JAMAICA WAS TYPICAL OF CERTAIN DATES in 1974–5 when the wives – Hazel, Dee Dee and Enid – tagged along to break up the monotony that sometimes came with touring. Michael was welcoming and polite but also quietly irritated by this development. It interfered with our togetherness; it distracted our focus. It meant he and I no longer shared a room. I think it also tempered our wildness on stage, just in case we caused jealousy with the wives. But, as events turned out, that kind of jealousy was the least of our worries.
Disquiet began the day we arrived in Jamaica. A black limo pulled up at the airport and Tito and Dee Dee, walking ahead, jumped in. ‘You Mr and Mrs Jackson?’ asked the chauffeur.
‘Yes.’
‘You … Mr and Mrs Jermaine Jackson?’
‘Oh … no … sorry,’ said Tito. He and Dee Dee boarded the tour bus parked behind.
Hazel and I climbed inside the limo and pulled away slowly, separately, awkwardly. This kind of thing had tended to happen since I’d married Hazel because, wherever we went, Mr Gordy wanted his daughter looked after, so he booked her a separate car and her own security detail. What was I supposed to do? Tell the boss to stop acting like a father? Leave my wife to travel alone and go with my brothers and their wives? I went along with it and hoped it wouldn’t cause trouble. That was wishful thinking, especially where the other wives were concerned. It was they – not the brothers – who resented Hazel receiving preferential treatment. And it was potentially divisive among a unit that had never felt any kind of jealousy before. Ultimately, something had to give, and it blew at airport Departures when we were bound for home.
Jackie’s wife Enid was talking real loud as we checked in. She never had seen eye to eye with Hazel and she was going on and on about something, clearly wanting to be heard. Enid moaned once too often and Hazel snapped, ‘TOUGH TITTIE, ENID!’
‘Jackie!’ said Enid. ‘You hear what she said?’
‘Be quiet, Enid,’ said Jackie, as exasperated as the rest of us.
As any man will know, that was the worst thing he could have said – and so it escalated. She turned on Jackie, he pushed her back and she fell over.
Michael was mortified. ‘It didn’t used to be like this – It used to be fun,’ he said. He hated discord and this episode only served to prove his point: wives caused drama and proved a distraction. Which was why the myth that Hazel interfered with our choreography sessions was so laughable. No brother would have tolerated it. Especially Michael.
For him, it was enough having to contend with the envies outside the rehearsal room. He even had an expression for wives and their meddling, and he quoted a line from the Ten Commandments, calling them ‘sharp-clawed treacherous little peacocks’ – based on the woman sent to whisper in Moses’ ear. Wives were the reason groups broke up: they had their own expectations of what their husbands should be doing. It was this way of thinking that made Michael vow that he was never going to marry until he found his soul and creative match. Besides, he had too many mountains to climb and didn’t wish to be held back. But that airport incident was one of many throughout the late seventies. Ultimately, that was what his 1983 hit ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Something’ is about. Hear those lyrics and you’re reading Michael’s mind about wives always starting some kind of drama.
IN THE MID-SEVENTIES MOTOWN WAS STRUGGLING to keep its family together. There was widespread disillusionment about promotion and record sales. Both the Four Tops and Gladys Knight & the Pips left for new labels (soon to be followed by the Temptations) and Marvin Gaye had taken control of his own singer-songwriting material – following the precedent of Stevie Wonder – to create his unforgettable album, What’s Going On. When this album was released, Michael considered it ‘a true masterpiece’ and placed the album sleeve on a shelf at Hayvenhurst: an ornament to be admired; an example to follow. It is still there, propped up where he left it, to this day.
Looking back, everyone seemed to be reinvigorated under new management or granted more freedom. Except the Jackson 5. Michael always said, ‘We are each captains of our own ship,’ and after the creative freedom of Vegas, the return to Motown was stifling for the brothers. They felt babied and creatively restricted. Michael’s song-writing scribbles were growing on paper and in his head, and the brothers worried aloud that ‘The Motown ship is sinking.’
