The Jackson 5 on Biography

If, like me, you missed The Jackson 5 on Biography during the busy holiday season, you can watch a few clips from it on their website. I'll keep an eye out for the rerun of it. My friend Jeff says there is some great rare footage and an interview with Tito, so it'll be worth checking out. Most of the features that run on Biography are eventually offered for sale as dvds so we'll have to keep an eye out for that, too.

Ring in the New Year with Tito!

If you live in the Atlanta area, you can see Tito Jackson perform a selection of J5 songs, as well as a few songs from his upcoming album So Far, So Good. At midnight, his mother will join him to help with the countdown to 2011. Find out more on the Peach Drop website.

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town...

... and to the J5 Collector blog as well. Watch for special Christmas-related posts from now till December 25.

I'll Be There Will Be There

It was announced today that "I'll Be There" is one of the the 30 songs that will be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. It joins "I Want You Back," which was inducted back in 1999, making it the second J5 song to make it into the Hall of Fame.
Full press release here.

For the record, "I'll Be There" has been in my own personal Hall of Fame since September 1, 1970.

Jackson Museum Site

Joe Jackson is in his hometown of Gary, Indiana, to negotiate details for a Jackson Family Museum. Here's the latest local report from Gary:

Jackson museum site, details promised today

Live at the Forum Available for Pre-Sale

You will now find Jackson 5 Live at the Forum available for pre-sale on the Hip-o-Select site, along with a picture of the cd cover, track listing, and info about the cd itself. If the dates on the site are accurate, if looks like it ships from Hip-o-Select three weeks earlier than from other sources. Of course, it's best not to get our hopes up -- it may just be an error. But I'll be ordering from Hip-o anyway because I boycott Amazon.

C'mon, J5 fans -- let's put our money where our mouth is and make this a sell-out. Maybe then they'll be encouraged to poke around a bit more in those vaults.

What Happened to Stand!

When I first saw the track listing for the 1970 Forum concert, I wondered why they hadn't opened the concert with their usual Sly & the Family Stone cover, Stand!, especially since they were clearly performing this song live back in 1969 when they debuted it on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was a great concert opener because it allowed for Johnny and Ronnie to play the opening bars over and over again on the darkened stage, building up excitement and frenzied anticipation in the crowd -- as if any more was needed after the interminable opening acts. The stage lights would suddenly go on and there would be the Jackson 5, standing at their microphones, singing "Oom-pah, bah-bah..."

I posed the question yesterday on Soulful Detroit, and within 24 hours had an answer from Harry Weinger of the Universal Music Group. (That's the thing I love about this forum -- you ask a question and it gets answered, usually by someone who's an expert or industry insider.) HW said that they had opened the 1970 Forum concert with Stand! but they were experiencing technical difficulties at first, so the recording was unusable.

Luckily, we have both audio and video of the original opening number in the Going Back to Indiana special, which you can see here on YouTube. This was recorded nearly a year later in Indianapolis on May 29, 1971, and by then the J5 were performing like a well-oiled machine.



For the TV special, the performance of Stand! was cut from 4:16 to 3:00, but you can hear the full version on the J5's Goin' Back to Indiana soundtrack LP. In his stage patter, Jermaine promises to "get things groovin' up here" by encouraging the audience to sing along to the "Huh! Hah! Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya" part but it sounds like he didn't have much luck. Maybe it's because everyone was too busy watching Jackie, Marlon and Michael's fancy footwork.

Track Listing Announced

I am still on the road but had to pop in with some breaking news about the upcoming Live at the Forum double-cd that is scheduled for release on June 22. It will include two full-length Jackson 5 concerts, both recorded at the Los Angeles Forum, one in 1970 and one in 1972. At the left you see the J5 promoting the 1970 concert at the Forum with Elgin Baylor (better known for his professional basketball career than he was for his brief stint as a concert promoter).

My friend Justin has just sent me the track listing for the cds:

Disc 1 – June 20, 1970
1. Introduction
2. I Want You Back
3. Feelin' Alright
4. Who's Lovin' You
5. Walk On
6. Don't Know Why I Love You
7. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
8. ABC
9. It's Your Thing
10. I Found That Girl
11. There Was A Time
12. Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin
13. The Love You Save

Bonus Track
14. Mama's Pearl - May 29, 1971 - Live from Indianapolis



Disc 2 – August 26, 1972
1. Brand New Thing
2. Medley: I Want You Back/ABC/Mama's Pearl
3. Sugar Daddy
4. I'll Be There
5. Introduction by Michael
6. Goin' Back to Indiana/Brand New Thing/Goin' Back to Indiana
7. Bridge Over Troubled Water
8. I Found That Girl
9. I'm So Happy
10. Lookin' Through The Windows
11. Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing
12. Introduction by Jackie
13. Ben
14. Rockin' Robin
15. Got To Be There
16. You've Got A Friend
17. Ain't No Sunshine
18. I Wanna Be Where You Are
19. Introduction by Jermaine
20. That's How Love Goes
21. Never Can Say Goodbye
22. Walk On
23. The Love You Save

Bonus Track
24. I Wanna Be Where You Are - September 1972 - Live from Chicago - from Save The Children

It looks great! Now all we have to do is wait. And wait.