The story of The Jackson 5

A small house in Gary

The story begins in a two bedroom house at 2300 Jackson Street in Gary, Indiana, a steel town just south of Chicago. Joe Jackson and Katherine Scruse married in November 1949 and bought the house the following January for eight and a half thousand dollars. Joe had tried boxing and played guitar in a rhythm and blues band called the Falcons with his brother Luther, but the band never got a record deal, so he ran a crane at a steel mill. Katherine, a devout Jehovah's Witness, played clarinet and piano and loved country music. They raised nine children in that house. The boys slept in bunk beds in one room, and the girls slept in the living room.[1] [2] [3]

Music came into the house by accident. The boys were not supposed to touch their father's guitar, but Tito, the third child, played it in secret while Joe was at work, and one day he broke a string. When Joe found out, he told Tito to show him what he could do. He was impressed enough to buy the boy his own guitar. Around the same time Katherine told her husband that the boys could really sing, because they harmonized with her while she washed the dishes. By 1964 Joe had formed a group of his three eldest sons, Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, called the Jackson Brothers, and he made himself their manager.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The two younger boys, Marlon and Michael, watched the rehearsals and soon joined in, first on tambourine and congas. Jackie later said Michael used a Quaker oatmeal box as his bongos, then got up and did a James Brown routine, and the brothers agreed to put him out front. Two neighborhood friends first played keyboards and drums. In 1965 a local woman named Evelyn LaHaie suggested a new name, the Jackson Five. Drummer Johnny Jackson and keyboard player Ronnie Rancifer later took over the backing parts. Motown would present them as cousins, but neither was related to the family.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Joe ran the rehearsals like a drill sergeant, and this is where the darkest part of the family story begins. The boys practised for hours after school, sometimes played a gig, then did homework and went to bed in the early hours. Michael later said his father sat in a chair with a belt in his hand, and that a mistake meant a beating. He also said Joe mocked him as Big Nose. Joe admitted whipping his children with a belt and a switch, but said he never beat them. Katherine later said her husband hit the children too hard and too long. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon have always said their father was strict, not abusive, and that he was keeping them away from the gangs of Gary.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Joe believed his sons were his ticket out of the mill. In a note to his brother in 1966, he wrote that these boys were going to take him out of the steel mill. That year the group won a talent show at Roosevelt High School in Gary, and they started working clubs in Gary and Chicago, sometimes on bills with strippers and raunchy comedians, which upset their religious mother. Joe packed the equipment on top of a Volkswagen van and drove them to talent contests further afield. In August 1967 they won amateur night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, one of the most famous talent contests in the country.[1] [2] [3] [4]

From Steeltown to Motown

The first record label to take a chance on the boys was a tiny Gary outfit called Steeltown Records. Its founder Gordon Keith signed them in November 1967, and on the thirty first of January 1968 Steeltown released Big Boy, with a nine year old Michael on lead. The family gathered round the radio to hear it on a Gary station, and Michael later said they felt they had arrived. Atlantic Records picked it up for national distribution, and it sold around ten thousand copies, but it never reached a national chart. A second Steeltown single followed before bigger things got in the way.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The bigger thing was Motown. In July 1968 the Jackson 5 opened for a Motown act, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, in Chicago. Taylor was stunned by the little boy spinning and singing and told the band to send him upstairs. He arranged an audition, and on the twenty third of July 1968 the brothers performed at Motown's offices on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. They even skipped a booking on David Frost's television show to be there. Berry Gordy had not wanted another child act after Stevie Wonder, but he changed his mind when he saw the tape. He later said nine year old Michael sang the Miracles' Who's Lovin' You like a man who had lived with heartbreak his whole life.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The deal took months to finish because the Steeltown contract had not yet run out, and while lawyers argued, the boys kept playing clubs, including strip joints, to make money. The full seven year Motown contract was finally signed on the eleventh of March 1969, a day before Marlon turned twelve. Taylor produced their first sessions at Hitsville in Detroit, cutting soul covers like Who's Lovin' You. Gordy then moved the family to Los Angeles and took personal control of their sound. Taylor later said Gordy wanted more bubblegum and sent him packing, though Taylor had already produced most of the first album.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Motown's publicity team, led by Suzanne de Passe, then built a story. The world was told that Diana Ross of the Supremes had discovered the group, which helped launch the boys and also helped Ross start her solo career. In August 1969 they were introduced to music industry insiders at a Los Angeles club called the Daisy, where Michael was billed as an eight year old sensation, although he was days away from turning eleven. Gordy also created a new writing and production team just for them, called the Corporation. It was Gordy himself with Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell and Deke Richards, and on the records the credit simply read the Corporation.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Four number ones in a row

