I took father’s guitar... and the rest is history!
As The Jacksons prepare to play the 10th Mostly Jazz Funk and Soul Festival in Birmingham, elder brother Tito tells DAVE FREAK about the birth of the legendary American boy band
Y daddy used to play the guitar and I was one of those young boys who wanted to do everything daddy did,” says Tito Jackson.
Looking back, the now 65-yearold Tito recalls with affection how he watched his father and uncle play together on Saturday nights at the Jackson family home, in Gary Indiana, during the late-1950s and early-1960s.
Dad Joe was quick to spot Tito’s interest, although he wasn’t initially encouraging, bellowing “Don’t touch that guitar!”
“But I disobeyed pretty much,” Tito explains, having picked up the instrument while Joe, who worked in the local steel industry and in construction, was at work. Despite being only eight-years-old, the would-be guitarist became obsessed with trying to play, and made great strides.
“My mum started noticing that I was playing little things... just really iddy bitty things... and that I was really into it. After a while she would just let me do it, she’d just tell me to put it back, because dad would be about to come home soon – ‘get it back in the closet’.”
However, Tito’s secret sessions would soon come to an abrupt end.
“I broke a string one day!” says Tito, with a sharp intake of breath. “Yeh! I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t have a string, but never mind not having it, I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to put one on a guitar at that age!
“When my father found out what I had done, he was really upset that I had disobeyed him. He punished me for it and then, after that, he put the guitar in my lap and said, ‘Show me what you know!’
“There I am, crying and playing, through the whole thing, and he was bemused. He was very shocked! My mum had told him before he punished me that I wasn’t playing with it, that I was really really really interested in playing it… and I could play it a bit. But it was the fact that I’d disobeyed him, he told me not to touch it.”
Despite his anger, Joe recognised a spark in his son.
“I was playing and crying and what he did was that he gave me the guitar. Then he bought himself another one, next pay cheque, and he told me when he gave it to me to learn. He said, ‘When I give you this guitar, I want you to learn every song that you like on the radio’.”
And that’s exactly what Tito did, picking up tunes and riffs from the likes of The Isley Brothers, The Temptations, and others.
Soon, his brothers Jermaine and Jackie were joining in on vocals, copying songs from the radio, and singing in harmony. Younger siblings Michael (then in Kindergarten), and Marlon predictably wanted in on the action.
“We’d be trying to practice, and they’d be playing, having fun with their toys, and that whole thing, rolling cars across the floor, so we told them, ‘You’re too young! You’re not ready yet!’”
Then the elder trio heard Michael sing for the first time, and couldn’t believe their ears. “We put him in the group immediately!” smiles
Tito, who also quickly let Marlon in on the act.
And suddenly, there were five musical Jackson brothers.
“We weren’t called The Jackson Five, we didn’t have a name, but we’d be in a room, singing these songs, getting them right sometimes, getting them a little wrong, it was kids trying to be entertainers, you know?”
By the end of the 1960s, those entertainers had worked their way through local talent shows, opened for major acts, been spotted by Gladys Knight, recommended to producer/ songwriter/ record label owner Berry Gordy, and had signed to his Motown label.
And by 1970, they’d cracked the UK with I Want You Back, ABC and I’ll Be There, going on to spend over 250 weeks in the charts with such hits as Blame It On The Boogie, Shake Your Body, Can You Feel It and State of Shock.
Now featuring four brothers – Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Jackie (Michael, who became the world’s biggest pop star, died in 2009) – The Jacksons continue to entertain, with their latest World Tour stopping off at Mostly Jazz Festival to help the festival celebrate its 10th anniversary.
“It’s going great,” enthuses Tito, who promises a non-stop greatest hits show. “Entertainment is what we do, and we love it.”
The Jacksons play the Mostly Jazz Funk and Soul Festival, Moseley, Birmingham, on Friday, July 12. Other acts appearing include Ibibio Sound Machine (July 12), The Brand New Heavies and Craig Charles (July 13) and Burt Bacharach and Khruangbin (July 14). For the full line-ups and tickets see mostlyjazz.co.uk