The Long Journey to Glory: My Side of the Jacksons’ Story

By Reynaud D. Jones

The Long Journey to Glory My Side of the Jacksons' Story seeks to finally set the record straight as to who discovered Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. The book describes the truth about the real beginning of the Jackson singing group and Michael and their climb to fame. It will include the story of the Jacksons, from the family's very meager beginning in Gary, Indiana, like it has never before been told. We learn more about Joe, the father, and also the neighborhood he chose to live in. There are details surrounding the neighborhood, the little community's Little League baseball teams, the long days of practicing their music in the basement of a neighbor's home, the deceptive maneuvers used by Tito Jackson to develop his guitar-playing skills, and finally, the events surrounding the talent show at Gary's Roosevelt High School that introduced the Jacksons. The story is told by the original unknown member and leader of the group. The Jacksons continue to perform to this day. Although refined by experience and technology, the act has not essentially changed from its inception. In the early days, no one except their families knew about their rehearsals. They couldn't practice together at Joe's house, but they did practice at Reynaud's house. Since they were using his basement and he was the oldest, he automatically made himself the leader. They decided they would surprise Joe with their progress. Before then, the Jackson family wasn't charismatic to the neighbors. The neighborhood was booming with children, and the majority of them laughed teasingly at the Jacksons. There were nine Jackson children at the time living in a two-bedroom basement less house with their parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645444770

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Greatest Artist of All Time

The first two months of 1984 were two of the best in the life of Michael Jackson but two of the worst in mine. In January, Michael Jackson won eight American Music Awards and gained even greater celebrity on January 27 when his hair caught on fire during a shoot for a Pepsi-Cola commercial. It surely was the most written and talked about commercial ever, evoking worldwide sympathy. Even President Ronald Reagan consoled the scalp-seared Michael by sending him a personal letter.

Riding a surging tide of fame, on February 7, Michael was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for Thriller, an album whose twenty-five million copies in sales had topped every album before it. He was royally inducted at a black-tie ceremony held at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. This event attracted fifteen-hundred celebrities of such high profile that they and the honoree were protected inside the museum by one-hundred-fifty security personnel. Outside, more than one hundred of New York’s finest stood guard. With as much humility as he could muster with a straight face, Michael received an eight-foot globe of the world inscribed to merely the greatest artist of all time.

Meanwhile, Michael received a telegram from President and Mrs. Nancy Reagan lauding him not only for Thriller but also for his deep faith in God and adherence to traditional values. For sure, President Reagan did not intend to be ironic. However, the best was yet to come. Michael had received twelve Grammy nominations, the most ever received by anyone. And so on February 28, when he and Brook Shields tooled up to Los Angeles’s Shrine Auditorium in a white Rolls-Royce, the only question was how many Grammy awards Michael would actually be taking home that evening. In fact, he had become such an overwhelming favorite of record consumers, record critics, and the recording industry, that Joan Rivers explained how votes were counted so that all the losers will know why they lost to Michael Jackson. From the front row where he sat with one arm around Brooke and another around Emmanuel Lewis, his twelve-year-old little friend, Michael made eight trips to the stage that evening to accept awards. Among the eight, he accepted Grammys for the best record for Beat It, best pop vocalist for Beat It, best rock vocalist for Thriller, best rhythm-and-blues vocalist for Billie Jean, and best children’s album for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Michael Jackson’s eight Grammys were the most ever won in a single year. More than Stevie Wonder’s five in 1973 and again in 1974, and more than the previous record of seven by Paul Simon in 1970 (Bridge over Troubled Water). More than Elvis Presley and more than the Beatles. I was as proud as punch, like so many others who had contributed to his career. At the same time, as Michael, in his trademark spangled uniform, walked off the stage holding the last of the awards in his rhinestone-gloved right hand, I felt deflated. With plenty of opportunity to acknowledge those who had helped him to the pinnacle, Michael thanked everyone from his family to business associates like CBS president Walter Yetnikoff to recently deceased rhythm-and-blues artist Jackie Wilson. He even thanked Katherine Hepburn for advising him to remove his sunglasses. He thanked everyone, except me.

