TcB! J5 on Tour

In the fall of 1970, only a few fans had had the good fortune to have attended a Jackson 5 concert in person, so we hung on every word of this report from TcB!.



I remember being confused by the mention of songs that didn't yet appear on any of the Jackson 5's LPs, like "It's Your Thing" and "Walk On By." I had already learned to mistrust info in teen magazines by the time TcB! had come out, so I wondered if they had just gotten the song titles wrong. But once I had seen the J5 in concert a few months later, I could see that the description of the concert was fairly accurate -- minus the fantasy element of "you" being along with them.

But some things about this report remain puzzling to me to this day. Like the reference to Canadian Mounties hats. What the hell? I have never seen any of the J5 wearing anything close to a Mounties hat in the 1970s, not even Johnny with his vast store of head adornments. And who is Jesse? Supposedly it was the name of the person who handed them all clean shirts to change into after the concert. (I love the image of the five of them changing their clothes in the aisle of the airplane. I wonder if that part's accurate.)

But the biggest puzzle for me is which concert the writer is describing. The best clues would seem to be the opening acts and the accompanying photos. The Rare Earth and Jerry Butler were their opening acts in June of 1970, when the J5 played at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on June 19 and the Los Angeles Forum on June 20. But as you can see from the photos accompanying my earlier posts linked above, they were wearing different clothes on stage both times.

And you've probably noticed the photos in the TcB! article are not all from the same concert. In the first photo, Michael and Jackie are both wearing overalls, but in the other photos, they are not. I've already identified the first photo as being from their August 19, 1970, concert at the Cobo Arena in Detroit. I'm not sure where the photos on the second, third, and fourth pages come from. I would guess they are from one of their concert appearances in mid-October 1970. I have one additional photo from this set that was part of a TcB! archive I bought several years ago, but it doesn't identify a source.

The only other photo I have in my collection verified as taken at a 1970 concert is a press photo from their October 18 appearance at the Amphitheater in Chicago.

They're all wearing pretty much the same clothes, except for Michael, who's back to wearing his overalls. (They seemed to have about two costume changes apiece for their 1970 concerts.)

While the photos seem to be from one of their October gigs, the concert write-up is not. Their opening acts on October were Little Charles and the Sidewinders, Yvonne Fair, and Blinky Williams -- and so far as I know, Jerry Butler only served in this capacity in June 1970 to fill in for the originally scheduled act, Ike and Tina Turner. The TcB! article is most likely describing either their Cow Palace or their Forum concert. And given that it describes them getting in a plane on a Friday, flying up over the Pacific coastline, buying coats because they didn't know it would be so cold, and then flying home again that night, all evidence points to San Francisco.

But that still leave the mystery of Jesse and the Canadian Mounties hats.

Closing Night in Mobile, Alabama, 1971

I found two notices of the concert in Mobile, Alabama, which closed out the Holiday Tour on January 3, 1971. The first was typical of the way upcoming concerts were promoted and advertised.


The second is an ad that includes an order blank for tickets, priced at $4.00, $5.00, and $6.00, suggesting that it would be the perfect holiday gift. I couldn't agree more.


Lucky are the fans who found tickets to a Jackson 5 concert in their stockings in 1970!

Caught on Tape in Jacksonville, Florida

Midway through the Jackson 5's Holiday Tour, an ABC News crew caught up with them to get some footage for a news feature on the rising popularity of the Jackson 5. I've never seen the final report that was made in late December of 1970, but the raw footage has been circulating among fans for years.

It's kind of maddening to watch because it jumps from scene to scene, in no particular order. But, if you're patient, you can see some great live footage of the Jackson 5 in concert in Jacksonville on December 30, 1970.

Part 1 shows them in rehearsals with Suzanne Depasse, and then moves into their live performance of "It's Your Thing." After that there are a lot of quick cuts to scenes that will become familiar as the tape progresses (More of the sound check/rehearsal and their arrival at the Jacksonville airport) before getting back to some more live concert footage of them singing "Stand" and more extensive footage of "It's Your Thing." Then it cuts back to "Stand" again, followed by a lot of quick cuts. Are you getting the idea?