The Corporation had been working on a song called I Wanna Be Free for Gladys Knight and the Pips, and there was talk of giving it to Diana Ross. Gordy heard it and had it rewritten for the Jacksons as I Want You Back. Jackie remembered Michael learning it in no time and inventing the ad libs at the end himself. Released in October 1969, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety in November, and on the thirty first of January 1970 it was number one. The group had already sung it on The Hollywood Palace in October, and in December they played it on The Ed Sullivan Show. Their debut album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, came out that same month.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Motown did not wait. ABC followed in early 1970, comparing learning to love with learning the alphabet, and it went to number one in April. It was the title track of a second album released in May. Then came The Love You Save, which hit number one at the end of June. Its lyrics sneak in jokes about Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell and Christopher Columbus. Like the other early hits, the music was played by Los Angeles session musicians. Motown would not let Tito play guitar on the records, even though he played on stage, and his guitar was not heard on a Jacksons record until they left the label.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The fourth single was a slow song, and it changed how people saw the group. I'll Be There was written by Berry Gordy, Hal Davis, Bob West and Willie Hutch and produced by Davis. It came out on the twenty eighth of August 1970, the day before Michael turned twelve, with Jermaine singing the answering lines. It spent five weeks at number one from mid October, and it became the biggest selling single Motown had released in America at that point. The Jackson 5 were now the first act in history whose first four singles all reached number one on the Hot 100. Michael later wrote that this was the song that proved they could do more than bubblegum.[1] [2] [3]

The pace in 1970 was astonishing. Motown released three Jackson 5 albums that year, then a Christmas album in October, and the group toured from May to December. The Christmas Album topped Billboard's special Christmas chart, but it could not appear on the main album chart, because holiday records were barred from it between 1963 and 1973. Meanwhile the Jackson 5 had overtaken the Supremes as Motown's best selling group. Their records were also popular abroad, and by now the brothers were playing arenas rather than talent contests.[1] [2] [3]

Jacksonmania

By late 1970 the scenes at their shows looked like Beatlemania. Rolling Stone sent a writer to their Madison Square Garden concert in October and headlined the story as the biggest thing since the Stones. Girls climbed over seats to get near the stage, police guarded the front, and one young fan grabbed her friend's hand and told her to feel her heart. The brothers played only about fifty minutes and were whisked away in limousines. At the Forum near Los Angeles they drew nearly nineteen thousand people and grossed a then record of more than one hundred and five thousand dollars. Jackie later said that at the height of it they could sometimes get through only five songs before the chaos stopped the show.[1] [2] [3]

Motown turned the brothers into a brand. There were posters, stickers, colouring books and a board game, and the heart shaped J5 logo sat on Johnny Jackson's drum kit. In September 1971 ABC television launched a Saturday morning cartoon, Jackson 5ive, made by Rankin Bass with Motown. Actors voiced the brothers, but the songs were the real records. The animation director Bob Balser, who had worked on the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, insisted there be no violence and no cheap stereotypes, because it was one of the first cartoons about a Black family. Michael loved it. He later admitted he would watch and shout with delight that he was a cartoon.[1] [2] [3]

The hits kept coming in 1971, though the run of number ones ended. Mama's Pearl stalled at number two behind One Bad Apple by the Osmonds, a white family group from Utah who were often compared with the Jacksons. Never Can Say Goodbye, a grown up ballad written by the actor Clifton Davis and first meant for the Supremes, spent three weeks at number two behind Three Dog Night. Sugar Daddy, the only new song on their first greatest hits album, reached the top ten in early 1972. The family, meanwhile, had moved into a large house on Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino in May 1971, a long way from Jackson Street.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

