Crib Notes

This was supposed to be the story of the Jackson Five’s first single, cut in Chicago in 1967. But while he was writing it, Jake Austen picked up a trail leading to a tape nobody knew existed: the earliest known studio recording of Michael Jackson and his brothers. — Chicago Reader

“The Jackson Find,” the cover story that appeared in last week’s Chicago Reader (sister paper of CL Atlanta), is a killer piece of investigative music journalism. It details writer Jake Austen’s discovery of what could likely be the first recording by the Jackson Five.

The song, “Big Boy,” is actually an earlier, and possibly better, version than the one released by Steeltown Records in 1968 — one year before their first Motown release.

What you’re about to read is not only a detailed account of the Jackson Five’s Steeltown session but also convincing evidence that by then the group had already been in development with one of Chicago’s most important black-owned labels—an episode previously completely lost to history.

Besides the actual recording, the story uncovers how Joe Jackson was infamous for making side management deals with anyone who he thought could get his boys closer to the top.

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MJ IN BLACK AND WHITE: Shot in Little Five Points

Who knew the King of Pop was a Kentucky Fried Chicken eatin’, straight out the bucket finger-lickin’ type of brother, as Magic Johnson revealed before mourners inside L.A.’s Staples Center on Tuesday.

Even in death, it seems, Michael Jackson found a way to defy expectation.

For nearly 50 years, the pop icon did such a good job of convincing us that he was no mere mortal, with his supernatural gifts and a seemingly innate ability to create a spectacle of himself whether onstage or off, that we never imagined a real man existed beneath all that mystique.

But a public funeral attended by about 20,000, and simultaneously viewed by millions more around the world, did something the circus-like media coverage, which is now slowly starting to subside since his June 25 death, could not — it brought him down to earth.

“Wasn’t nothin’ strange about your daddy,” Al Sharpton preached from the podium-turned-pulpit, couching his criticism of the recent media coverage within a statement directed toward Jackson’s three children on the front row. “It was strange what your daddy had to deal with.”

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The body of Michael Jackson will be present at today’s mass memorial service in L.A., but what about his purported ghost?

While CNN will likely be the primary source, both on TV and online, to watch today’s Michael Jackson memorial service scheduled to start at 1 p.m. EST at L.A.’s Staples Center, footage aired on the cable news network has also become the source of rumors suggesting an apparition of the King of Pop is on the loose.

The video, which originally aired last week on The Larry King Live Show, was shot while Miko Brando (son of Marlon Brando and friend of MJ) took CNN cameras on a tour of the Neverland Ranch. Apparently, some overzealous (read: crazy) fans mistook the shadow of a CNN crew person spotted in the background for the ghost of MJ. The resulting video (below) looks like a clip worthy of a blockbuster horror flick.

UPDATE: The public service at the Staples Center will include appearances by Atlantans Usher and Akon, Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, Lionel Richie and Jennifer Hudson, among others. Brother Jermaine Jackson will reportedly sing a version of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” (covered by MJ on his 1995 double album HIStory). And Lionel Richie — who co-wrote with Jackson the humanitarian outreach song “We Are the World” — will lead the all-star cast in singing it for the service’s finale.

The AJC’s Rodney Ho has outlined both national and local TV and radio coverage of the memorial service, as well as a breakdown of which soap operas will be pre-empted for more soap-like coverage of the icon’s life and death:

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Michael Jackson made the moonwalk world-famous during his performance in the 1983 TV special, Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. But who inspired the King of Pop to make it his signature step? Here’s a glove full of earlier moonwalkers who could have influenced him in one way or another:

Jeffrey Daniel, a dancer/choreographer who worked with him on the “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” videos, claimed in a recent NPR interview that he taught Jackson the move. Daniel moonwalked in on BBC television’s Top of the Pops in 1982 and says he got it from the Electric Boogaloos.

Tap dancer Bill Bailey, brother of singer Pearl Bailey, was the first to moonwalk on film, which he called “backslide,” in the 1943 classic Cabin in the Sky. Bailey can also be seen doing it at the end of a tap routine in 1955.

French mimes had a similar traditional move for “walking in place.” Marcel Marceau’s teacher, Jean-Louis Barrault did it with moving scenery in the 1945 French film Children of Paradise (“Les Enfants du paradis”).

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Upon checking out Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones from the library three weeks ago, the first page I flipped to was chapter 28: “Thriller.”

Maybe it was Michael Jackson’s recent announcement that he planned to perform 50 concerts at the O2 arena in London, but for some reason his collaborations with Quincy Jones [Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987)] had been heavy on my mind. If ever he was desperate to make a comeback — as critics were suggesting the scheduled string of concerts proved — all MJ really needed to do was head back to the studio with Q one last time and do it again.

Not to take anything from the other producers he worked with post-Thriller — such as Teddy Riley who oversaw production on Dangerous (1991), or Rodney Jerkins who contributed significant production to Invincible (2001) — but when you look at MJ’s solo discography nothing stacks up to the Quincy Jones years. They made magic together.

In the following excerpt from his 2001 autobiography published by Doubleday, Jones talks about some of the collaborators who made Thriller the greatest selling album of all-time and reveals how Michael Jackson earned the well-deserved nickname “Smelly.”

