'NO.' This caused another ruckus in the room, because, as someone revealed to me, he did study with Mikhail Baryshnikov, apparently. Though, even for all of that, someone inquired about the glaring omission of the Panther Dance from their presentation. Raquel answered that she omitted it, because she didn't like the song. A deep sigh escaped from my lungs when she said that.

The equivalent of that would be someone doing a report on the artistry of Pablo Picasso and only focusing on his cubism period. That would insure a pretty low grade as the report would be incomplete. How can you even bother to try and call yourself studying an artist to only focusing on one small period of their work? It's insane. How can you then call yourself studying the artist? That's not studying them. That's only studying that particular body of work. Whenever I see anything done on the Beatles, it's usually encompassing their entire work rather than just one time period. If you, can not take all of MJ's career as a case of academic discussion seriously, then how can you expect others to do the same? After you acquired all of your degrees did your brain just burn out that even the most basic of sense has escaped you? If you are only going to focus on one particular time period, then so be it, but announce it before you present your paper. It's not rocket science, in the least.

Daphne Brooks shared her presentation w/us as well, but it was the only time in my life in which I could not take any notes. This is was due to the fact that she was reciting her paper faster than the speed of sound. Then she put on videos, which ended up being way more enticing than what was coming out of her mouth. Around the end of it she revealed how much Janelle Monae and Michael Jackson had in common and she, desperately, wanted to share that with us, but she was out of time. I could not share in her disappointment as it was my utter joy. Throughout the course of the day though, she kept mentioning the performer's name which was met with some groaning throughout the audience, I being one of them.

Stephanie Shonekan had a great presentation about Michael Jackson and Nigeria. Well, anything after the disaster that was Gregory Tate's presentation can be considered gold. Anyways, she talked about how much Michael Jackson was revered in Nigeria and how, out of everyone else, his influence and music has endured the longest. Then, she shared with us some of the viewpoints of the people she had spoken to about the artist and their impression of him. While they enjoyed the man's music, they felt disconnected with him as a black man. Unfortunately, the misinformation that Western media spread about his trip to Africa proved to have made a permanent scar in their opinion of him. Also, even when presented with the fact that he did have vitiligo, they still question his decision to acquire European like features. When she asked her subjects to identify James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Prince, they did this:

James Brown - African American
Michael Jackson - American
Prince - ??????????

While the Prince portion did strike off a good laughter from the audience, Stephanie's voice seemed tinged with sadness as many of her subjects did not know much about MJ besides what they are fed from Western MSM. She also mentioned that they were heavily annoyed by the fact that in Liberian Girl the girl in the beginning was speaking Swahili instead and they weren't big fans of the video. (Well, couldn't blame them there, that's for damn sure.) In the end though, they still viewed MJ as simply, 'pop music.' During the Q&A someone questioned her if the views of her older subjects matched that of her younger ones. She revealed that she didn't even look into that and that she was interested in that herself.

While that may have seemed like a big "derp" to me. I would imagine that those born after the Jackson 5/Jacksons era would have an entirely different opinion of the man. The same expectations would not be placed upon him. After the presentation, I went to talk to her about how her they viewed black/white Americans as well as Europeans. She withheld this information during her presentation due to not wanting to offend anyone. When she told me, I felt that the views that many of her subjects had on MJ, the human being, made sense. In fact, I felt that it put it into perspective for me.

The last one on Friday was from Mark Anthony Neal. His was about how it is common in black music to take something from another artist and to make it your own. In fact, it seems to be some sort o requirement. He claimed that this is perfectly illustrated when Michael took Smokey Robinson's "Who's Lovin' You?" and made it is own. Basically, you have to obscure the reference and the better you are at doing the that, the more you have a chance at setting your credibility as an artist in stone. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the presentation, because I became enraged at his later comments. Some of them were "Prince fared a lot better and his still relevant, because he kept putting out albums. Robert Sylvester Kelly fared out better because he was in the studio putting out albums rather than losing himself in the allegations against him. The only good song on Invincible is Butterflies." While I respect that latter statement as his opinion, I felt that the previous two comments suffered from pure amnesia from the last 20 years of MJ's life and career.

Prince and R.Kelly are not Michael Jackson and he is not them. Prince and R.Kelly have way more freedom simply because they are not Michael Jackson. Even now, in death, they are still doubting the new album because unless it is Thriller, they will not recognize it as being anything significant. R.Kelly and Prince will never have to worry about things like this in life or death. Knowing that, I felt that the comparisons were wholly unfair.