Part 2 opens with Jermaine singing his lead part from "I'll Be There." Then it moves into a group interview that seems to bore everyone but Tito to tears. (Michael interrupts at one point to ask how much longer they have to stay, and when the interviewer asks if there's anything they want to do, Jermaine replies "Split.") Next it cuts to them entering their rooms in a surprisingly seedy roadside motel, and staging a pillow fight for the camera crew. Then we get back to more "It's Your Thing/Stand" concert footage, with a really nice guitar solo by Tito. That's followed by the opening of "I Want to Take You Higher," which is considerably less polished than the version they would do five months later in Indianapolis for the Goin' Back to Indiana special.

The first 30 seconds of Part 3 show live concert footage of "Feelin' Alright," followed by nearly nine full minutes of sound-check and rehearsal, during which Marlon valiantly tries to balance a drum stick on its pointed end. It's nice to hear the instruments behind the under-miked vocals in this clip.

Part 4 shows the group arriving at the airport and being loaded into two cars, as their luggage is loaded into a truck. At the three-minute mark an interview with Joe Jackson begins. At the seven-minute mark, the film returns to the group interview, with their tutor, Rose Fine, demonstrating her teaching technique by asking the boys questions about their visit the day before to the Hermitage while they were in Nashville. Michael was impressed with the size of Andrew Jackson's tomb and asked if his whole family was buried with him. And Tito was obviously paying attention during the tour, as he tells his teacher that Jackson's wife "...was bad --she played." (True -- she was already married to another man when she married Andrew Jackson.) Mrs Fine obviously doesn't like the direction the lesson is going in so she tells them they've had enough for the day. near the end of this part, the interview turns to Michael, who clearly has no idea what the interviewer is trying to ask him. (Frankly, neither do I.)

More inane questions from the clueless interviewer open Part 5, e.g. "Where does your music come from?" At the 7:53 mark, Marlon tries the drum-stick balancing act with a lemon on a drinking straw, and then we watch nearly two full minutes of the Jackson 5 sitting around, flipping through magazines. Riveting.

Part 6 opens with more prompting from Mrs. Fine to demonstrate the the depth of the education she is providing them. At the 2:06 mark, we finally get a glimpse of the ABC news correspondent, who identifies himself as Scott Osbourne. He repeats his sign-off several times before he decides it's okay. (Granted, it's not easy to put "lo these many years ago" and 'soul brother" in the same sentence with conviction.) In the meantime, we are treated to "Walk On" int he background, followed by the a complete version of "The Love You Save," but with really terrible sound. We even get to see their stage exit at the end of the song. And then there's a delicious snippet of the ending of "Who's Lovin' You" that leaves us wanting more, as does a short clip from "Darling Dear."

The seventh, and final part, continues with live footage of "Darling Dear." At the :25 mark, we are treated to a bit of footage of the legendary dance competition between Tito and Ronnie Rancifer, the group's keyboard player. First up is Tito with some oddly spastic moves. Jackie plays the group's Sandman, moving him off the stage so Ronnie can take over with his clearly superior moves. it's nice to see both Tito and Ronnie catching a bit of the spotlight and having some fun.

Thanks, Zero93330, for making all these videos available so we can get a sense of what the Holiday Tour was like!

J5 in Music City in 1970

You think that with a city the size of Nashville, there'd be more of a trail of the Jackson 5's first concert there on December 29, 1970. All I could find was a grainy image from a publication called The Kaleidoscope, announcing the Jackson 5's upcoming concert.

Pat Adams, the website owner, was a young reporter who had just started writing for the publication. I wrote to Pat, hoping he had attended and could offer a first-person account or a review but, alas! Pat did not attend. He says he wish he had been there, though. He's still keeping the spirit of the J5 alive in Nashville with this nice web tribute, and gave me permission to link to it.

Greensboro Concert Notice

The first document I've found for the Holiday Tour is a concert notice tagged onto the end of the same-old Motown press story.

Not very exciting but there you have it.

Holiday Tour Schedule

I alluded to the Jackson 5's Holiday Tour Schedule in an earlier post that linked to a page from the December 31, 1970, issue of Jet magazine. Six dates and cities were listed there, compliments of the Soul Brothers Top Twenty.

I've never found much at all about this brief winter tour through the South, but this week, I'll be searching for any and all details, and posting what I find here. Don't get your hopes up -- it may not be much. I'd love to find a review from at least one of the concerts, though, because I'm curious as to what the J5's shows were like at the tail-end of their most glorious year. I'll keep looking.