To sell even more records, Motown launched solo careers from inside the group. Michael's first solo single, Got to Be There, came out in October 1971, and his song Ben topped the chart in 1972. Jermaine followed with his own album, and his cover of the doo wop song Daddy's Home became a million seller. The group was also on television constantly, with specials such as Goin' Back to Indiana in 1971. In 1972 the United States Congress gave the Jackson 5 a special commendation as positive role models. Lookin' Through the Windows, released in May 1972, caught Michael's voice beginning to change from a boy soprano toward the tenor he would have as an adult.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Dancing Machine and the break with Motown

By 1973 the hits were drying up. The Corporation had broken up, Hal Davis took over the group's sound, and the brothers moved toward the new disco style. It paid off with Dancing Machine in 1974, their first top ten hit in almost three years, stuck at number two behind Ray Stevens' novelty hit The Streak. On a Soul Train episode in October 1973, Michael performed the robot dance to it, and the move swept the country. Frustrated with Motown, Joe built a Las Vegas stage show around the family in 1974, bringing in his daughters Rebbie, La Toya and Janet and his youngest son Randy, inspired by the Osmonds' success.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Behind the scenes, family life was strained. Tito had married Delores Martes, known as Dee Dee, in 1972. Jermaine married Hazel Gordy, Berry Gordy's daughter, in 1973, tying one brother to the boss himself. Katherine filed for divorce from Joe in March 1973, then withdrew the petition. In August 1974 another woman gave birth to Joe's daughter, Joh'Vonnie. Katherine tried to divorce him again in 1982 and again changed her mind, and the couple stayed married until his death. In 1975, Marlon married his girlfriend Carol Parker, whom he had met on tour in New Orleans. He was eighteen.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The real fight was about money and control. Motown would not let the brothers write or produce their own songs, and they discovered they were earning a royalty of only about two point eight percent. Joe negotiated with CBS and in June 1975 signed with its Epic label, which offered around twenty percent, and they announced the move at the Rainbow Grill in New York. One brother refused to go. Jermaine stayed with Motown. He said it was loyalty to the company. Others pointed out that he was married to Gordy's daughter. Randy, who had been playing congas on tour since 1972, took his place.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Motown did not let them go quietly. The company sued for breach of contract, and the group stayed bound to the label until March 1976. Worse, the brothers found that Berry Gordy had trademarked the name the Jackson 5, so they could not take it with them. They became simply the Jacksons. The split also opened the first public rift in the family, because for the next eight years Jermaine made records for Motown while his brothers made records for Epic. In 1976 CBS gave the family its own weekly variety show, The Jacksons, with Randy and the three sisters, the first American variety series starring a Black family.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The Jacksons on Epic

Epic first paired the brothers with the Philadelphia hitmakers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. Their first album as the Jacksons, released in November 1976, gave them Enjoy Yourself, sung by Michael and Jackie, which reached number six early in 1977 and came with the group's first music video. Show You the Way to Go did only moderately in America but went to number one in Britain, their only British chart topper. Michael, meanwhile, had little love for the television show and later said he hated every minute of it. The second Philadelphia album, Goin' Places, stalled at number sixty three in 1977, and the brothers asked to do it themselves.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Epic agreed, and the brothers wrote and produced Destiny themselves, mostly in a home studio at the Hayvenhurst house, finishing it in about two months. The first single was Blame It on the Boogie, written by an English singer who happened to be called Mick Jackson. Both versions came out in Britain in September 1978, the press called it the Battle of the Boogie, and the Jacksons won, reaching number eight. The real comeback was Shake Your Body Down to the Ground, written by Michael and sixteen year old Randy. It reached number seven in America in May 1979, sold over two million copies, and Destiny became their first platinum album.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Michael was pulling away. He turned twenty one in August 1979, his contract with his father ran out, and he replaced Joe as his manager. That year his solo album Off the Wall came out and sold more than twenty million copies, which started rumours he would leave the group. Then disaster struck the youngest brother. On the third of March 1980, Randy was badly injured in a car crash in Hollywood, suffering multiple fractures to his legs and feet. That June, Jet magazine put him on its cover under the headline Randy Jackson Walks Again. In September 1980 the brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as the Jacksons.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Their next album, Triumph, came out in September 1980 and went platinum. Lovely One and This Place Hotel were big hits. This Place Hotel was first released as Heartbreak Hotel, and was renamed to avoid confusion with the Elvis Presley song, while the scream on it belongs to La Toya. Can You Feel It, written by Michael and Jackie, was only a small hit in America but reached the top ten in Britain, and its nine minute video used effects by the company behind the film Tron. The 1981 Triumph Tour produced a double live album, and at the end of it the Jacksons stepped aside while Michael made Thriller.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Motown 25 and Victory