Either way, the event on Friday night and Saturday morning were the best parts of the symposium. Getting to hear stories from the people who worked with MJ was amazing and Siedah Garret is a riot. She even explained Michael's contribution to Man in the Mirror. She said that after she dropped the tape Quincy called her with some suggestions that Michael had for the song. One thing, in particular, was that he wanted her to make the bridge stronger. Not wanting him to get songwriting credits, she gave him options until he chose the one with the line "...when you close your mind." I was really interested in that part, because she stated previously that he helped with the song enough not to get songwriting credits and I was interested in how much guidance he had given her. She also relayed another story of how when she first met him he was wearing one brown sock and one gray sock. After some time had passed she questioned his fashion choice with "Dude...what's up with your socks?" He told her that he had gotten dressed in the dark that day. So the next time they met he called out her attention to the fact that he had on matching socks. With that she told him while the sky blue socks matched, they didn't go with anything else he had on.

Also, the last panel on Saturday was a real eye opener. Jacob Austen was looking up information on the Jackson 5, or the black music scene, in Chicago during 1965-1968 and realized that there is, literally, no information on that time period as well as no reflection of that on Jackson 5 wikipedia page. So, he took it upon himself to go and do the research and hunted down the men who worked with the Jackson family at that time. There was another musician up there who said that he worked the same clubs and talent shows as the family. He had even gotten special permission from the Muscians' Union to join them. They all told us stories of when they encountered the family when they worked with them. Mr. Austen showed us the clip of the Jackson 5 playing at the Miss Black America pageant at the MSG in NYC and what a big difference there is between that and their performances with Motown. He stated that Michael had the ability to appeal to both kinds of demographics, the younger and older one. This was due to the fact that Michael and his brothers had been trained to appeal to that kind of audience when they first started. It is not easy to keep the attention of an older crowd, especially ones that are drinking and enjoying the nightlife after a hard day's work. He also mentioned how Michael came in contact with a lot of transsexual performers and the overwhelming response that they had received.

During the panel he brought out Gordon Keith, who created Steeltown records and he expressed his utter disdain for Joseph Jackson and how the man doublecrossed him. Gordon revealed that he was the only one had who had signed them and was looking at Capital records who was interested in the group. They said that they can make them bigger than the Beatles. Unfortunately, Joe ended up signing with Motown instead, because Joe idolized the label and was in direct conflict with their contract. This is why the Jackson 5 had to wait out an entire year before being released in 1969. Apparently, legally, he is owed money, but claims that Motown and Joe are trying to erase his existence from the Jackson 5 legacy.

He also had some original vinyls of Big Boy up for sale, but at $1000 a piece, I couldn't afford them. =(

Well, that was the weekend in a nutshell. If there is anyone really interested in a really good MJ presentation, I would recommend the one that Berkley did last year. They have all the presentations up online to watch.

TL; DR? Friday night was the absolute highlight of the event, along with Saturday morning. Otherwise go watch the one the University of California, Berkeley did instead and you will not feel as if you missed out on anything.
 
Last edited:
redcrush said:
CAUTION: Big block of text ahead.

I attended this. While I loved the event on Friday night and the presentation on Saturday, a lot of it was very hit or miss. Some of the presentations were severely lacking thorough research from many of the participants, the most notable one being Gregory Tate. I would almost go so far as to say that he made quite an embarrassment of himself on Friday morning.

While I appreciated his paper on 'Killer Mike' his paper seemed superfluous and he stumbled quite a bit during the Q&A portion of his presentation. Then he, freely, admitted that most of his research came from Taraborrelli's book. Even though the point of his piece was to stress what an astute businessman or 'hustler' Michael Jackson was, upon further questioning he later blurted out that MJ had, simply, become broke in his later years. Then, he had the audacity to say "I think you guys are forgetting that no one was impressed with his later work." When asked about whether he will write a book on MJ's works, Mr. Tate quickly replied "I'm doing a book James Brown." While that is good and all, that was not the question that was asked of him. Also, this symposium isn't about James Brown, it's about MJ. If Mr. Greg Tate could have been so inclined, he could have focused his presentation on the staggering similarities of James Brown and MJ, and how much they had in common or whatever. It was clear that Mr. Greg Tate wasn't even really interested in the subject of the symposium at all as it had become clear in his presentation which left way too much to be desired.