In the wake of the Grammy sweep, I was much sought-after for interviews as newspapers and magazines descended on Gary to find out as much as they could about Mike’s background. Since people in the old neighborhood generally knew how it all began, they would direct the media to me. And as I had done many times with the local media, I would field Jackson family related questions with little to no effort. After all, I had been there from the beginning. On April 9, Dale Harimoto caught me somewhat at a loss for words when she interviewed me for PM Magazine, a national television program. After announcing that the Jacksons had just signed a forty-five-million-dollar contract to do a series of national concerts to be known as the Victory Tour and that Pepsi-Cola had signed the brothers to a major endorsement deal worth millions, Dale asked me to explain how I had discovered Michael Jackson and helped him become the richest, best-known entertainer in the history of music.

The question truly stunned me. Until that moment, I had not truly grasped the enormity of what I had set in motion some nineteen years earlier. Though it should have been obvious to me because there was literally no place that a person could turn without seeing or hearing something about Michael Jackson. Although only a teenager, Mike had already earned his own star in Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. He had also managed to get his picture on the cover of every news magazine in the US, Canada, and Europe. And he had received a record-setting eight Grammy Awards in one night. Michael’s Thriller album had become the most successful record ever released (earning $116,000,000), his videos were being featured every day on TV, his 45s were heard constantly on the radio, and stores were unable to meet the demand for Michael Jackson lunch pails, posters, dolls, record cases, bubble-gum cards, and autograph books. Everywhere, youngsters were wearing spangled military lapels, sunglasses, small bow ties, white socks, and one sequined glove—Michael’s official uniform. President and Mrs. Reagan had invited Michael to the White House to seek his support for a national publicity campaign against teenaged drunk drivers. There was no doubt about it, Michael Jackson was the most publicized and influential entertainer in the world.

So tell me, Reynaud, asked Dale Harimoto, what’s the most memorable thing you can recall about those early days right after you discovered the Jacksons?

I smiled and responded, The fact that it took me three days to convince Mr. Joe Jackson to allow little Michael to appear onstage with me and his brothers that first night. After hours of arguing, I almost gave up. But, for some reason, I didn’t.

There’s probably quite a story behind all that, suggested Dale.

Yes, I agreed, quite a story. Yes, quite a story, indeed.

The Jackson story is a unique one, not just of stars but of ordinary people who found themselves in a galaxy. That’s what interested me: real people struggling to solve real problems, not unreal stars that are the product of a well-manipulated public perception. Just how does a steel-mill family in an industrial town zoom to the outer limits of the entertainment universe? That’s a story, it seems to me, that’s as relevant to the late-twentieth century as was Abraham Lincoln’s ascension from a log cabin to the White House in the nineteenth century. Both stories are about common folk becoming exalted uncommon folk, which is the stuff of legends.

Chapter 2

The Prototype, Before They Were J5 The Prequel

Hey, Rey! Rey! Over here, Rey! I transferred to Roosevelt High School for the 1964–65 school year. It was located just to the west of the Jackson residence, which I would usually pass on my way home. One day in March 1965, Tito was standing on the stoop in front of his house, and from his signals, I could tell that he wanted me to come around to the back of his house. This was the place where he could talk to me through an open, screenless window, as he had done many times before. Go to the back of the house! he shouted, and this is exactly what I did.

In a few seconds, Tito appeared at a window that had no screen. He slid the window open, and as I looked on aghast, he displayed a guitar. Catch this, Jonesey, Tito said as he strummed a couple of very crude blues phrases. I was shocked that he would produce an instrument like this one, not that he could talk to me about guitars since I was the local guitar guru. But I did know that the guitar belonged to Joe, who never let anyone even look at it, except when he was playing it himself. Tito had obviously chosen to live dangerously, at least for the moment. Are you crazy or something? I said in a genuine panic. You better put that back where you got it, and fast. I knew that Joe Jackson would be sorely displeased if he found out that Tito had liberated the guitar. But Tito had something else on his mind. And strumming the purloined guitar at the back window was his way of totally grabbing my attention. I knew, for sure, that he wanted something.

