LITMIR.BIZ

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head to rehearsal or go onstage to perform. I can’t remember which. But Joseph reassured us that if we hung around and behaved ourselves, we’d get to meet the greatest songwriter of all time. That was one of the few times we’d ever feel butterflies in the stomach: getting ready to meet one of our heroes was more nerve-racking than performing.

      When Smokey walked up to us and stopped to talk, we couldn’t believe he was actually taking time out for us. But there he stood, in a black turtleneck and pants, smiling broadly and shaking our hands, asking who we were and what we did. Michael was always intrigued by another artist’s way of doing things. He peppered Smokey with questions. How did you write all those songs? When do the songs come to you? I don’t remember the answers but I’ll guarantee that Michael did. Smokey gave us a good five minutes – and when he walked away, you know what we talked about? His hands. ‘Did you feel how soft his hands were?’ whispered Michael.

      ‘No wonder,’ I said. ‘He ain’t done nothing but write songs.’

      ‘They were softer than Mother’s!’ Michael added.

      When we burst through the door in Gary, it was the first thing we told Mother, too. ‘MOTHER! We met Smokey Robinson – and you know how soft his hands were?’

      That’s what people forget. We were fans long before we became anything else.

      The day we met Jackie Wilson we advanced one stage further with our VIP access: we were invited into his hallowed dressing room. It was ‘hallowed’ because, to us, he was the black Elvis before the white Elvis had come along, one of those once-in-every-generation entertainers. Jackie and his revue were regular headliners at the Regal so our sole focus that day was to meet him. After Joseph had had a word with someone, we got the ‘Okay, five minutes’ privilege that our boyhood cuteness often bought. I’ll say this about our father: he knew how to open doors.

      This big-name door opened and we entered single file from the darkness of the corridor into the brightness cast by the light-bulbs arcing around the dressing-table mirror, where Jackie was seated with his back to us. He had a towel wrapped into a thick collar to protect his white shirt from the foundation and eye-liner he was self-applying.

      It was Michael who spoke up first, politely wondering if he could ask him some questions.

      ‘Sure, go ahead, kid,’ said Jackie, speaking to our reflections in his mirror.

      He then bombarded him with questions. How does it feel when you go on stage? How much do you rehearse? How young were you when you started? My brother was relentless in his quest for knowledge.

      But it was Joseph who handed us the biggest piece of information to take away that night: he told us that some of Jackie Wilson’s songs had been written by none other than Mr Gordy, the founder of Motown. (‘Lonely Teardrops’ had been Mr Gordy’s first No. 1.)

      In meeting both Smokey Robinson and Jackie Wilson, we all knew theirs was the level where we needed to be. Maybe that was what Joseph had been doing all along: introducing us to the kings so that we, too, would want to rule. It was almost like he was saying, ‘This can be you – but you’ve got to keep working at it.’

      I wish I could remember the pearls of show-business wisdom that each man left us with – because each one had ‘sound advice’, according to Joseph – but those words are now buried treasure somewhere deep in my mind. Michael hoarded these influences, absorbing every last detail: the way they talked, moved, spoke – and how their skin looked and felt. He watched them on stage with the scrutiny of a young director, focusing on Smokey’s words, focusing on Jackie’s feet. Then, in the van going home afterwards, he became the most vocal and animated out of all of us: ‘Did you hear when he said …’ or ‘Did you notice that …’ or ‘Did you see Jackie do that move …’ My brother was a master studier of people and never forgot a thing, filing it away in a mental folder he might well have called ‘Greatest Inspirations & Influences’.

      WE WERE NOW EARNING ABOUT 500 dollars a show and our father worked us harder than ever, with an unremitting expectation of precision. ‘We’ve done this over and over. WHY are you forgetting what to do?’ he shouted, when a song or a move broke down – and then reminded us that James Brown used to fine his Famous Flames whenever they made a mistake.

      But fines weren’t Joseph’s choice of sanction. Whippings were. Marlon got it the most because he was singled out as the weak link in the chain. It’s true that he wasn’t the most co-ordinated, and he had to work 10 times harder than the rest of us, but none of us saw anything in him that hampered our performance. But Marlon became the excuse for Joseph to cram in extra rehearsal time and keep us indoors more. It would turn out there was a deeper reason behind all this, but that would dawn later.

      One time there was a step Marlon just couldn’t master and Joseph’s patience snapped. He ordered him outside to get a ‘switch’ – a skinny branch – from the tree outside. We watched as Marlon chose the stick with which we knew Joseph was going to beat him – from the very tree he had used to symbolise family and unity. ‘When you forget,’ Joseph barked, ‘it’s the difference between winning and losing!’ As he struck Marlon on the back of the legs, Michael ran away in tears, unable to watch.

      The sight of that switch made us all dig deeper in rehearsals but time and again, Marlon messed up. ‘BOY! Go out there and get a switch!’ Marlon tried to get clever – taking his time to find the skinniest, weakest branch to lessen the impact. ‘NO! You go back out there and get a bigger one!’ said Joseph. Marlon learned to scream louder than it actually hurt. That way, the beating stopped sooner. What Marlon didn’t hear was the talk about turning the Jackson 5 into the Jackson 4.

      ‘He can’t do it, he’s out of step and out of tune, and he’s ruining our chances!’ Joseph told Mother. But over her dead body was Marlon going to be kicked out and scarred for life: Mother picked her battles, and Marlon stayed in the group.

      I’ll say this about Marlon: he’s the most tenacious of us all. He knew his limits but never stopped trying to push beyond them. Whenever we took a break, he kept on practising. He even used the walk to school to rehearse. There we were, a group of brothers ambling to school, and Marlon broke out, dancing on the sidewalk, going through his steps, moving sideways.

      From the middle bunk at bedtime, we heard Michael reassuring Marlon – ‘You’re doing good, you’ll get there, keep at it.’ At school, Michael would use break-time to show Marlon spins and different moves. As lovers of Bruce Lee movies, we had our own nunchucks – martial-art sticks – and Michael used to take them to school (rules were more lenient in the days when kids didn’t use weapons to harm one another). Michael and Marlon were like poetry in motion, using the nunchaku techniques to practise fluidity, flexibility and grace in movement. I think this was why Marlon eventually became an accomplished dancer, too – because he put in the extra hours. But Michael hated Joseph using his own excellence as the measure by which he judged his brother. He hated the way that such unforgiving scrutiny always planted doubt: ‘Was that good enough? Was that what he wanted? Did I make a mistake?’ – the early whisperings of a rabid self-doubt that would compel each one of us to worry if our best was our best.

      Maybe the resentment this stoked was what lay behind Michael’s rebellion. During rehearsals, if Joseph asked him to do a certain new step, or try a new move, Michael, whose developing freestyle required no instruction, refused. At the age of nine, he had turned from a compliant, ask-me-to-do-anything child into the stubborn kid with attitude. ‘Do it, Michael,’ said Joseph, glaring, ‘or there’ll be trouble!’

      ‘NO!’

      ‘I’m not going to ask you again.’

      ‘NO – I wanna go outside and play!’

      Michael became one of those kids who strained against imposed order, pushing his luck more than we ever dared. Inevitably, he received the switch. Time and again, he stood at the tree, crying, trying to choose his branch. Buying time. I remember getting the switch once – for not doing some chore – but Marlon (for errors) and Michael (for blatant disobedience) received it the most.

      There

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