Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (3 page)

After The Jackson 5 performed musical numbers, Joe ordered Michael to
crawl around on the beer-stained floor, looking up the dresses of screaming
but compliant women.

After these antics, customers would throw money on the dirty floor.
Michael would scamper around in the filth, collecting both coins and dollars.
Even though it was illegal for the Jackson boys to perform in these joints,
because they were minors, no police interference ever occurred.

In time, Michael himself would become an alluring, sexually ambiguous
figure, but he got his first taste of drag in a Chicago club euphemistically
called Guys & Dolls. An alluring blonde, who looked like Dolly Parton did in the Seventies, appeared on the bill. Michael remembered that she had "history's largest boobs," but when that G-string came off, "she" became a "he,"
"although not much of one."

Michael and Papa Joe

Some sources claim that Michael deepened his appreciation of crossdressing at the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in New York's Harlem. At the
Apollo, performers merely pulled off their wigs to reveal that they were men.
But at Guys & Dolls in Chicago, they actually flashed their male genitalia.

Some of the honky-tonks the boys appeared in were known as "blood
buckets" because of the violence that would occur on a rowdy Saturday night,
particularly after midnight.

Regardless of how late he stayed up on Saturday night, Michael always
got up to go to the Sunday meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses with Katherine.
Afterward, he would join her on door-to-door canvassing of his neighborhood,
trying to win new converts to their evangelical movement.

Even after fame came to Michael, he still joined La Toya and Katherine
on proselytizing trips to knock on the doors of neighbors' houses, soliciting
their enrollment in the "Kingdom of Heaven." Michael wore disguises and
usually fooled the adults. But the children often shouted at him, "I know who
you are! You're Michael Jackson!"

Rebecca Lowe, a neighbor of the Jackson family in Gary, remembered
years later seeing Michael come to her door. "He was well scrubbed and righteous looking, like a black choir boy. He didn't grab his crotch to simulate mas turbation. Nothing like that. He was always polite, even when we told him we
were ardent Roman Catholics and wanted nothing to do with the Jehovah's
Witness people."

Michael had just turned nine when Joe drove his sons to New York to perform at the fabled Apollo Theater. Louis Armstrong, Count Basic, Josephine
Baker; each of those legends had appeared at the Apollo.

That night, the Jackson brothers won the Apollo's amateur night contest.
"I have a date with destiny," Michael told the manager of the Apollo in one of
the most melodramatic statements ever uttered by a nine-year-old. But, as
those in show business and later the public were to learn, little pre-pubescent
Michael Jackson was no average boy.

On one of the hottest August nights in New York, in 1967, The Jackson 5
faced "the toughest audience in the world," although the same is said for the
patrons of La Scala in Milan.

Other "first timers" who broke in, appearing before the notoriously raucous audiences of the Apollo Theater, were Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday,
Leslie Uggams, and Ella Fitzgerald.

To Joe's amazement, his boys got a standing ovation instead of being
booed off the stage.

More bookings followed their win at the Apollo. The Jackson 5 hit
Chicago, appearing at the Regal. In Philadelphia Joe got them a booking at
the Uptown.

Upon their return to the Apollo, The Jackson 5 brothers were paid for their
performance. On the same bill was Michael's role model, James Brown, the
"King of Soul."

That night Michael stood in the wings, watching Brown's every move. It
is said that Michael learned to "whiplash" a mike into place or "motorize a
shuffle" across the stage by watching Brown do it first.

James Brown

In Rolling Stone, writer Gerri Hirshey claimed that "Michael's kindergarten was the basement of the Apollo Theater in New York. He was too shy
to actually approach the performers The Jackson 5 opened
for. He crept downstairs, along
passageways and walls and hid
there, peering from behind the
dusty flanks of old vaudeville
sets while musicians tuned,
smoked, played cards, and
divided barbecue. Climbing
back to the wings, he stood in
the protective folds of the musty maroon curtain, watching favorite acts, committing every double dip
and every bump, snap, whip-it-back mike toss, to his inventory of night
moves."