Jones, I want you to teach me to play this thing, he said.

No way, man. Joseph will kill us both, I said. After years of listening to his father and his father’s friends play their guitars in the Jackson living room, it was apparent that Tito had developed a passion for the instrument. He longed to learn how to play it. So as our chancy dialogue at the back window continued over the days that followed, Tito’s recurring theme was that he wanted me to teach him how to play the guitar. Actually, I was flattered. His request reaffirmed my status as the local maestro of the guitar. Not only was I the most accomplished player in Midtown but I also played lead guitar with the Epics, the hottest young group in Gary. Man, you’re pushing your luck too far, I said, not to mention my own. Besides, you’re strumming an ampless instrument that I can’t even hear very well.

So? was his reply.

Okay, but put Joe’s guitar back where you found it, I said. Come over to my basement, and I’ll show you a few things on my box.

Tito’s coming over to my house to learn to play the guitar was a major breakthrough. Apart from Joe Jackson’s guitar sessions with friends, about the only socializing that the Jacksons did was when Mrs. Jackson dropped off Jehovah’s Witness religious tracts here and there around the neighborhood with her younger kids in tow. Hence, Tito’s request was an exceptional one, and given the rumors that circulated regarding Joe’s disciplinary methods, I worried that Tito might be risking his physical well-being.

When Tito Jackson first came over to my house, he knew next to nothing about music. Except for family sing-alongs of traditional country and Western songs, none of the Jacksons had begun to really sing, not even with Joseph, much less play an instrument. Nor was I a qualified teacher. I was easily the best guitarist in the vicinity, but I actually could not even read music. It was, at best, a case of the musically illiterate teaching the musically innocent, somewhat like Willie Mays expounding to a Frenchman on the physics of a fly ball. My method, therefore, was to demonstrate what I could do and then hand my guitar to Tito and let him try to repeat what I had done. From time to time, I’d also try to explain why I did something the way in which it was done. As crude as my method was, it seemed to work; and Tito showed such an intense interest that my unsophisticated tutoring became a regular thing.

We started with the blues, which were easy to play. Tito was familiar with that genre because that’s all Joe played at home, and Tito had apparently tried to imitate his father when Joe wasn’t around. Moreover, I had been introduced to the nuances of the blues by Donnie Boy, one of my classmates who lived near our neighborhood and who had also taught me a few tricks on the guitar. Happily, Tito quickly picked up on what I showed him, so I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time or being unduly diverted from what I was trying to learn on my own. Typically, Tito came over a couple of days during the week and then on weekends; although, because of his concern for upsetting Joe, he could never stay away from home very long.

In time, Tito brought a guitar along with him from home, whether licitly or not. From my exposure within the Jackson home, I knew that there were two guitars stashed away: one which was a burnt orange maroon color with black knobs and two pickups that possibly belonged to Joe’s brother. It wasn’t a very pretty guitar, but the sound that it gave was deep enough that when Jermaine began to play bass lines, he was able to use that guitar. And it wasn’t a bass guitar but a six-string. The other guitar was a brownish-sand color with a smooth shellacked surface that looked good and sounded better. Tito brought over the burnt orange maroon guitar. That’s when we began to make music together. In addition to the blues, I taught Tito to play a line of a rock-and-roll tunes on a single string. One such song was entitled Louie Louie by the Kingsmen, which was a big record hit in 1963. The song had what appeared to be a questionable obscene or suggestive lyric like he fu——ked a girl all across the whatever. Though all the kids who sang the popular song never said that bad word. The song really had a good strong beat on the guitar. Later, we learned, it never had any dirty lyrics.

