Michael Jackson Biography




The first years

Michael Joseph Jackson born on august 29 in Gary a small town in Indiana USA
was the 7th of 9 children of Joseph and Katherine Jackson. He begin the kindergarten
and the first years of Gary’s elementary school, which he later calls his ‘childhood’.
Michael was very talent and the brothers let him be the young frontman in the
music group of Jackson Five.

Michael came into show buisness at a young age. At age 5, his father, Joe Jackson,
beleived that his sons had great talent, so in the early 1960's,he created a music
group. The group had Michael, and his brothers Tito, Jermaine, and Jackie.
Then Michael's brother Marlon joined the group. They were named, "The Jackson 5."
The Jackson 5 signed a record deal with Motown Records in 1968. The Jackson 5's first
album, "Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5," was released in December of 1969.
Years later, the Jackson 5 became known as, "The Jacksons." They soon signed a record
deal with Epic Records. Michael was the frontman and on stage, he modelled his
dance moves and vocal styling on James Brown, and portrayed an absolute selfconfidence
on stage that belied his shy, private personality. The Jackson Five signed to Motown
Records at the end of 1968; their early releases, including US chart-toppers ‘I Want
You Back’, ‘ABC’, ‘The Love You Save’, and ‘I’ll Be There’, illustrated his remarkable
maturity. Although Michael was too young to have experienced the romantic situations
that were the subject of his songs, he performed with total sincerity, showing all
the hallmarks of a great soul artist. Ironically, his pre-adolescent vocal work
carried a conviction that he often failed to recapture later in his career.

When MGM Records launched the Osmonds as rivals to the Jackson Five 1970 and singled
out their lead singer, 13-year-old Donny Osmond, for a solo career Motown felt duty
bound to reply in kind. Michael Jackson’s first release as a solo performer was the
aching ballad ‘Got To Be There’, a major transatlantic hit. A revival of Bobby Day’s
rock ‘n’ roll novelty ‘Rockin’ Robin’ reached number 2 on the US chart in 1972, while
the sentimental film theme ‘Ben’ topped the chart later in the year.
Motown capitalized on Jackson’s popularity with a series of hurried albums, which mixed
unremarkable material angled towards the teenage market with a selection of the label’s
standards. They also stockpiled scores of unissued tracks, which were released in the
80s to cash in on the success of his Epic recordings.

His solo carrier

As the Jackson Five’s sales slipped in the mid-70s, Michael’s solo career was put on
hold, and he continued to reserve his talents for the group after they were reborn
as the Jacksons in 1976 after leaving Motown and signing with Epic Records.
He re-entered the public eye with a starring role in the film musical The Wiz,
collaborating on the soundtrack album with Quincy Jones. Their partnership was
renewed in 1979 when Jones produced Off The Wall, a startlingly successful collection
of contemporary soul material that introduced the world to the adult Michael Jackson.
In his new incarnation, Jackson retained the vocal flexibility of old, but added a new
element of sophistication and maturity.

Jackson continued to tour and record with the Jacksons after this solo success, while
media speculation grew about his private life. He was increasingly portrayed as
a figure trapped in an eternal childhood, surrounded by toys and pet animals, and insulated
from the traumas of the real world at his idyllic 2700 acre Neverland ranch in
California’s Santa Ynez Valley. This image was consolidated when he was chosen to
narrate an album based on the 1982 fantasy movie ET - The Extra Terrestrial.
The record was quickly withdrawn because of legal complications, but still won
Jackson another Grammy Award.

In 1982, Thriller, Jackson’s second album with Quincy Jones, was released, and went
on to become one of the most commercially successful albums of all time.
It also produced a run of successful hit singles, each accompanied by a promotional
video that widened the scope of the genre. ‘The Girl Is Mine’, a duet with Paul McCartney
began the sequence in relatively subdued style, setting the scene for ‘Billie Jean’
an effortless mix of disco and pop that was a huge transatlantic chart-topper
and spawned a series of answer records from other artists.

The accompanying video was equally spectacular, portraying Jackson as a master of
dance, a magician who could transform lives, and a shadowy figure who lived outside
the everyday world.
It was the first black music video to receive rotation airplay on the MTV video
station. Its successor ‘Beat It’ also topped the US chart and helped establish
another precedent, with its determinedly rock-flavoured guitar solo by Eddie Van
Halen. Its promotional film involved Jackson at the centre of a choreographed
street battle, a conscious throwback to the set pieces of West Side Story.
However, even this was a modest effort compared to ‘Thriller’, a rather mannered piece
of disco-funk accompanied by a stunning long-form video that placed Jackson in a
parade of Halloween horrors.
This promo clip spawned a follow-up, The Making Of ‘Thriller’, which in turn sold
more copies than any other home video to date.
The Thriller album and singles won Jackson a further seven Grammies; amidst this run
of hits, Jackson slotted in ‘Say Say Say’, another duet with Paul McCartney which
topped the US singles chart for six weeks.

More to come...

More about Michael Jackson on IMDB

The Jackson story

Michael Jackson Biography by Filmreference



The Michael Jackson Empire 2009-2010