Patriarch turned Jacksons into music stars
Joe Jackson, the man who fathered Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 and deployed an iron will to turn his supremely gifted children into a culture-shifting music powerhouse, died early Wednesday, reports said. He was 89.
Jackson had been ill for some time with an undisclosed condition, and had grown increasingly frail.
His most recent public appearance was at the BET Awards in 2015, when daughter Janet accepted the Ultimate Icon Award.
Jackson had been healthy enough to be out and about as recently as June 6, when a video appeared on his Twitter page showing him at a Jamba Juice in Las Vegas trying to decide what to drink while Michael’s music played in the background.
As the patriarch of the “First Family of Music,” he had just published in March a picture book recalling his life and 60 years in show business, “Precious Moments,” and was enthusiastically promoting it in May, according to his Twitter page.
Among other memories, Jackson recalled the good old days when he and his sons strode the music world.
“Precious Moments with my sons. When we were all together, united as one, nothing could stop us,” his Twitter page showed in April.
Joe Jackson wanted to be a music star but it didn’t work out for him. Instead, he made his sons into superstars.
Though his own dreams failed, his vision for his talented children made him patriarch of one of the most successful families in music history.
At the same time, he was also a controversial figure who wound up estranged from the kids — including King of Pop Michael Jackson — he set on the path to stardom.
He and Katherine, now 88, had 10 children; nine survived to have recording careers starting with The Jackson 5, who became instant international pop sensations when they burst on the scene. Their rise lifted the family out of poverty in Gary, Ind.
But while Jackson is credited as the driving force behind the success, he also was reviled for his abrasive manner and revelations by his children that he was a physically and emotionally abusive father.
Michael, who fired his father as his manager in 1979 and took control over his own career, famously talked about his upbringing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1993, detailing the physical and mental abuse he said he endured at the hands of his father and lamenting that he missed out on a normal childhood.
“I remember going to the recording studio, and there was a park across the street, and I’d see all the children playing and I would cry. It would make me sad that I would have to go to work instead,” he said.
“People wonder why I always have children around. It’s because I find the thing that I never had through them. Disneyland, amusement parks, arcade games — I adore all that stuff because when I was little, it was always work, work, work.”
In 2008 interviews to promote a new album, Janet Jackson, now 52, criticized her father’s infidelities and the fact he had a daughter (Joh’Vonnie Jackson) out of wedlock with a woman, Cheryl Terrell. Janet said she found it hard to trust men because of her father’s behaviour.
But the Jackson siblings didn’t all agree on the Joe-was-abusive narrative: Some said it happened, a few said it never occurred.
Joe managed his kids’ various careers from the beginning, but as they matured, tensions mounted. By 1983, all had broken with him — and blossomed on their own.
Jackson had been dogged by ill health for years. He suffered five strokes within a five-year period, with the most recent coming during a July 2015 trip to Brazil to celebrate his 87th birthday.
Though Joe and Katherine, his wife of nearly 70 years, never officially divorced (Katherine filed petitions twice, but didn’t go through with them), they lived apart.
He resided in Las Vegas while she remained at the family compound in Calabasas, Calif. Shortly before her 88th birthday in May, he posted a video montage of “precious moments” with her on his website.
Joe Jackson was born in Fountain Hill, Ark., on July 26, 1928. When his parents divorced, he went to Oakland, Calif., to live with his father, before moving to East Chicago, Ind., when he was 18 to be close to his mother.
He married Katherine Scruse in 1949 after a two-year courtship. For a time, he tried making it as a boxer, then as a guitarist in a band called The Falcons.
He eventually became a crane operator at U.S. Steel in East Chicago, often working overtime to feed and clothe his growing family.
One night when he came home from work, he was incensed to find his nine-year-old son Tito had broken one of his guitar strings. He demanded that the boy play, and was surprised at his skill.
He then discovered that sons Jackie and Jermaine could sing, and began promoting The Jackson Brothers in local contests.
Younger brothers Marlon and Michael joined a couple of years later, and Joe became their manager.
He set up a regimen of long and intense rehearsals for his sons, and began booking them in more and more respectable venues until they landed a spot at the renowned Apollo Theater in New York City.
Soon The Jackson 5 were ubiquitous. They would have success into their adult years, with youngest brother Randy joining the Jacksons, and sisters Rebbie, LaToya and Janet launching solo careers.