The writer was right. The Jackson 5, especially Michael, studied all the
top talent of the day, especially James Brown. Michael later recalled that seeing Brown perform for the first time was "a magical night."

Brown was an unlikely role model for Michael, but nonetheless he was
called "the Godfather of Soul." Born in Barnwell, South Carolina, he once
served 26 months in prison for leading police on a high-speed chase in
Georgia in 1988.

Like Michael in the future, Brown too would face charges of sexual abuse.
But Michael couldn't have cared less about Brown's personal troubles. Even
though still a kid, he knew greatness in a performer when he saw it. His judgment about Brown came true when the performer Michael so admired was
voted the seventh greatest rock 'n' roll artist of all time by Entertainment
Weekly.

An icon of the music industry, Brown had a great influence on soul music
in the 1960s, funk music in the 70s, and rap music in the 80s. Michael avidly
followed his hero's career. In 1992 Brown received a Lifetime Achievement
Grammy Award.

That night at the Apollo, when Brown learned that Michael was checking
out his every move, he asked to meet "that kid watching me."

Introduced to Brown, Michael was so in awe of his idol that he couldn't
utter a sound. Sensing the problem, Brown did all the talking, even taking time
to give Michael some advice. "Always keep changing your hair style-that
way, the public will keep noticing you. And always stay thin by taking a lot of
laxatives. Shit away the fat!"

In the weeks to come, Michael would be hailed as a "pint-sized James
Brown."

"Right from the beginning, audiences responded to Mike," Jackie later
said. "At the time he was into that James Brown stuff. He was a born mimic.
He stole ideas from entertainers everywhere. He could see a performer do
some trick just one time, and then he could immediately do the same thingit was amazing."

Michael and his brothers studied every move, every nuance the competition made. They often appeared on the same bill as The Temptations. With
their close-cropped hair, The Temptations bounced onto the stage in their
tight-fitting sharkskin suits and pointed Italian shoes. For their really big
appearances, Motown's director, Berry Gordy Jr. insisted that the singers wear
snappy, form-fitting tuxedos.

The Jackson brothers also appeared with such acts as Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Little Anthony and
The Imperials, and-more significantly-Gladys Knight and The Pips.

Gladys Knight and The Pips

"Michael picked up all our dance
steps," Gladys Knight recalled. "He
was like a sponge taking it all in. It
was amazing how he could watch a
routine and then make it part of his
own repertoire, giving whatever he'd
learned an original twist."

The Jackson brothers struggled to
acquire an education while constantly
performing, often far away from
home.

"Most of our lives we had private schooling," Michael said. "I only went
to one public school in my life-and that was in Gary. I tried another one in
Los Angeles, but it didn't work out. We'd be in our class and a bunch of fans
would break into the classroom. We'd come out of school and there'd be a
bunch of kids waiting to take our pictures. Stuff like that. I stayed at that
school for only one week. That's all we could take. After that, we had to enroll
in private schools."

Katherine feared that time might be running out for her boys. "In a few
years they'll look old and fat. They've got to make it now, especially since
Michael looks so adorable." She forced her husband to record a demo tape and
send it to Motown's
founder, Berry Gordy Jr.
But nothing ever came of
it.

Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers

By July of 1968,
success of a modest sort
had come for The
Jackson 5 when they
made another appearance
at the Regal in Chicago,
opening for Gladys
Knight and The Pips.
That performance earned
them their most recognition to date as well as
acclaim in the press.

"Everyone thinks we started at the top," Marlon said.
"But we traveled around for five
years before that. Five brothers and
two sisters, all crammed into a
Volkswagen van."

Gladys even called Gordy, her
boss at Motown, to come and look
at the show. He agreed to attend just
to see her perform. He arrived in
time to catch the end of The Jackson
5 appearance. "A very derivative
act," he later said. "I'm underwhelmed. Let them keep learning
their trade on the chitlin' circuit."

Role model, Diana Ross