There was a difficult meeting with Mr Gordy – to which I wasn’t invited – when it was Michael, not Joseph, who asked for more freedom. It was refused. Mr Gordy felt we still needed the Corporation and Michael viewed that as a patronising lack of faith. I stayed out of it because I assumed everything would get resolved. Michael loved Mr Gordy and knew how stubborn he could be – but if you let a matter rest for a few days, he could be persuaded. Just as he was when he first waved away Suzanne de Passe’s recommendation to sign us. Just as he had backed down when Marvin Gaye asked for more songwriting freedom and, before him, Stevie Wonder. Mr Gordy was stubborn, but reasonable. All it required was time.
CHAPTER TEN
Separate Ways
‘I WANT YOU TO COME OVER without Hazel,’ said Joseph.
I was driving to my brother-in-law Terry’s college graduation ceremony when my car phone – a telecom brick mounted on a plinth between the seats – had started to ring. The wonders of this modern technology meant that I was suddenly reachable anywhere, anytime – ideal for being summoned at a moment’s notice to Hayvenhurst.
On command, I turned around and headed for Encino. Joseph might have lost our respect over his affair, but his demands still carried a lifetime’s weight. The moment I heard the urgency in the words ‘without Hazel’ my stomach dropped. I instinctively knew it was Motown decision day. What I didn’t guess was that decision had already been made.
Conveniently, no one else was home when I arrived. There wasn’t even the sound of a barking dog. ‘I’m in my room!’ Joseph shouted.
I found him partly reclined on his bed, leaning against the headboard with his feet on the floor. The adamant look on his face said, ‘You’re going to do as I say, Jermaine.’ Before him, fanned out on the floral duvet, were several contracts, flipped open at the signature page.
I walked over, picked up the one with my name on it and saw it was an agreement with CBS Records Group. I started to shake inside.
‘We’re going to CBS Records. We need you to sign,’ said Joseph, straight to the point. It was an incredible opportunity, he said. ‘You will write your own material and have the chance to produce,’ he added, something he knew each brother wanted to do.
My head was spinning. You’ve done a deal behind my back? When? How did the brothers do this? ‘Did Michael sign?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ He pushed my brother’s contract towards me. Nailing me.
I dropped mine on to the bed. ‘I’m not signing,’ I said.
Joseph stood and walked over to me. It was the first time in my life that I had defied my father and I don’t think either of us could believe it. I looked at him, tears welling, and wondered what had happened to the loyalty and integrity we had been taught. But in Joseph’s mind, family was the core value to honour.
‘Sign it,’ he said.
I thought of my wife, Hazel, and my father-in-law, Mr Gordy, and all that he had ever done for us, personally and professionally. The Gordy family. The Motown family. Damn right this is about family. ‘I’m going to get an attorney,’ I said. I hurried out of there. Joseph didn’t move.
I headed to the restaurant in Beverly Hills where Hazel was still celebrating her brother’s milestone. As I drove, my biggest confusion was Michael. He loved Mr Gordy and remained close with Diana Ross. Why would he leave ‘family’ and jump ship to a company of strangers? In his heart of hearts, he wouldn’t leave Motown under his own steam. I felt convinced about that.
He said differently in his Moonwalk autobiography, of course: ‘I knew it was time for a change, so we followed our instincts and we won when we decided to try for a fresh start with another label …’
&
nbsp; Financially, they did win. When CBS deal-maker Ron Alexenberg offered something like a 20 per cent royalty – compared to Motown’s two per cent – with ‘a one million dollar package’, Joseph was never going to refuse and it allowed him to reassert his control. But what Michael kept hidden was how his signature was obtained and the truth didn’t emerge until the 1984 ‘Victory Tour’. ‘You have no idea how angry I was,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe another word Joseph said after that.’