In March 1983, with Thriller already the biggest album in the world, Motown taped a twenty fifth anniversary television special in Pasadena. Michael first turned it down, then agreed to appear as a favour to Berry Gordy, on condition that he got a solo spot. The Jackson 5 reunited on stage, with Jermaine back alongside his brothers for the first time since 1975 and Randy joining in, for a medley of I Want You Back, The Love You Save, Never Can Say Goodbye and I'll Be There. Michael then stayed on alone for Billie Jean and unveiled the moonwalk. The show aired in May to some forty seven million viewers. By then the brothers had also dropped their father as manager.[1] [2] [3]

The reunion led to Victory, released on the second of July 1984, the only album featuring all six brothers. In truth it was mostly solo tracks by each brother, recorded amid tension. The hit, State of Shock, was a duet between Michael and Mick Jagger, after an earlier version with Freddie Mercury was never finished. It reached number three. Torture, written by Jackie, reached number seventeen, but its video was a nightmare. Michael refused to appear, so the crew rented a wax figure of him from a Madame Tussauds museum. The director later recalled that the dummy's head ended up in the salad bowl at lunch.[1] [2] [3]

The Victory Tour was the big payday. Boxing promoter Don King got the brothers on board with three million dollars in advances, and he signed a sponsorship deal with Pepsi. On the twenty seventh of January 1984, while filming a Pepsi commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a pyrotechnic went off too early and set Michael's hair on fire, leaving second degree burns on his scalp. He gave the one and a half million dollar settlement to a burn centre. Then came the ticket plan. Fans had to mail a one hundred and twenty dollar money order for a block of four tickets, and only about one in ten would win. Michael warned it would be a public relations disaster, and it was.[1] [2] [3]

The tour opened at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on the sixth of July 1984. The stage Michael designed weighed three hundred and sixty five tons and took up a third of the field. Jackie missed most of it with a leg injury. Behind the scenes the brothers took separate cars, stayed on separate floors and hired separate lawyers. Eddie Van Halen dropped in to play his Beat It solo in Texas. At the last of six shows at Dodger Stadium on the ninth of December, Michael told the crowd it was their last and final tour, surprising his brothers. He gave his share of the money to charity.[1] [2] [3]

The fallout was ugly. Don King publicly attacked Michael for how he treated his family and used a racial slur about him, and Michael was so angry he wanted to sue. The tour's promoter, Chuck Sullivan, whose family owned the New England Patriots, lost millions. The losses helped force the family to sell the team in 1988, and the stadium later went bankrupt and was bought by Robert Kraft, who went on to own the Patriots. Still, the Victory Tour sold well over two million tickets and set a record for the highest grossing tour of its time. For the Jacksons as a working band, it was the end of an era.[1] [2]

