Words, Chords, and Pictures

Back in the early 1970s, daily newspapers regularly printed the lyrics and guitar chords for Top 40 songs. These usually ran in the entertainment section of the Sunday newspaper. When I was a young J5 fan, I would rush to check the entertainment section each Sunday morning to see if they had a J5 song, for two reasons: (1) to read the lyrics that were often difficult to completely understand, even after playing a 45 over and over again, and (2) because the lyrics always included a group photo. The very first photo of the J5 I had on my bedroom wall, in fact, was cut out of the newspaper and it had accompanied the lyrics to "I Want You Back." I watched the newsprint slowly yellow for the next few months while I waited patiently for another photo.

So when I saw this set of newspaper printing plates for "Mama's Pearl" offered on eBay several years ago, I recognized what they were immediately and placed a bid. I was the only bidder. No one else seemed to want them, and I'm not even sure today why I thought I needed them. Maybe it was because my dad was a newspaperman, so I was being hit with two-fisted nostalgia. With changing technology, these sorts of things are going the way of the dinosaur. They will one day be as hard to find as J5 photos were in early 1970.


It's kind of hard to see from the scan above, but for the "Mama's Pearl" lyrics they were still using the same photo they had used for "I Want You Back"more than a year before. It was one of the earliest Motown press photos of the Jackson 5, and it's one of the first photos I ever saw of them. It's the one I used to study when I was learning their names and ages, and deciding that Jermaine was my favorite. I loved that photo.

And because my dad worked for the newspaper and I knew he had access to files of press photos, I used to beg him for a photo of the Jackson 5. Any photo. But a real photo, one that wouldn't turn yellow. He would always say no, he couldn't do that because they didn't belong to him, that would be stealing from the newspaper. But one day, he came home from work and handed me this 8 x 10 glossy:
The newspaper had gotten a duplicate and the librarian said he could have it. I was thrilled to see he had gotten me my favorite photo. It is still my favorite photo for sentimental reasons. And it became the very first item in my Jackson 5 collection.