Our father had used a lifelong dream of Michael’s to tempt him. If he signed on the dotted line, he would have dinner with his idol Fred Astaire, he was told. With that promise, I know Michael would have grabbed that pen and signed eagerly. But the dinner never happened, and he couldn’t believe that his own father had made a promise he couldn’t deliver. And our father had used that signature to sway me. But Joseph was clearly intent on running to CBS Records, where the new president was Walter Yetnikoff, a man who, by all industry accounts, made our father look like a pussycat. Why? He answers that question in his own autobiography: ‘I created a mutual balance of terror between me and my artists,’ he wrote in 2004. ‘I started seeing myself as a star. Like most stars, my sense of self was dangerously inflated … I wanted to get high. Drink, drugs, adulation, corporate power, fast women … made it easy.’ I couldn’t write a better illustration of the distinction between Mr Gordy and Motown, and Mr Yetnikoff and everything that exemplifies Hollywood. As for Joseph, he failed to see that CBS/Epic – with no emotional attachment to what we had built – wouldn’t care about us: they just wanted to own and flog a proven thoroughbred.
When I arrived at the restaurant to see Hazel, Mr Gordy was already there. Apparently my face said it all before I did. He left the dinner table and joined me at the bar. When I told him everything, his hurt was obvious, too. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘They say the Motown ship is sinking,’ I said, unable to look him in the eye.
His reassurances to the contrary were immediate and he was big enough to put to one side the imminent loss to Motown. ‘You’ll get no pressure from me. I will respect the decision you make,’ he said.
If my mind wasn’t made up at the bar, I wanted Mr Gordy to know where my heart was: ‘If the Motown ship is sinking, then I want to stay and keep it afloat.’
He had believed in us when it mattered, and that debt of gratitude outweighed CBS dollars in my mind. Mr Gordy smiled sympathetically, got up, patted me on the shoulder and told me to go home and think about it.
Another discussion with Joseph and Mother at Hayvenhurst confirmed that nothing was going to change. Not even Mr Gordy’s vow – ‘We’ll do whatever it takes, we just want the boys to stay with Motown’ – could sway it. The Jackson 5 was moving to a new label, with or without me, said Joseph.
He reminded me of his mantra through life: that family is the most important thing in the world; that others will come and go, but your brothers, sisters and parents will always be there. Family – the lighthouse, the base camp, the headquarters, the sanctuary, the Kingdom Hall. ‘So what are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘My allegiance is with the Jackson 5 at Motown,’ I said.
He exploded. ‘IT’S MY BLOOD RUNNING THROUGH YOUR VEINS, NOT BERRY GORDY’S!’
I tried reasoning. ‘Mr Gordy brought us to Hollywood,’ I said. ‘He introduced us to the world. He put steaks on our table and teeth in our mouths!’
Mother quietly interrupted and reminded me that we’d eaten steaks in Gary, and that the cosmetic dental surgery to repair Tito’s and Jackie’s chipped teeth ‘has been recouped by Mr Gordy a hundred times over.’
I desperately wanted to speak with Michael, but what was the point? There was this awkward tension between me and the brothers now, and Joseph had control. It seemed futile. I returned to the comfort of Hazel’s company. Without her, I don’t know where I would have been and she made her stance clear on day one. ‘I’m married to you, not Daddy’s business,’ she said. ‘Whatever you decide, I will back you 100 per cent.’ I had some serious thinking to do and took a break from the Jackson 5 in order to reach my decision.
BY NOW, HAZEL AND I HAD moved from Bel Air to a ranch in Thousand Oaks, north-west of LA. It was a Paul Williams-designed home set in 46 acres in Hidden Valley, with 12 horses, 11 dogs, ducks and swans on the pond – and a mountain lion in its pen. We bought Sheba as a cub, and she was evidence of my escalation in exotic pets. It almost rivalled that of our neighbour Dean Martin – he had a bear that was the talk of the valley. We kept a lot hidden in the Hidden Valley.
Our ranch was a sanctuary but there is no better place to meditate than the Pacific Ocean, so we also spent time at our beach-house on the La Costa stretch of Malibu, facing the ocean, backing on to the Pacific Coast Highway. I watched sunrises and sunsets for much of my ‘thinking time’ deciding my future. In fact, I was sitting on the beach one day when Hazel called me to the phone. It was her father on the line.
‘Jermaine,’ said Mr Gordy, ‘I’ve just had a call from Michael – he wants you there with him.’ The brothers had previously performed in some city on some date without me, but Michael wanted me alongside him for the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island. According to Mr Gordy, he said, ‘Please get Jermaine to come out here. I miss him. It’s hard being onstage and looking to my left and not seeing him there.’