When Tito and I began to sound like something more than a chopsticks duet, I decided to enhance our sessions by forming a trio. My friend, Milford Hite, immediately came to mind because he had persuaded his parents to buy him a snare drum, which he practiced playing every time the opportunity presented itself. One day in early March, I ran across the street and hauled Milford and his snare drum back to my basement, which was not foreign to him by any means. Milford had begun playing the drum and taking piano lessons from my uncle Herbert, the husband of my father’s sister who lived across the street next to Milford. Milford was a little guy who had been influenced by the music and popularity of the Epics. Like Tito, Milford was younger than I was; but unlike Tito, I knew Milford quite well. In fact, since I was an early riser, I would help Milford deliver his monumental stack of morning newspapers that, when juxtaposed beside him, created a Charlie Brown cartoon. Typically, I would show up at Milford’s house, call out his name to wake him up, and join him in a cup of hot chocolate that his mother would prepare for us. Sometimes, just to surprise him and see the sheer relief in his face, I would deliver Milford’s papers before I even awakened him. In any case, I knew that Milford with his single snare drum desperately wanted to be a part of a group. He accepted my invitation, and soon our new trio made a train wreck sound like the Philadelphia Orchestra. Consequently, the three of us would go down into my basement and practice every chance we got.

With Milford beating out a pulse, Tito and I would learn a backup or bass line together and then try to finger the chords and choruses of popular songs. To put the best face on it, our sound was primitive. Yet I was spurred on to improve the quality of our music due to the rising number of talented groups in Gary. In addition, Motown Records had picked up where Vee-Jay Records left off, achieving new heights as a black-owned music production company. Throughout the city of Gary, new groups kept appearing under streetlights to challenge established groups that continued in full sway. It seemed that all seventy or so kids in the neighborhood and the thirty or more other talented groups in the area aspired to musical greatness, and all were willing to practice in public until they accomplished their goal. If all the music that was belted out on Gary’s street corners during this time had been captured and pumped into a tethered balloon, it would have pulled the earth into a new orbit. This musical mania even caught up with my former battery mate Jackie Jackson, who, toward the end of March, began to accompany Tito to my basement. Jackie was soon followed by Jermaine.

At first, Jackie and Jermaine would just sit and watch and listen. But when things got going good, they would join in and sing our standards: Louie Louie, Oh Yeah! We Gotta Work Out Now, and Doin’ the Jerk, Yeah, Now Watch Me Work! We also did a couple of blues songs. Individually, the Jackson boys had tried singing the blues, like their father. Whenever we played a slow blues line, Jermaine would reflexively sing Stormy Monday, a lament about a man’s miserable week perked up only by Friday when the eagle flies and by riotous times on Saturday, which were all repented for in church on Sunday and he wanted his girlfriend/wife back. I assumed that Jermaine had heard his father sing it. Jermaine would say, They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.

Jermaine’s voice was promising and was a lead despite his stutter. I had heard Jackie trying to harmonize under the corner streetlight right by their house. After a while, Jackie and Jermaine became regulars, although the organizing core remained the trio. Rather than allow them to just sit on the couch singing on the sidelines, I asked Jackie and Jermaine to stand up. Eventually, I encouraged them to sing two different tones simultaneously. Then, blending in Tito or me, we eventually achieved three-part harmony. I did this by not placing emphasis on the actual tones but on off-tones and then working up to the actual tones. Usually, I would start with a line and then, by trial and error, have Jermaine and Jackie experiment until they could sing over the line, not in unison but in harmony.

The first part of April 1965, the two younger Jackson brothers, Marlon and Mike, began showing up at rehearsals. By this time, we were being challenged to learn new songs and expand our routines. Our efforts were in full swing, having been spurred by the knowledge that other up-and-coming groups—practicing under the streetlights, in garages, or behind garages—were fast improving their skills and abilities. Actually, Jackie had to bring the two younger brothers over because Katherine Jackson, their mother, had taken a job at Sears. Under circumstances such as this, the big brothers in