I will admit, in his defense, that researching Michael Jackson is no easy task. Just trying to weed out the tabloid fodder from the truth takes a lot of hard work & dedication. Which is why it would have been easier for him to have just focused on one area, in particular. I felt that he didn't which resulted in his paper & presentation being all over the place. This probably resulted from his lack of interest in the subject though. I ran into him later in the middle of the day. As much as I wanted to approach him about the fact that he made an ass out of himself, my friend, quickly broke the awkward silence by claiming that we were hungry and couldn't wait to get lunch. She told me later that she didn't want to get into a discussion about his presentation so she brought up something else. She's a good friend.

Raquel L. Monroe & Bonnie Brooks had a great presentation about how he took from so many people before him and applied it to his own art. They said that his ability to take from them and make it his own is what made his genius shine even more. They also touched upon how there was a conflict of male and female aspects in his dancing. One female aspect was the focus of movement with the bones and joints. This was in stark contrast with Chris Brown, who they felt, was the only one to best capture MJ's movements. While some in the audience grumbled at the notion, they explained that Chris Brown utilizes his weight in trying recreate MJ's moves rather than trying to fight against it.

Though, the absence of Jeff Daniels being the one to teach him the moonwalk seemed to almost have started a riot in the room. I think that people missed the point of their presentation in that case. Then when someone asked if there were any ballet influence in his dance Raquel blurted out a very quick 'NO.' This caused another ruckus in the room, because, as someone revealed to me, he did study with Mikhail Baryshnikov, apparently. Though, even for all of that, someone inquired about the glaring omission of the Panther Dance from their presentation. Raquel answered that she omitted it, because she didn't like the song. A deep sigh escaped from my lungs when she said that.

The equivalent of that would be someone doing a report on the artistry of Pablo Picasso and only focusing on his cubism period. That would insure a pretty low grade as the report would be incomplete. How can you even bother to try and call yourself studying an artist to only focusing on one small period of their work? It's insane. How can you then call yourself studying the artist? That's not studying them. That's only studying that particular body of work. Whenever I see anything done on the Beatles, it's usually encompassing their entire work rather than just one time period. If you, can not take all of MJ's career as a case of academic discussion seriously, then how can you expect others to do the same? After you acquired all of your degrees did your brain just burn out that even the most basic of sense has escaped you? If you are only going to focus on one particular time period, then so be it, but announce it before you present your paper. It's not rocket science, in the least.

Daphne Brooks shared her presentation w/us as well, but it was the only time in my life in which I could not take any notes. This is was due to the fact that she was reciting her paper faster than the speed of sound. Then she put on videos, which ended up being way more enticing than what was coming out of her mouth. Around the end of it she revealed how much Janelle Monae and Michael Jackson had in common and she, desperately, wanted to share that with us, but she was out of time. I could not share in her disappointment as it was my utter joy. Throughout the course of the day though, she kept mentioning the performer's name which was met with some groaning throughout the audience, I being one of them.

Stephanie Shonekan had a great presentation about Michael Jackson and Nigeria. Well, anything after the disaster that was Gregory Tate's presentation can be considered gold. Anyways, she talked about how much Michael Jackson was revered in Nigeria and how, out of everyone else, his influence and music has endured the longest. Then, she shared with us some of the viewpoints of the people she had spoken to about the artist and their impression of him. While they enjoyed the man's music, they felt disconnected with him as a black man. Unfortunately, the misinformation that Western media spread about his trip to Africa proved to have made a permanent scar in their opinion of him. Also, even when presented with the fact that he did have vitiligo, they still question his decision to acquire European like features. When she asked her subjects to identify James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Prince, they did this:

James Brown - African American
Michael Jackson - American
Prince - ??????????

While the Prince portion did strike off a good laughter from the audience, Stephanie's voice seemed tinged with sadness as many of her subjects did not know much about MJ besides what they are fed from Western MSM. She also mentioned that they were heavily annoyed by the fact that in Liberian Girl the girl in the beginning was speaking Swahili instead and they weren't big fans of the video. (Well, couldn't blame them there, that's for damn sure.) In the end though, they still viewed MJ as simply, 'pop music.' During the Q&A someone questioned her if the views of her older subjects matched that of her younger ones. She revealed that she didn't even look into that and that she was interested in that herself.