The Jackson 5 in Australia

Sometimes the backs of press photos are just as interesting at the fronts. Take these two photos, for example.



I bought these two together years ago from an Australian record dealer who identified them as being from the Jackson 5's 1973 tour to Australia. They are a nice pair of live concert shots, but if they hadn't been press photos, I would have missed all this information that was recorded on the back. It identifies the concert as being the June 26 concert at Festival Hall in Melbourne.

But read on... there's more.


An Australian TV special? With live concert footage? We can learn from the news caption that it aired a month later (July 21) on ATN-7 at 6:30 pm. And the back of Michael's photo tells us that he was singing "Ben."


Any Australian fans out there who remember seeing The Jackson Five in Australia?

August 29, 1971

I only ever saw the Jackson 5 in concert one time, and it was exactly 39 years ago on Michael's 13th birthday. The group did two back-to-back shows at the Iowa State Fair. My dad was nice enough to take me, along with my best friend, Janet.

I don't know why it didn't occur to us to go to both shows. Maybe it did, and our parents said no. It was an outdoor concert and we saw the second show. Since it was outdoors, however, we could hear the first concert throughout the fairgrounds. Janet and I headed for the midway to ride the double Ferris wheel to see if we could catch glimpse of the J5 on stage. We could't see much -- our view was blocked by the roof of the grandstand. But it was still fun riding the double Ferris wheel over and over with the sounds of all the J5's hits live in the background.

I'm sorry I don't have a photo of myself in the purple overalls my Grandma made me to wear to the concert. I'm sure you will all be able to imagine them. The only thing I have other than my memory of the concert is the newspaper review written by Lucia Herndon. A few years later, Lucia married my older brother and became my sister-in-law.


I wonder if Michael did anything special to commemorate his 13th birthday, other than singing his heart out on a hot August night in what must have felt like the middle of nowhere to him.

Concert Posters: Real or Fake?

I bought this concert poster a number of years ago from a 1968 performance by the Jackson Five (and a long-forgotten group named Gadget), and I'm pretty sure it's genuine for a number of reasons. First is the battered condition. I'm always suspicious of concert posters in pristine condition. This one shows normal wear and tear, as well as evidence it had been taped up in a store window at some point, as each corner has marks where the paper has been pulled away when it was removed from display.


Second, the description of the Jackson 5 as a group is strong evidence of authenticity. They are cited as "Motown Recording Stars" as they often were in ads from 1968, even though they had not yet started recording for Motown. Most intriguing is the caption "with five musicians and three singers and dancers." The "three singers and dancers" were probably Michael, Marlon, and Jackie, and three of the musicians would have been Jermaine, Tito and Johnny. But who were the other two? I don't think Ronnie had joined the group yet., but even if he had, that still leaves one mystery musician.

Just for comparison, here's an example of a fake concert poster:


There is all kinds of evidence this is fake, the strongest being that Diana Ross had long since left the Supremes to pursue a solo career, not to mention the unlikelihood that she would have taken second billing to her protegees. And the fact that there are, like, a million of these posters for sale on eBay any given week also shows that it is being mass produced for sales to unsuspecting fans. Give me the stained, battered, unillustrated but authentic poster any day.

When the J5 Sang for Joe

A month and a half after the J5's 1970 concert at the Forum, the group returned to the stage, this time at Cobo Arena in Detroit as part of a star-studded tribute to boxer Joe Louis. By 1970, the Brown Bomber was broke and ailing, and the organizing committee hoped to raise $100,000 to help him defray hospital costs.
Comedians Bill Cosby and Redd Foxx, and music artists Billy Ekstine, Mahalia Jackson, B. B. King, the Four Tops, and the Jackson 5 entertained the crowd of 12,000 on August 12. Louis himself was too ill to attend, although a vacant chair was left in front in his honor. Berry Gordy, himself a former boxer, served as the Honorary Chair for the event, and was probably responsible for getting the Jackson 5 for the gig.

A program for the event featured a line drawing of a young Joe Louis on the cover.


Inside, every performer had a full-page bio with a photo. Here is the page for the Jackson 5.


Over the years, I've collected a few photos from this appearance. The first is a Motown publicity photo with the caption sheet still attached, verifying that this was indeed their concert at Cobo Arena. (Another photo that appeared in Jet magazine corroborates this.)

