Re: MOTOWN: Michael & The Jackson 5
The big glove-in
Article courtesy of Julien’s Auctions
M
OTOWN 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever was a television special taped before a live studio audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in California on March 25, 1983, and broadcast on NBC on May 16, 1983.
The retrospective performance show featured the Commodores, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, a reunion of Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and many other performers.
Original art: Painting (76cm x 38cm) of Charlie Chaplin created by Michael Jackson when he was nine. Jackson called Chaplin his ‘inspiration’ and recorded a version of Chaplin’s signature song Smile in 1997. Estimate: US$2,000 to $3,000.
In addition to all of the top names from Motown past and present, the show featured a reunion of the original five Jackson brothers who performed under the name the Jackson 5 while recording for Motown.
Michael recalled how this reunion came to be, in his 1988 autobiography
Moonwalk:
“I’m forced to admit I had to be talked into doing it. I’m glad I did because the show eventually produced some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life. ... I had been asked to appear as a member of the Jacksons and then to do a dance number on my own. But none of us were Motown artistes any longer.
“I thought about how much Berry Gordy had done for me and the group, but I told my managers and Motown that I didn’t want to go on TV. My whole attitude toward TV is fairly negative. Eventually Berry came to me to discuss it at length. I said, ‘Okay, but if I do it, I want to do
Billie Jean.’ It would have been the only non-Motown song in the whole show. He told me that’s what he wanted me to do anyway. So we agreed to do a Jacksons medley. We were all thrilled.”
Michael went on to describe how he gathered his brothers and began rehearsing the medley they woud perform on the show.
“I really worked them, and it felt nice, a bit like the old days of the Jackson 5. I choreographed them and rehearsed them for days at our house in Encino.”
Michael’s attention was focused on the Jackson’s group performance, and he admitted that during the dress rehearsals at the Pasadena auditorium when it came time to rehearse to his performance of
Billie Jean, “I just walked through it because as yet I had nothing planned. I hadn’t had time because I was so busy rehearsing the group.”
Zombie attire: Suit and shirts ripped, stained, airbrushed and adorned with material to create a zombie look. Estimate: US$400 to US$1,200.
Because he didn’t know exactly what he was planning to do with the performance, he details how his wardrobe for the evening came together in the last moments leading up to the show.
He called his management office after the dress performance and said: “Please order me a spy’s hat, like a cool fedora, something a secret agent would wear.”
He goes on to explain that he had found the black jacket during the
Thriller sessions and said: “You know, someday I’m going to wear this to perform. It was so perfect and so show business that I wore it on
Motown 25.”
The last element of “the look” he created was “the glove”. He commented in his autobiography: “I had been wearing a single glove for years before
Thriller.I was wearing it on some of the old tours back in the 1970s, and I wore one glove during the
Off the Wall tour and on the cover of the live album that came out afterward. I actually had been wearing the glove for a long time, but it hadn’t gotten a lot of attention until all of a sudden it hit with
Thriller in 1983.”
Jackson had been wearing a crystal-studded glove for almost a decade by this point. The gloves from this era were made by costumer Bill Whitten (who also did the Commodores’ costumes through the height of their career) and were covered with individually hand-sewn Swarovski crystals, a meticulous and time-consuming process.
It is likely that because his dance routine did not come together until the very last second, Jackson had only decided to wear the glove on his left hand at the last minute.
Zombie attire
“The night before taping, I still had no idea what I was going to do with my solo number. So I went down to the kitchen of our house and played
Billie Jean. I pretty much stood there and let the song tell me what to do. I kind of let the dance create itself.”
The result of this late night burst of inspiration featured a number of moves to be performed with Jackson’s right hand, including removing then tossing his fedora, removing a comb from his back pocket and combing his hair.
Perhaps these moves performed with his right hand were the reason he decided to un-characteristically wear the glove on his left hand for the performance.
This glove was clearly made in a hurried fashion, unlike the other meticulously made gloves from that period and it stands to reason that this was due to the last minute creation of the performance itself. It is now estimated to go for US$40,000 to US$60,000 at the auction.
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/8/25/lifeliving/4553903&sec=lifeliving