While that may have seemed like a big "derp" to me. I would imagine that those born after the Jackson 5/Jacksons era would have an entirely different opinion of the man. The same expectations would not be placed upon him. After the presentation, I went to talk to her about how her they viewed black/white Americans as well as Europeans. She withheld this information during her presentation due to not wanting to offend anyone. When she told me, I felt that the views that many of her subjects had on MJ, the human being, made sense. In fact, I felt that it put it into perspective for me.

The last one on Friday was from Mark Anthony Neal. His was about how it is common in black music to take something from another artist and to make it your own. In fact, it seems to be some sort o requirement. He claimed that this is perfectly illustrated when Michael took Smokey Robinson's "Who's Lovin' You?" and made it is own. Basically, you have to obscure the reference and the better you are at doing the that, the more you have a chance at setting your credibility as an artist in stone. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the presentation, because I became enraged at his later comments. Some of them were "Prince fared a lot better and his still relevant, because he kept putting out albums. Robert Sylvester Kelly fared out better because he was in the studio putting out albums rather than losing himself in the allegations against him. The only good song on Invincible is Butterflies." While I respect that latter statement as his opinion, I felt that the previous two comments suffered from pure amnesia from the last 20 years of MJ's life and career.

Prince and R.Kelly are not Michael Jackson and he is not them. Prince and R.Kelly have way more freedom simply because they are not Michael Jackson. Even now, in death, they are still doubting the new album because unless it is Thriller, they will not recognize it as being anything significant. R.Kelly and Prince will never have to worry about things like this in life or death. Knowing that, I felt that the comparisons were wholly unfair.

Either way, the event on Friday night and Saturday morning were the best parts of the symposium. Getting to hear stories from the people who worked with MJ was amazing and Siedah Garret is a riot. She even explained Michael's contribution to Man in the Mirror. She said that after she dropped the tape Quincy called her with some suggestions that Michael had for the song. One thing, in particular, was that he wanted her to make the bridge stronger. Not wanting him to get songwriting credits, she gave him options until he chose the one with the line "...when you close your mind." I was really interested in that part, because she stated previously that he helped with the song enough not to get songwriting credits and I was interested in how much guidance he had given her. She also relayed another story of how when she first met him he was wearing one brown sock and one gray sock. After some time had passed she questioned his fashion choice with "Dude...what's up with your socks?" He told her that he had gotten dressed in the dark that day. So the next time they met he called out her attention to the fact that he had on matching socks. With that she told him while the sky blue socks matched, they didn't go with anything else he had on.

Also, the last panel on Saturday was a real eye opener. Jacob Austen was looking up information on the Jackson 5, or the black music scene, in Chicago during 1965-1968 and realized that there is, literally, no information on that time period as well as no reflection of that on Jackson 5 wikipedia page. So, he took it upon himself to go and do the research and hunted down the men who worked with the Jackson family at that time. There was another musician up there who said that he worked the same clubs and talent shows as the family. He had even gotten special permission from the Muscians' Union to join them. They all told us stories of when they encountered the family when they worked with them. Mr. Austen showed us the clip of the Jackson 5 playing at the Miss Black America pageant at the MSG in NYC and what a big difference there is between that and their performances with Motown. He stated that Michael had the ability to appeal to both kinds of demographics, the younger and older one. This was due to the fact that Michael and his brothers had been trained to appeal to that kind of audience when they first started. It is not easy to keep the attention of an older crowd, especially ones that are drinking and enjoying the nightlife after a hard day's work. He also mentioned how Michael came in contact with a lot of transsexual performers and the overwhelming response that they had received.

During the panel he brought out Gordon Keith, who created Steeltown records and he expressed his utter disdain for Joseph Jackson and how the man doublecrossed him. Gordon revealed that he was the only one had who had signed them and was looking at Capital records who was interested in the group. They said that they can make them bigger than the Beatles. Unfortunately, Joe ended up signing with Motown instead, because Joe idolized the label and was in direct conflict with their contract. This is why the Jackson 5 had to wait out an entire year before being released in 1969. Apparently, legally, he is owed money, but claims that Motown and Joe are trying to erase his existence from the Jackson 5 legacy.

He also had some original vinyls of Big Boy up for sale, but at $1000 a piece, I couldn't afford them. =(

Well, that was the weekend in a nutshell. If there is anyone really interested in a really good MJ presentation, I would recommend the one that Berkley did last year. They have all the presentations up online to watch.

TL; DR? Friday night was the absolute highlight of the event, along with Saturday morning. Otherwise go watch the one the University of California, Berkeley did instead and you will not feel as if you missed out on anything.
Click to expand...

Very informative
thank you so much
 
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