school days in Gary are a blur for me. I vaguely remember being dropped off in front of my school on the first day of
kindergarten, and I clearly remember hating it. I didn't want my mother to leave me, naturally, and I didn't want to be
there.
In time I adjusted, as all kids do, and I grew to love my teachers, especially the women. They were always very
sweet to us and they just loved me. Those teachers were so wonderful; I'd be promoted from one grade to the next
and they'd all cry and hug me and tell me how much they hated to see me leave their classes. I was so crazy about my
teachers that I'd steal my mother's jewelry and give it to them as presents. They'd be very touched, but eventually my
mother found out about it, and put an end to my generosity with her things. That urge that I had to give them
something in return for all I was receiving was a measure of how much I loved them at that school.
One day, in the first grade, I participated in a program that was put on before the whole school. Everyone of us in
each class had to do something, so I went home and discussed it with my parents. We decided I should wear black
pants and a white shirt and sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from The Sound of Music . When I finished that song, the reaction in the auditorium overwhelmed me. The applause was thunderous and people were smiling; some of them
were standing. My teachers were crying and I just couldn't believe it. I had made them all happy. It was such a great
feeling. I felt a little confused too, because I didn't do anything special. I was just singing the way I sang at home
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every night. When you're performing, you don't realize what you sound like or how you're coming across. You just
open your mouth and sing.
Soon Dad was grooming us for talent contests. He was a great trainer, and he spent a lot of money and time working
with us. Talent is something that God gives to a performer, but our father taught us how to cultivate it. I think we also
had a certain instinct for show business. We loved to perform and we put everything we had into it. He's sit at home
with us every day after school and rehearse us. We'd perform for him and he'd critique us. If you messed up, you got
hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch. My father was real strict with us - real strict. Marlon was the
one who got in trouble all the time. On the other hand, I'd get beaten for things that happened mostly outside
rehearsal. Dad would make me so mad and hurt that I'd try to get back at him and get beaten all the more. I'd take a
shoe and throw it at him, or I'd just fight back, swinging my fists. That's why I got it more than all my brothers
combined. I would fight back and my father would kill me, just tear me up. Mother told me I'd fight back even when
I was very little, but I don't remember that. I do remember running under tables to get away from him, and making
him angrier. We had a turbulent relationship.
Most of the time, however, we just rehearsed. We always rehearsed. Sometimes, late at night, we'd have time to play
games or with our toys. There might be a game of hide-and-go-seek or we'd jump rope, but that was about it. The
majority of our time was spent working. I clearly remember running into the house with my brothers when my father
came home, because we'd be in big trouble if we weren't ready to start rehearsals on time.
Through all this, my mother was completely supportive. She had been the one who first recognized our talent and she
continued to help us realize our potential. It's hard to imagine that we would have gotten where we did without her
love and good humor. She worried about the stress we were under and the long hours of rehearsal, but we wanted to
be the best we could be and we really loved music.
Music was important in Gary. We had our own radio stations and nightclubs, and there was no shortage of people
who wanted to be on them. After Dad ran our Saturday afternoon rehearsals, he'd go see a local show or even drive
all the way to Chicago to see someone perform. He was always watching for things that could help us down the road.
He'd come home and tell us what he'd seen and who was doing what. He kept up on all the latest stuff, whether it was
a local theater that ran contests we could enter or a Cavalcade of Stars show with great acts whose clothes or moves
we might adapt. Sometimes I wouldn't see Dad until I got back from Kingdom Hall on Sundays, but as soon as I ran
into the house he'd be telling me what he'd seen the night before. He'd assure me I could dance on one leg like James
Brown if I'd only try this step. There I'd be, fresh out of church, and back in show business.
We started collecting trophies with our act when I was six. Our lineup was set; the group featured me at second from
the left, and Jackie on my right. Tito and his guitar took stage right, with Marlon next to him. Jackie was getting tall
and he towered over Marlon and me. We kept that setup for contest after contest and it worked well. While other
groups we'd meet would fight among themselves and quit, we were becoming more polished and experienced. The
people in Gary who came regularly to see the talent shows got to know us, so we would try to top ourselves and
surprise them. We didn't want them to begin to feel bored by our act. We knew change was always good, that it
helped us grow, so we were never afraid of it.
Winning an amateur night or talent show in a ten-minute, two-song set took as much energy as a ninety-minute
concert. I'm convinced that because there's no room for mistakes, your concentration burns you up inside more on
one or two songs than it does when you have the luxury of twelve or fifteen in a set. These talent shows were our
professional education. Sometimes we'd drive hundreds of miles to do one song or two and hope the crowd wouldn't
be against us because we weren't local talent. We were competing against people of all ages and skills, from drill
teams to comedians to other singers and dancers like us. We had to grab that audience and keep it. Nothing was left
to chance, so clothes, shoes, hair, everything had to be the way Dad planned it. We really looked amazingly professional. After all this planning, if we performed the songs the way we rehearsed them, the awards would take
care of themselves. This was true even when we were in the Wallace High part of town where the neighborhood had
its own performers and cheering sections and we were challenging them right in their own backyards. Naturally,
local performers always had their own very loyal fans, so whenever we went off our turf and onto someone else's, it
was very hard. When the master of ceremonies held his hand over our heads for the "applause meter," we wanted to make sure that the crowd knew we had given them more than anyone else.
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As players, Jermaine, Tito, and the rest of us were under tremendous pressure. Our manger was the kind who
reminded us that James Brown would fine his Famous Flames if they missed a cue or bent a note during a performance. As lead singer, I felt I - more than the others - couldn't afford an "off night." I can remember being onstage at night after being sick in bed all day. It was hard to concentrate at those times, yet I knew all the things my
brothers and I had to do so well that I could have performed the routines in my sleep. At times like that, I had to
remind myself not to look in the crowd for someone I knew, or at the emcee, both of which can distract a young
performer. We did songs that people knew from the radio or songs that my father knew were already classics. If you
messed up, you heard about it because the fans knew those songs and they knew how they were supposed to sound.