Japanese Tour Programs 1973

When it comes to quality, no one surpasses the Japanese. The program from their 1973 tour of Japan is a ting of beauty. It measures 14 x 10" and has a brilliant full-color cover.


Inside it's filled with rare photos, and enough text to make me wish I could read Japanese to see what it says.







My friend Annalisa (an amazing collector from Italy) had sent me a color scan of the cover and a photocopy of the interior many years ago and for a long time I sought out my own copy in vain. Finally I found an ad for a Jackson 5 1973 Japanese tour program in a record collectors' magazine. I sent away for it, but when it arrived in the mail, it was something else:



It was an elegant program printed in brown tone, also 14 x 10" in size. It had more white space inside overall, but still lots of lovely photos and mysterious (to me) text. Since they used Arabic numerals on the front cover, however, I can at least ascertain that this program was printed specifically for the concert the Jackson 5 gave in Tokyo on April 27, 1973, at the Imperial Theater.




This second program is definitely the rarer of the two, which makes sense since it would have had a more limited distribution. I don't know if the Tokyo venue was unusual in this regard, or if any of the other Japanese venues printed their own programs, too. I suspect the former is true, but I'll keep an eye out, just in case. And if there are any Japanese fans out there who would be willing to translate the text, please let me know.

Out in our audience tonight...

Yesterday's post on the J5Live blog mentioned that Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, and Deke Richards were all sitting together in the audience at the J5's 1970 concert at the Forum. That inspired me to dig out a press photo in my collection from the Forum concert that shows the people sitting in the front rows of the audience -- at least those seated stage left (Jermaine's side).



I re-scanned the photo and enlarged the audience to see if I could see any of the three of them. I don't -- unless Berry Gordy is the one in the center, bending over to hear something from the man in the hat who's crouching down in front of him.


But there are some other familiar faces here. There are two women holding children in the center of the photo. The one on the right is Katherine Jackson and the child she is holding, covered with a blanket, is probably Janet. The elderly couple beside her are the J5's grandparents, and I think the young woman sitting beside them in the short black dress is Dee Dee Martes, the future Mrs. Tito Jackson.

Looking to the far left side of the photo, there are two teenage girls seated next to a bearded man holding a little boy. The girl on the right with the big afro, wearing the darker pantsuit, looks like it might be Hazel Gordy. And it would make sense that she would get a front row seat, with a great view of Jermaine.

If you recognize anyone else in the audience, let me know.

First Forum Show

The Jackson 5 actually made their first appearance at the Los Angeles Forum not in 1970, but nearly a year earlier on August 16, when they opened for Diana Ross and the Supremes. Two photos from this show appeared on the back of their first LP, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5.

They hadn't yet recorded "I Want You Back" so we can only guess what might have been on their set list that night -- likely it included "It's Your Thing," "There Was a Time," and "Simple Song/Can You Remember" -- songs they were used to doing live. Whatever they sang, the reviewer from the L.A. Times was underwhelmed by their act, and it's likely Berry Gordy decided they needed a bit more practice and polish before they went out on the tour circuit. They wouldn't appear again on the concert stage until May 1970.

I've only ever come across a few photos from the 1969 Forum appearance.









Looks like Michael and Diana were trying to push each other out of the spotlight from the very beginning.

Enterprising Fans

Today we may marvel at the idea of seeing the Jackson 5 live for $3.50 -- and getting the best seats in the house for just $6.50. But back in 1970, even the lowest ticket prices were more than many young fans could afford. And considering that many of them were so young, they had to take an older sibling, parent, or aunt along, so you'd have to double the ticket price.

Nine-year-old Jill Jackson and her friends set up a lemonade stand in their Los Angeles neighborhood to raise the money for their tickets to the J5's June 20, 1970, show at the Forum. A photograph of these young entrepreneurs appeared in J. Randy Taraborrelli's book Motown: Hot Wax, City Cool and Solid Gold.



I found the backstory, as well as their names (and addresses!) in the June 18, 1970, issue of the Los Angeles Sentinel.

I hope Jill and her friends earned enough money for their tickets. At 5¢ a glass, that's a lot of lemonade, even for the $3.50 seats.

