being with us as we recorded it over and over, molding and sculpting a song until it was just perfect. We would cut a
track over and over for weeks until we got it just as they wanted it. And I could see while they were doing it that it
was getting better and better. They would change words, arrangements, rhythms, everything. Berry gave them the
freedom to work this way because of his own perfectionist nature. I guess if they hadn't been doing it, he would have.
Berry had such a knack. He'd just walk into the room where we were working and tell me what to do and he'd be
right. It was amazing.
When "I Want You Back" was released in November 1969, it sold two million copies in six weeks and went to
number one. Our next single, "ABC," came out in March 1970 and sold two million records in three weeks. I still
like the part where I say, "Siddown, girl! I think I loove you! No, get up, girl, show me what you can do! " When our third single, "The Love You Save," went to number one in June of 1970, Berry's promise came true.
When our next single, "I'll Be There," was also a big hit in the fall of that year, we realized we might even surpass Berry's expectations and be able to pay him back for all the effort he had made for us.
My brothers and I - our whole family - were very proud. We had created a new sound for a new decade. It was the
first time in recording history that a bunch of kids had made so many hit records. The Jackson 5 had never had much
competition from kids our own age. In the amateur days there was a kids' group called the Five Stairsteps that we
used to see. They were good, but they didn't seem to have the strong family unit that we did, and sadly they broke up.
After "ABC" hit the charts in such a big way, we started seeing other groups that record companies were grooming to ride the bandwagon we had built. I enjoyed all these groups: the Partridge Family, the Osmonds, the DeFranco
Family. The Osmonds were already around, but they were doing a much different style of music, like barbershop
harmony and crooning. As soon as we hit, they and the other groups got into soul real fast. We didn't mind.
Competition, as we know, was healthy. Our own relatives thought "One Bad Apple" was us. I remember being so
little that they had a special apple crate for me to stand on with my name on it so I could reach the microphone.
Microphones didn't go down far enough for kids my age. So many of my childhood years went by that way, with me
standing on that apple box singing my heart out while other kids were outside playing.
As I said before, in those early days "The Corporation" at Motown produced and shaped all our music. I remember
lots of times when I felt the song should be sung one way and the producers felt it should be sung another way. But
for a long time I was very obedient and wouldn't say anything about it. Finally it reached a point where I got fed up
with being told exactly how to sing. This was in 1972 when I was fourteen years old, around the time of the song
"Lookin' Through the Windows." They wanted me to sing a certain way, and I knew they were wrong. No matter
what age you are, if you have it and you know it, then people should listen to you. I was furious with our producers
and very upset. So I called Berry Gordy and complained. I said that they had always told me how to sing, and I had
agreed all this time, but now they were getting too . . . mechanical.
So he came into the studio and told them to let me do what I wanted to do. I think he told them to let me be more free
or something. And after that, I started adding a lot of vocal twists that they really ended up loving. I'd do a lot of ad-
libbing, like twisting words or adding some edge to them.
17
When Berry was in the studio with us, he would always add something that was right. He'd go from studio to studio,
checking on different aspects of people's work, often adding elements that made the records better. Walt Disney used
to do the same thing: he'd go check on his various artists and say, "Well, this character should be more outgoing." I always knew when Berry was enjoying something I was doing in the studio, because he has this habit of rolling his
tongue in his cheek when he's pleased by something. If things were really going well, he'd punch the air like the ex-
professional boxer he is.
My three favorite songs from those days are "Never Can Say Goodbye," "I'll Be There," and "ABC." I'll never forget the first time I heard "ABC." I thought it was so good. I remember feeling this eagerness to sing that song, to get in the studio and really make it work for us.
We were still rehearsing daily and working hard - some things didn't change - but we were grateful to be where we
were. There were so many people pulling for us, and we were so determined ourselves that it seemed anything could
happen.
Once "I Want You Back" came out, everyone at Motown prepared us for success. Diana loved it and presented us at a big-name Hollywood discotheque, where she had us playing in a comfortable party atmosphere like at Berry's.
Following directly on the heels of Diana's event came an invitation to play at the "Miss Black America" telecast.
Being on the show would enable us to give people a preview of our record and our show. After we got the invitation,
my brothers and I remembered our disappointment at not getting to go to New York to do our first TV show because
Motown had called. Now we were going to do our first TV show and we were with Motown. Life was very good.
Diana, of course, put the cherry on top. She was going to host "The Hollywood Palace," and big Saturday night
show; it would be her last appearance with the Supremes and the first major exposure for us. This meant a lot to
Motown, because by then they had decided that our new album would be called "Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5."
Never before had a superstar like Diana passed the torch to a bunch of kids. Motown, Diana, and five kids from
Gary, Indiana, were all pretty excited. By then "I Want You Back" had come out, and Berry was proven right again; all the stations that played Sly and the Beatles were playing us, too.
As I mentioned earlier, we didn't work as hard on the album as we did on the single, but we had fun trying out all
sorts of songs - from "Who's Lovin' You," the old Miracles' song we were doing in the talent show days, to "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah."
We did songs on that album that appealed to a wide audience - kids, teenagers, and grownups - and we all felt that
was a reason for its big success. We knew that "The Hollywood Palace" had a live audience, a sophisticated Hollywood crowd, and we were concerned; but we had them from the first note. There was an orchestra in the pit, so
that was the first time I heard all of "I Want You Back" performed live because I wasn't there when they recorded the strings for the album. Doing that show made us feel like kings, the way winning the citywide show in Gary had.
Selecting the right songs for us to do was going to be a real challenge now that we weren't depending on other
people's hits to win crowd. The Corporation guys and Hal Davis were put to work writing songs especially for us, as
well as producing them. Berry didn't want to have to bail us all out again. So even after our first singles hit number
one on the charts, we were busy with the follow-ups.
"I Want You Back" could have been sung by a grownup, but "ABC" and "The Love You Save" were written for our young voices, with parts for Jermaine as well as me - another bow to the Sly sound, which rotated singers around the
stage. The Corporation had also written those songs with dance routines in mind: the steps our fans did at parties as
well as those we did on stage. The verses were tongue-twisting, and that's why they were split up between Jermaine