Life after Michael left

In January 1985 Marlon followed Michael out of the group, released one solo album, Baby Tonight, in 1987, then left the music business for real estate. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Randy carried on. They cut Time Out for the Burglar for a Whoopi Goldberg comedy in 1987, and in May 1989 they released 2300 Jackson Street, named after the old family home. The title track brought back Michael and Marlon along with Janet and Rebbie, but the album peaked at only number fifty nine. After a short promotional tour abroad, Epic let them go, and the Jacksons never made another studio album.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The late eighties and early nineties brought painful headlines. In 1986 Jackie's first wife Enid filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order, alleging he had been physically abusive. In 1991 Randy was charged with battery for beating his wife Eliza Shaffy and their baby daughter. He pleaded no contest, and after further violence he was sentenced to thirty days in a psychiatric hospital. La Toya wrote a memoir in 1991 accusing her father of abuse, claims she later partly withdrew. Michael, in a 1993 television interview with Oprah Winfrey, spoke openly for the first time about his father's cruelty during his childhood.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In 1992 the family's rise was retold as a five hour ABC miniseries, The Jacksons: An American Dream, based on Katherine's autobiography, with Angela Bassett as Katherine and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs as Joe. Jermaine was one of the producers. It was a ratings hit. Two years later came a real tragedy. In August 1994 Tito's former wife Dee Dee was found dead in the swimming pool of her boyfriend, Donald Bohana. Police first called it an accidental drowning, but the coroner later found signs of a beating. Her family said she could not swim. In 1998 Bohana was convicted of her second degree murder.[1] [2] [3]

Recognition followed. In 1997 the five original brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, presented by Diana Ross and Berry Gordy. Randy was left out, because only the original line up was inducted. In September 2001 all six brothers reunited at Madison Square Garden for two concerts marking Michael's thirty years as a solo artist, their first time on stage together since 1984. Some forty five million people watched the broadcast. In March 2006 the group's old drummer, Johnny Jackson, was stabbed to death at a home in Gary. His girlfriend later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Losing Michael, and carrying on

Early in 2009, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon began filming a television special about reuniting for the group's fortieth anniversary. Michael was preparing his own comeback, a run of shows in London. On the twenty fifth of June 2009 he died at fifty, from an overdose of the anaesthetic propofol given by his doctor, Conrad Murray. Jermaine announced the news at a press conference at the hospital. At the memorial on the seventh of July, the five brothers served as pallbearers, each wearing a single sequined glove. Marlon asked Michael to give their brother, his twin Brandon who died at birth, a hug for him.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The reality series, The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty, went ahead late in 2009 and critics were not kind. The surviving brothers added backing vocals to Michael's old demo This Is It, which returned the Jacksons to a Billboard chart. Grief also split the family. Michael's will left nothing to his father or siblings. In 2011 Jackie, Tito and Marlon took part in a tribute concert in Cardiff, while Jermaine and Randy refused, because it fell during Murray's trial. Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter that November. In 2012, Randy, Jermaine and Janet were caught up in a public dispute over their mother's care.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

The Jacksons became a touring band again. Their Unity Tour opened at Casino Rama in Ontario in June 2012 and ran until July 2013. In 2017 they marked fifty years with a UK tour and a book, The Jacksons Legacy. Joe Jackson died of pancreatic cancer in Las Vegas on the twenty seventh of June 2018. That same month Detroit gave Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon keys to the city, and Marlon joked that he would try the key at a bank vault. In 2020 Jackie, Tito and Marlon helped break ground on a Hard Rock casino in Gary and gave their appearance fee to buy bicycles for local children.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In December 2023 a woman named Rita Barrett sued Jermaine, alleging he had sexually assaulted her at her home in 1988, and claiming Berry Gordy helped cover it up. A default judgment against Jermaine was later set aside at his request. Then, on the fifteenth of September 2024, Tito died of a heart attack in Gallup, New Mexico, at seventy, while driving his vintage cars to a new home in Oklahoma. Days earlier he had been on stage in Germany with Jackie and Marlon. His sons asked fans to remember his favourite saying, love one another. As of 2026 Jackie and Marlon continue to perform as the Jacksons.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

In April 2026 the biopic Michael reached cinemas, starring Jermaine's son Jaafar Jackson as his uncle, with Colman Domingo as Joe and Nia Long as Katherine. It covers the story from the Gary years to 1988 and was dedicated to Tito. Janet declined to be portrayed. Critics were mostly negative, but the film broke box office records for a biopic. Back in Gary, road signs now point drivers to the Home of the World Famous Jackson 5, and in August 2025 the city threw a block party for the group on what would have been Michael's sixty seventh birthday. The brothers are credited with inspiring generations of boy bands from New Edition to BTS. Sixty years on, I Want You Back still sounds like the future.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The people around The Jackson 5