The making of Thriller in a little more than two months was like riding a rocket. Everything about it was done at hyperspeed. Rod Temperton, who also co-wrote several of the album’s songs, and I listened to nearly 600 songs before picking out a dozen we liked. Rod would then submit to me about thirty-three of his own songs on totally complete demos with bass lines, counter lines, and all, recorded on the Temperton high-tech system of bouncing the sound of two cassette recordings between ghetto blasters, and ten to twenty-five alternate titles for each song, with the beginnings of lyric schemes. He was absolutely the best to work with—always totally prepared, not one drop of b.s. We have always kept it very real with each other, exchanging strong opinions and comments without ever “throwing a wobbly”—British slang for “losing it.” He’s the kind of warrior you want at your side on the battlefield.

Michael was also writing music like a machine. He could really crank it up. In the time I worked with him he wrote three of the songs on Off the Wall, four on Thriller, and six on Bad. At this point on Thriller I’d been bugging him for months to write a Michael Jackson version of “My Sharona.” One day I went to his house and said, “Smelly, give it up. The train is leaving the station.” He said, “Quincy, I got this thing I want you to hear, but it’s not finished yet. I don’t have any vocals on it.”

I called Michael “Smelly” because when he liked a piece of music or a certain beat, instead of calling it funky, he’d call it “smelly jelly.” When it was really good, he’d say, “That’s some smelly jelly.” I said, “Smelly, it’s getting late. Let’s do it.”

I took him to the studio inside his house. He called his engineer and we stacked the vocals on then and there. Michael sang his heart out. The song was “Beat It.” (more…)

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A small crowd danced to Michael Jackson hits on the northwest corner of Woodruff Park in Downtown Atlanta.

CL’s photos and video page.

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If you haven’t heard the news that the King of Pop has passed by now, you’re a zombie and should’ve been cast for the “Thriller” video. With fans all over expressing their grief, don’t bet against it, DJs will be spinning Michael Jackson records all weekend long.

Also, people are organizing tributes and vigils. Below are some of the updates we’ve seen, we’ll add more as they come across our screen. Know of any others? Send them our way, or post a comment below.

Monday June 29th

>> Gone Live Productions and Tresfunk host a MJ tribute at Cinema 12 theater at South Dekalb Mall.

Tuesday June 30th

>> Sol Fusion and Friends will host an MJ tribute at Opera nightclub.

>> Not an event, but a freebie, ATL2nite.com is giving away a free download of Michael Jackson’s “Soulful Years” by DJ Jaycee.

Friday July 3d

>> The 595 North Lounge hosts an all-MJ party, with proceeds going to Hosea Williams Feed the Hungry.

Saturday July 4th

>> Michael Jackson dance party at Eyedrum, 9 p.m. Free; donations accepted.

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UPDATED at 6: 28 p.m.: L.A. Times confirms his death:

[Updated at 3:15 p.m.: Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times.]

UPDATED at 6:06 p.m.: No reliable news source has yet to confirm. Here’s CNN’s latest:

Fire Capt. Steve Ruda told CNN a 911 call came in from a west Los Angeles residence at 12:21 p.m. and the patient was treated and transferred to the UCLA Medical Center.

Asked specifics of the patient’s condition, the spokesman said he could not discuss them because of federal privacy laws.

According to gossip site TMZ.com, Michael Jackson, 50, died this afternoon after being rushed to the hospital in L.A. following cardiac arrest.

More details to come.

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For today’s installment of Roll Call we call out NOBUNNY. The rabbit-masked and Ramones-esque crooner plays the Atlanta Mess-Around this Sat, Nov. 15th.

Who are you?
I’m nothing special. A dirt dog. Mr. Hyde. Primal screams and refried beans. A boxcar and a jug of wine. A 40 and a skateboard. The American dream. He who talks loud, saying nothing. I am nobody. I am NOBUNNY.

Describe yourself in three words.
Cuddly and Sadistic

Who — dead or alive — would most you like to meet?
I already met Hasil Adkins, so I’ll say Alive: Michael Jackson. Dead: Joey Ramone.

Who would you most like to slap in the face?
My little sister Megan. She’s a baaaad girl. Yes she is.

What song do you wish you had written?
“I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5ive. Not only do I wish I wrote it, I wish I sang it, recorded it, performed everything on it. Every time I hear it I imagine that it’s the opening track off my new record and just how damn satisfying that would be.

Elvis Costello or Elvis Presley?
PRESLEY!!! Anyone who answers Costello just doesn’t get it man. Wake up and LIVE people! You have the right to breath fresh air and fuck beautiful women! C’mon!

LP, CD or MP3?
dogshit

If you could start one trend, what would it be?
Compassion. Be kind to fast food workers. For a duck may be somebody’s mother.

If you could end one trend, what would it be?
While it’s petty, I can’t handle those bluetooth ear phone things. Whenever I see someone wearing one, I always want to take a hammer and whack ‘em real good in the ear.

With whom would you most like to play a game of spin the bottle?
17 year old Rosanna Arquette.

Mess me up MP3

I am a girlfriend MP3

NOBUNNY w/ the Wax Museums play The Earl as part of the Atlanta Mess-Around fest. on Sat., Nov. 15th. Two day passes are available for $20. Tickets are $12 at the door.

(Photo courtesy of NOBUNNY)

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