Another Perspective on the Radio City Music Hall Show

The other day I posted a less-than-enthusiastic review for the J5's 1975 Radio City Music Hall show from the New York Amsterdam News.  In response to that, MJSunshine, over on the MJ Photos Collectors forum pointed me to a review for the same concert from the Feb 17, 1975 Village Voice.  The review was written by a long-time fan, Vince Aletti, and while he, too, was critical of the show, he offered a slightly more sympathetic account, recognizing that the Jackson 5 were reaching a stage in their career where they had to change, and yet, fans still expected the same sort of thrills they got in the early '70s. His pre-concert interview with the J5 is especially interesting -- funny even, as he was so starstruck and at the same time so self-aware of his own biases.

Interestingly, Aletti tells us that the J5 removed the "History of Music" part and the "Killing Me Softly with His Song / By the Time I Get to Phoenix / Danny Boy" medley from the show after the first night, due to the negative reaction to the Vegas act from the New York crowd.  Looks like they were as self-aware as Aletti was.

Backstage at the Forum 1972

I love these photos of Michael entertaining his little brother Randy while waiting to go onstage at the L.A. Forum in 1972. They may have been amazingly talented and accomplished performers but backstage, they were just kids.

A Rare Lukewarm Review

Sometimes bad reviews are more interesting than raves, and that's certainly the case with this review of the Jackson 5's 1975 show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Marie Moore from Harlem's Amsterdam News obviously did not see the great show she was expecting from the Jackson 5, and neither did the teen fans in the audience, according to her report. I find her descriptions of the audience reactions to the J5's performance to be even more interesting than what she writes about the act itself. Coming as it did in February 1975, poor responses like this may have helped to seal the Jacksons' decision to leave Motown for greener pastures.

So unusual were bad reviews and a less-than-enthusiastic audience response for the Jackson 5 that the brothers themselves were asked to comment on the situation in a follow-up story in the Amsterdam News. Remembering their Apollo days, Michael commented that New York audiences were tougher than others. "If they don't like you, they'll let you know."

Tito was more philosophical: "Some of the songs were too heavy for the young people in the audience. We feel it is a great show and it has played well in theaters in the round but there are a lot of grown ups there."

Jackie talked about the group's future: "We want to get into other things. We want to go back and do more recording. And as long as the record's a million seller, it's okay." They may have already been thinking about a million seller on another label. In a little over three months, they would sign with CBS and leave Motown.

And if the review piqued your interest about the back-up act, Blue Magic, you can check out their performance on Soul Train. Looks like the lead singer Ted Mills picked up a few moves from watching Michael.

Meanwhile, Back in Indiana...

The Jackson 5's amazing sell-out concerts in San Francisco and Los Angeles were widely reported throughout the United States. Back home, the Black newspaper, Gary Crusader, picked the story off the news wire and ran it on page eight a week later without a single mention of the group's local connection. They may has well have been five kids from Toledo.

J5 at the Cow Palace in June 1970

The night before the Jackson 5 appeared at the Los Angeles Forum on June 20, 1970, they made their second appearance as Motown headliners at San Francisco's Cow Palace. As with the L.A. concert, they shared a billing with Ike and Tina Turner, and Rare Earth. Here's the original handbill announcing this incredible line up:



[Note: Tina Turner had to bow out at the last minute due to illness, so Jerry Butler stepped in as the opening act. ]

An anonymous amateur photographer standing in the wings snapped these pictures, a great eBay find for me many years ago.


In the photo below, you can see Suzanne Depasse (in bright yellow turtleneck) on the opposite side of the stage.

In the next photo, as the Jackson 5 take a bow, you can see fan club president Steven Manning (in the sunglasses) on the far side of the stage. Beside him are Joe Jackson (with a rare smile), longtime Jackson 5 security guard Bill Bray, and Motown's professional still photographer Weldon McDougal III, sitting in the press box.

After the Jackson 5 leave the stage, Steven Manning tries to help calm the crowd.


A month later, Michael described the pandemonium to a Soul interviewer: "In San Francisco and Los Angeles, it looked like the walls were falling the way hundreds of them came at the stage all together. But we have to practice getting away, too, so we're ready to drop everything and run. Jermaine dropped his guitar and took off at the end of the Forum concert. We can always get a new guitar for him, but he'd be kinda hard to replace."