Joe Jackson and The Jackson brothers. Joe built the group, drove the van, booked the shows and negotiated both the Motown and Epic deals. He also ruled by fear, and Michael never forgot the belt. The sons moved him to co manager by 1978, Michael replaced him in 1979, and the brothers dropped him in 1983. Yet he stayed a presence, turning up at Michael's trial and later the trial of Michael's doctor, until his death in 2018.[1] [2] [3]

Katherine Jackson and The Jackson brothers. Jackie has said there would have been no Jackson 5 without their mother. She noticed the boys could sing, sang country harmonies with them, sewed their first stage outfits by hand and hunted for shoes at the Salvation Army. She stayed married to Joe despite his affairs, and after Michael's death she raised his three children. The 1992 miniseries about the family was based on her book.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Berry Gordy and The Jackson 5. Gordy signed them, moved them to Los Angeles, co wrote their first three number ones as part of the Corporation and made them Motown's biggest act. He also refused them creative control, owned their name, and sued when they left. The bond survived. Gordy invited them to reunite for Motown 25 in 1983, inducted them into the Hall of Fame in 1997, and called Michael the greatest entertainer who ever lived at his memorial.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Bobby Taylor and The Jackson 5. The Canadian soul singer spotted them in Chicago in 1968, got them their Motown audition and produced their first Detroit sessions, including Who's Lovin' You. Motown gave Diana Ross the public credit, and Gordy replaced Taylor with the Corporation. Taylor later sued Motown successfully, and died in Hong Kong in 2017, still remembered as the man who really found them.[1] [2]

Jermaine Jackson and Hazel Gordy. Jermaine married Berry Gordy's daughter Hazel in 1973, when the Jackson 5 were still Motown's golden boys. When his brothers left for Epic two years later, he stayed. The marriage lasted until 1988 and produced three children. It made Jermaine both a Jackson and a member of the Motown family at once, and it kept him out of the Jacksons until 1983.[1] [2] [3]

Michael Jackson and His brothers. The brothers pushed Michael to the front because he was the natural star, and his solo fame eventually outgrew the group. On the Victory Tour the rift became open, with separate hotels, jets and lawyers, and he quit on stage in 1984. Yet they reunited in 2001, carried his coffin in 2009, and still speak of him warmly. Jackie says he greets Michael's face on Las Vegas billboards.[1] [2] [3]

Marlon Jackson and Michael Jackson. Marlon was only seventeen months older, and after his twin Brandon died at birth he came to see Michael as a kind of replacement twin. They called themselves the jokers of the family and road warriors, once throwing toilet paper from a fortieth floor window in New York. Marlon once spotted Michael in disguise in a record shop, and knew him by his stage loafers.[1] [2]

Jermaine Jackson and Randy Jackson. The two brothers were bound together by rivalry and by one woman. Alejandra Oaziaza had two children with Randy, then married Jermaine in 1995 and had two sons with him, including Jaafar, the star of the 2026 film Michael. Despite that, Jermaine and Randy often stood together in family disputes, opposing the 2011 Cardiff tribute concert and challenging Michael's estate.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Don King and The Jacksons. The boxing promoter put up three million dollars to launch the Victory Tour, pushed through the Pepsi deal and was part of the widely criticised ticket lottery. When Michael announced he was leaving the group, King lashed out at him in public with a racial slur. Michael wanted to sue, and his lawyer talked him out of it. King went on promoting fights.[1] [2] [3]

The Jackson 5 and The Osmonds. The white Mormon brothers from Utah rose at the same time and were often cast as rivals. In 1971 their One Bad Apple kept Mama's Pearl off the top of the chart, and Rankin Bass made cartoons of both groups. Michael and Donny Osmond, the two lead singers, became friends. Joe Jackson even modelled the family's Las Vegas stage show on the Osmonds' success.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Gamble and Huff and The Jacksons. When the brothers left Motown, Epic placed them with the Philadelphia songwriting and production team Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The partnership produced Enjoy Yourself and Show You the Way to Go, their only British number one. But the second album flopped, and the brothers used the experience to win the right to write and produce their own records from Destiny onward.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Rare facts about The Jackson 5

