12. Success!

 

Stardom for The Jackson 5 was just around the corner, but with a detour or two along the way. When ‘I Want You Back’ was released in October 1969, it wasn't an immediate hit. The song entered  Billboard's Top 100 at number 90. Motown's promotion and sales department had to continually encourage disc jockeys to play it and record stores to stock it. Then, finally, ten weeks la...

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11. Michael Moves in with Diana

On 1 October 1969, as his father and brothers were being shuffled from one hotel to another by the Motown brass, it was decided that Michael Jackson would move in with Diana Ross in her Hollywood Hills home. ‘It was a calculated thing. I wanted him to be around her,’ Berry Gordy explained. ‘People think it was an accident that he stayed there. It wasn't. I wanted ...

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10. 'I WANT YOU BACK' - THE JACKSON 5’S FIRST HIT

Creating The Jackson 5's First Hit

The early 1970s were the most significant transitional years

Motown Records had undergone since shoring itself up as a major musical force. By that time, although the company was still producing superb pop and rhythm-and-blues music, some of its biggest stars had begun grumbling about Motown's conveyor-belt me...

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9. MOVED TO HOLLYWOOD
Hollywood Livin'
 
On 27 September 1968, Motown Records booked The Jackson 5 to
appear in a benefit concert at Gilroy Stadium in Gary, Indiana, the
purpose of which was to defray the costs of Richard Hatcher's
mayoral campaign. On the bill that day were Motown recording
artists Gladys Knight and the Pips, Shorty Long, and Bobby Taylor
and the Vancouvers. The Jackson 5 opened the show. In years to
come, the official Motown story would be that this  was where
Diana Ross saw t...
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