In his autobiography, Michael explained it this way: ‘It was so painful for me … I had depended on being next to Jermaine. When I did that first show without him … I felt totally naked onstage …’
Mr Gordy’s advice was unequivocal: ‘He’s your brother,’ he said. ‘He needs you. Go support him.’
In the 1992 television mini-series of our story, I was shown wandering the beach on the West Coast as Michael performed on the East. In other written accounts, biographers have turned this entire scene into fiction. What really happened was that I boarded a plane to New York to join the brothers. Hazel stayed at home and I was accompanied by someone from Motown to ‘protect Mr Gordy’s artist and interests’. On that flight, all I could think about was Michael reaching out to Mr Gordy. It was a brave call, and it told me two things: (a) Joseph didn’t know he was making it; (b) Michael was letting Mr Gordy know there was no ill-will on his part, that he still had Michael’s trust and respect.
My anxiety calmed the nearer the flight got to Long Island. I didn’t care that Joseph would be on me, thinking I was crawling back. All I cared about was being with my brothers. There were no great hugs when I turned up at the hotel on the afternoon of the show but when Michael saw me, a beaming smile broke out on his face. Some comforts don’t need to be expressed, I guess. We talked. He said he couldn’t imagine continuing on stage without me. I said I couldn’t imagine life at Motown without my brothers. But gradually the reality became clear: in me, there was a determination to stand my ground; in him, there was resignation to a collective decision already made. We slowly arrived at acceptance, not quite understanding how we’d reached this end-game.
That alone was a wrench. I cried. Michael cried.
Joseph interrupted and asked me what I planned on doing. ‘I’m not going on stage,’ I said.
In that instant, it became clear that my arrival had misled everyone into thinking that I had turned up to perform. It was about one hour before show-time and Joseph was livid. The other brothers accused me of being unfair. I wanted to capitulate, jump into show costume and grab the nearest bass but instinct proved stronger and pulled me back. I remember little else, apart from standing there and watching them all walk off in a bubble that no longer surrounded me. As he headed down the hotel corridor, Michael looked back and the sadness in his face killed me. Joseph’s frown said it all: ‘You’re not with us, your choice.’
I felt guilt; I felt like I had let everyone down but to go onstage would have misled the fans. The brothers ended up borrowing the bass player from the orchestra to make up the five and the Westbury Music Fair went on without me. I stayed at the
hotel and slept in a separate room, alone for the first time since I was a poorly three-year-old in hospital. Maybe that was why it hurt so much.
The next morning, I joined the brothers at CBS Records, Manhattan. With the dawn of a new day, I think Joseph had woken hopeful that, when I’d heard the strategy for our greatness, I would see sense. But I was just curious to hear what they had to say. Call it a fishing expedition. The one memory I have is of sitting in an office as a salesman-like A&R man, dressed in all-white to match his teeth, outlined that he was going to do this and do that, and ‘We’re going to make you as big as the Beatles!’
I looked at Joseph. I looked at my brothers. Nothing. So I said it for them: ‘But we’re the Jackson 5. We’ve already knocked the Beatles off No. 1.’ All heads turned to me. ‘Twice,’ I added pointedly.
It failed to divert the A&R man. He cleverly steered his pitch around his self-made obstacle and blew so much smoke up our asses that it was coming out of our mouths. Afterwards, they wanted to take us somewhere to ‘meet a few people’ but I was wary of photographers hovering around the building. I smelt a contrived photo op, the chance to capture all five brothers together at CBS Records. That was the picture everyone wanted at a time when rumours of a split were rife. I got out of there, said my goodbyes and headed back to LA that day.
That is pretty much how we went our separate ways. There was a suggestion for years that I broke up the group by leaving, but I’ve never viewed it that way. I did not leave them: they left me. They left ‘home’ – and I will believe that until the day I die. There is no point in revisiting the ugly legalities that followed, between Motown, Joseph and CBS. I’ve read that Mr Gordy received damages of anywhere between $100,000 and $150,000. I never checked the figures – I just know it proved to be a costly decision and that Motown retained ownership of the ‘Jackson 5’ name. That meant my brothers became known as ‘The Jacksons’. Randy, then 11, stepped into my place.