• Jackie Jackson was born on his mother Katherine's twenty first birthday. Katherine was born on the fourth of May 1930. Her eldest son, Sigmund Esco Jackson, arrived on the fourth of May 1951 in Gary. His grandfather gave him the nickname Jackie.[1] [2]
• Before the group took off, Jackie dreamed of playing professional baseball. Jackie, the oldest brother, wanted a baseball career before the Jackson 5 signed to Motown. He later became the group's sole constant member and wrote the 1984 single Torture.[1]
• Joe Jackson once made his sons move bricks around the backyard for no purpose at all. Jackie and Tito told the Guardian that their father kept them busy to keep them away from street gangs. Sometimes that meant moving a pile of bricks from one spot to another. Jackie said it could take all day.[1]
• Michael's first drum was a Quaker oatmeal box. Jackie recalled that little Michael used an empty Quaker oatmeal box as bongos and played it well. Then he did a James Brown routine, and the older brothers decided to put him out front.[1]
• The green outfits the Jackson 5 wore on their first network TV show were sewn by their mother. Katherine made the costumes for the group's Hollywood Palace appearance with Diana Ross. They later went on display in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame touring exhibit about rock on television.[1] [2]
• The Jackson 5's keyboard player and drummer were billed as cousins, but were not related at all. Motown presented Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer as cousins of the brothers. Rolling Stone repeated the claim in 1970. Neither was actually part of the family, despite Johnny sharing the surname.[1] [2] [3]
• Rolling Stone reported in 1970 that Michael was ten. He was actually twelve. Motown shaved years off Michael's age for publicity, billing him as an eight year old in 1969. Rolling Stone's report on their Madison Square Garden show that October gave his age as ten.[1] [2]
• The brothers skipped a David Frost TV booking to attend their Motown audition. While playing the Apollo in 1968, the group was booked for David Frost's show. Joe cancelled it because it clashed with the Motown audition in Detroit, and drove the boys there in the family van.[1]
• I Want You Back was first written for Gladys Knight and the Pips as I Wanna Be Free. The Corporation originally shaped the track for Gladys Knight and the Pips, and it was then considered for Diana Ross. Berry Gordy had it rewritten for the Jackson 5, and it became their first number one.[1] [2]
• When I Want You Back hit number one, Jackie went out and bought five copies of Billboard. Suzanne de Passe phoned the family with the news. Jackie did not want to wait for Motown to send a copy, so he went straight to a newsstand and bought five.[1]
• Tito was not allowed to play guitar on the Jackson 5's Motown hits. Motown used Los Angeles session guitarists on the records, even though Tito played on stage. His guitar only appeared on the brothers' records after they moved to Epic in the mid seventies.[1] [2]
• The Love You Save hides jokes about Isaac Newton, Ben Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell and Columbus. The lyric warns a fast girl, and slips in references to Isaac under the apple tree, Benjie and electricity, Alexander ringing her chimes, and Christopher discovering she was ahead of her time.[1]
• I'll Be There was released the day before Michael's twelfth birthday. The ballad came out on the twenty eighth of August 1970. It spent five weeks at number one and replaced I Heard It Through the Grapevine as Motown's best selling American single, until Endless Love in 1981.[1]
• Never Can Say Goodbye was written by an actor, Clifton Davis. Davis wrote it with the Supremes in mind before Motown gave it to the Jackson 5. Years later he sang a bit of it on Hollywood Squares and was asked who wrote it. He answered that he did.[1]
• The Jackson 5ive cartoon gave Michael two pet mice called Ray and Charles, and a snake. Michael owned many pets in real life, so the cartoon added his mice Ray and Charles, named after one of his idols, and a snake called Rosey the Crusher.[1] [2]
• The Jackson 5ive cartoon was directed by an animator from the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Bob Balser insisted the show solve problems with music and brains, not violence, because it was one of the first cartoons about a Black family. The animation was made largely in London.[1] [2]
• In 1972 the United States Congress gave the Jackson 5 a special commendation. Congress honoured the brothers as positive role models. The same era saw a Black youth magazine, Right On!, put them on its covers again and again between 1972 and 1974.[1]
