Michael Jackson: Sixties Fashions and Music

 

Just another Sunday evening, the family gathers in the living room after dinner. One of those variety shows comes on the television, maybe Ed Sullivan or Andy Williams. I remember it well…..my mother in the room, in her chair, usually either knitting or reading, but yet was also able to watch what ever caught her interest on television, and all of this simultaneously. I can see her now with cigarette dangling from her mouth, looking over the tops of her glasses and the ashes dropping to her lap.
While watching those Sunday night shows, (they seemed to run all during the 1960’s) what caught all of our attention was a young child star named Michael Jackson. Singing and dancing with his older brothers in “The Jackson Five”.
Michael was born in Gary, Indiana in 1958. The seventh of nine children. His father Joseph worked in the steel mills, and his mother Katherine, a devout Jehovah Witness, raised her children in the same beliefs.
His talent was noticed by family and friends at a Christmas Recital in 1964….when he was only five.
At first it was the “Jackson Brothers” a band put together by three of his brothers. Marlon and Michael later joined them, but stayed in the background in the beginning. Later the name was changed to “The Jackson Five”.
During the years of 1966 thru 1968 the band hit the road. Traveling the mid-western states……in what some refer to as the “chitlin’ circuit”. Mostly playing the black clubs, of which many were ‘strip joints’. They recorded “Big Boy” in 1967 for Steeltown Records.
Of course the rest is well known history after signing with Motown in 1968.
What an amazing journey lay ahead for one of the world’s greatest entertainers. We would see him soar to heights unimaginable…..but unfortunately also witness his decent into a secret darker world that few understood.
I think in many ways his journey reminds me of Elvis…..what seems to happen to these child stars? I think society is partly to blame by making them into more then they ever can be, after all, they are in essence mere men, like the rest of us.
Michael Jackson, Elvis, and many others are forced into escaping into secret worlds in order to live their own lives.
But I will remember him as that cute little 10 year old boy with that big smile…who captured the hearts of people all over the world. I will remember a Sunday night with my family in 1968.

Author; D.A. Grosshans

New Book:
Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson

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