‘I’m Joseph to you’
Jackson family patriarch turned his children into stars, but at a price
NEKESA MUMBI MOODY
NEW YORK Joe Jackson channelled his own musical ambition through his children, creating one of the greatest pop vocal groups, The Jackson 5, and launched the career of Michael Jackson, as well as another superstar talent, daughter Janet.
Yet the legacy of Jackson, who died June 27 in Las Vegas at the age of 89, was steeped not only in the brilliant guidance of his children into becoming an entertainment dynasty, but the iron fist with which he did it. Michael described beatings and a fear so great of his father that he would vomit at the sight of him.
“‘You call me Joseph,’” Janet Jackson recalled her father telling her once when she called him Dad. “‘I’m Joseph to you.’”
As adults, his children severed professional ties to him.
Still, in times of turmoil, it was Joe that they continued to turn to. When Michael stood trial on allegations that he had sexually abused a child (he was acquitted), it was Joe Jackson at his side. And La Toya Jackson, who once accused her father of physical and sexual abuse, later blaming her abusive former husband for coercing her to say it, delivered a loving tribute to her father.
“I will always love you! You gave us strength, you made us one of the most famous families in the world. I am extremely appreciative of that, I will never forget our moments together and how you told me how much you cared,” she wrote on Twitter.
Joseph Walter Jackson married Katherine Scruse, with whom he settled in Gary, Ind.
He worked as a welder and crane operator, sometimes holding as many as three jobs at a time to support his family, which would eventually swell to include nine children — Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Michael, Randy and youngest sister Janet — all living in a three-room house. He kept his guitar — but made it clear it was off limits to anyone but him.
One day, the older brothers broke a string on the beloved guitar, as Michael described in his autobiography. Fearing a beating, Tito hid, but when his father demanded he show what he could do with the guitar, he did — and Joe Jackson was awed. And a musical group was born.
Michael joined at age eight, and was its showstopper from the beginning. His father became their manager, leading to a contract with Motown Records for his five oldest boys, a deal that launched them into superstardom. They eventually went to Epic Records and wrote their own music, leading to Michael’s growth as a singer-songwriter.
Michael credited his father with making sure industry vultures didn’t cheat them.
“I’d say we’re among a fortunate few artists who walked away from a childhood in the business with anything substantial — money, real estate, other investments. My father set all these up for us,” Jackson wrote in his 1988 autobiography.
“But still I don’t know him, and that’s sad for a son who hungers to understand his own father. He’s still a mystery to me and may always be one.”
The relationship with many of his children never improved. Janet said in an interview in 2011 that she rarely spoke to her father and by adulthood they had severed ties.
Joe was not mentioned in Michael’s will. Michael provided only for his three children and mother Katherine, who was named as the children’s guardian. That led Joe to wage a fruitless legal war seeking compensation from various entities.
In his own autobiography, Jackson acknowledged being a stern parent, saying he believed it was the only way to prepare his children for the tough world of show business. But he denied many of the claims of physical abuse.
“He was never given the credit he deserved,” the Rev. Al Sharpton wrote on Twitter after Joe’s death.
“He influenced the world of music with The Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and others. May history correct his legacy.”