• Michael first did the robot on a Bob Hope special, but the camera cut away. He performed the robot to Dancing Machine on a Bob Hope show in September 1973, but the camera missed it. A month later on Soul Train it was fully caught on film and became a sensation.[1]
• Mick Jagger was not the first choice for State of Shock. Freddie Mercury was. Michael had recorded a demo of the song with Queen's Freddie Mercury, but they never finished it. He then recut it with Mick Jagger for the Jacksons' Victory album, and it reached number three.[1] [2]
• Early copies of the Victory album show a white dove on Randy's shoulder, later removed. Tension meant little photography was done, so the label commissioned a painting by fantasy illustrator Michael Whelan. The dove on Randy's shoulder disappeared from later pressings.[1]
• Paula Abdul was still a Lakers cheerleader when she took over choreographing the Torture video. Abdul, then Jackie's girlfriend, replaced the original choreographer and went on to choreograph the Victory Tour. She later said her biggest problem was how to tell the Jacksons how to dance.[1] [2]
• James Brown turned down an invitation to join the Jacksons on stage in 1984. Michael invited his idol to appear at Madison Square Garden during the Victory Tour. Brown said no because he was angry about the tour's ticket lottery, which priced out many Black fans.[1]
• Robert Kraft keeps a Victory Tour poster in his office. The tour's losses helped push the Sullivan family to sell the New England Patriots. Kraft, who bought their bankrupt stadium and later the team, reportedly keeps the poster as a reminder of how he got it.[1]
• Michael's Victory Tour stage weighed three hundred and sixty five tons and wiped out about a quarter of the seats. He designed the eight storey stage in secret. At the opening shows in Kansas City it took up a third of the field, making roughly a quarter of the stadium's seats unusable.[1] [2]
• The Jacksons had to change This Place Hotel's name because of Elvis Presley. Michael called it Heartbreak Hotel, and many countries released it under that title. It was renamed to avoid confusion with Presley's hit. The scream on the record is La Toya's.[1]
• Randy was only sixteen when he co wrote Shake Your Body Down to the Ground with Michael. It became the most successful single of the Jacksons' Epic years, selling over two million copies. It was also the last song the brothers performed together on stage with Michael, in 2001.[1] [2]
• Blues Away, a B side from 1977, was the first song Michael wrote entirely by himself. It was the flip side of Show You the Way to Go, the Jacksons' only number one single in Britain.[1]
• Charles Barkley once joked about whether anyone would miss Tito. It crushed him. Tito said he was the quietest member, so people made jokes about him. When the basketball star asked if anyone would miss Tito if he were not in the Jackson 5, Tito said it hit him in the heart.[1]
• Tito did not release his first solo album until he was in his sixties. He said he married at eighteen and wanted to be home for his three sons. His album Tito Time made him the ninth and final Jackson sibling to place a solo single on the Billboard charts.[1] [2] [3]
• Tito's three sons formed their own group, 3T, whose first album was co produced by Michael. Taj, Taryll and TJ released their debut on Michael's own label imprint, and it went gold in several countries. TJ later became co guardian of Michael's children.[1] [2]
• Jermaine was the first housemate into Britain's Celebrity Big Brother in 2007, and finished second. He later explained on British television why he had played peacemaker in the house. He converted to Islam in 1989 and in 2013 changed his surname spelling to Jacksun.[1]
• Marlon had a twin brother, Brandon, who died shortly after birth. Marlon and Brandon were born on the twelfth of March 1957. At Michael's memorial Marlon asked him to give Brandon a hug for him.[1] [2]
• Before Motown, the brothers played amateur nights at Detroit's Fox Theatre. Marlon told Billboard that the family's link with Detroit predates their record deal, because they used to come to the city to compete in amateur nights at the Fox.[1]
• Road signs in Indiana now direct drivers to the Jackson family's childhood home. In May 2021 signs reading Home of the World Famous Jackson 5 went up on the Borman Expressway and local roads, pointing to 2300 Jackson Street in Gary.[1]
• Deke Richards, a key member of the Corporation, once acted in the cult film Eegah. Born Dennis Lussier, he appeared as a band member in the 1962 film before joining Motown. He co wrote the Jackson 5's first three number ones and died in 2013.[1] [2]

Disputed stories

These stories are told often but the accounts don't agree. Here are the versions and who says what.