Iron-On Transfers

The way most kids in the 1970s got their printed t-shirts was by going to a shop that specialized in iron-on transfers. You'd select the design you wanted and then the blank t-shirt you wanted it printed on, and they'd make the transfer right there, while you waited, using a gigantic press.

Vintage iron-on transfers are fairly rare. I would guess most of the unused ones got trashed to make room for more popular ones, and eventually, for more modern screening techniques. I have only one vintage J5 iron-on transfer I have in my collection. here's what it looks like on the back:

And here's how the image would have looked on a t-shirt, only it would be a bit brighter, once it was off its backing:

In all honesty, even if I had seen this J5 iron on decal in a shop back in 1970 or 1971, I probably wouldn't have paid to have it put on a t-shirt, due to the quality of the art. If it'd had been a photo of The Five, however, I would have been begging my dad for $5.00 so I could get the shirt.

1975 J5 Tour Shirt

Michael is showing us the only J5-era t-shirt I have in my collection that I know to be authentic. It has all the hallmarks of a vintage shirt: cheap material, small size, 50/50 fabric blend, and an image that shows signs of age through fading.

I bought this shirt from a dealer many years ago in the pre-eBay days, thinking it was a promo t-shirt for the LP Dancing Machine. I know that there's a Get It Together promo tee floating around out there, but I've been outbid both times I've seen one come up for auction.

When I got this t-shirt in the mail. I got a surprise. The dealer hadn't mentioned the printing on the back of the shirt.


Whoah! Not only had I acquired a rare Jackson 5 tour t-shirt, I had also acquired the knowledge that the J5 had had a Fall 1975 tour -- or at least one had been planned. The same year, in June, the Jackson 5 had announced they were leaving Motown for CBC when their contract ran out in March 1976. I'm not sure if this shirt was made before or after that announcement. Empire Productions provides a clue.

Perhaps it was created to be sold on a tour that never happened. If that's true, that would make this t-shirt rarer yet.

Child's J5 T-Shirt

Today Michael is modeling a child-size t-shirt with a 1972 J5 photo screened onto it.


I bought this recently from a dealer in the U.K., and, again, I can't be sure of its authenticity. It is similar to the one that Randy is holding up in this picture -- same photo, just reversed.

The shirt is tiny, about a child's size 6, and that's one of the things that makes me think it's authentic. Most creators of vintage tees make them for teens and adults to wear.

Still, a few months after I purchased this shirt another one popped up on eBay, exactly like it. This could either mean that someone is busy producing them right now. Or that someone found a supply in a warehouse somewhere, perhaps leftover from the J5's 1972 visit to the U.K.

The J5 Logo Shirt

This week I'll be showing you the J5 t-shirts that are part of my collection. I keep the shirts in sealed plastic bags, stacked on a shelf underneath concert programs and above a box containing buttons, badges, and trading cards from around the world.

On top of the stack you'll see the baseball cap that was used to promote Soulsation! when it came out in 1995. It came with a matching t-shirt. I also have a t-shirt that promoted The Jacksons: An American Dream. But this week, I'll only be looking at shirts from the J5 era.

Today Michael models a J5 logo t-shirt from my collection.

This is the first Jackson 5 t-shirt I ever bought for my collection, and I've never been sure if it's genuine or not. You can see that it's similar to -- but not quite the same -- as the logo shirts the J5 themselves used to wear in photos. The letters show wear, but the shirt itself looks more recent than 1975.

I have another one just like it in red that I bought a few years after I got the green one.

I bought them from two difference sources, years apart, but I'm not sure if this makes it more or less likely that either shirt is authentic. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a fake.

What I'd really like is one of these J5 logo shirts shown below that were auctioned off a few years ago.

Collecting J5 T-shirts

I recently bid on a t-shirt on eBay without being sure if it was true vintage or more recently created retro. The price was low and I believe I am the only one who bid on it, so I won the auction and now have it in my possession. I am still not sure if it's a true '70s T-shirt.

It has some of the hallmarks of vintage and some or retro. Let's start with the difference between vintage and retro. "Vintage" refers to the shirts that were actually created in the J5 era and sold either as fan merchandise or promotional shirts. "Retro" refers to shirts created now but that are made to look old.

The vintage qualities of the shirt seen above are the size (t-shirt sizes in the 70s were much smaller than they are today) and the fact that there is fading and wear in the picture, and many of the letters are cracked, showing signs of age. But what makes me think it's retro is the fact that it is 100% cotton. Most '70s t-shirts were a 50/50 cotton and polyester blend. I am about 95% sure that this shirt is retro rather than vintage. It's a nice piece, nonetheless, and only cost me $5.00 so it was worth a shot.

You see lots and lots of newly created Jackson 5 shirts for sale online these days. Most don't even try to pass themselves off as vintage shirts, and were clearly made by someone with a scanner and an iron-on transfer program.

What you didn't see back in the 70s were racks and racks of J5 t-shirts for sale, like you see for popular artists today. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a single one. Granted, I lived in the middle of nowhere and maybe kids in big cities came across a J5 t-shirt now and then. I just never saw one.

But I do remember this ad you'd see in the back of Soul:

Just look at those offerings! And the prices! I'll take one of each please. Okay, now I have a confession to make. I did send away for one of the items from this ad but it wasn't a t-shirt. It was the pillow case. For years I had it on my bed, underneath my Picasso's "Don Quijote" poster. It was as close as I ever got to sleeping with Jermaine.

Other than the Soul ad, the only time I saw pictures of Jackson 5 t-shirts were when the Jackson 5 themselves were wearing them. here are some examples.

Jackie is wearing my all-time favorite J5 t-shirt, that reads "World Famous Jackson Five." These shirts were sold on their tours beginning in 1973, and Jackie is wearing one on the J5's trip to Senegal early in 1974.


Randy is holding up a similar shirt here to promote a teen magazine contest give-away. (Sadly I did not win this contest. I did not enter because Jermaine was no longer one of the J5 bachelors.)


The most common type of t-shirt we saw the Jackson brothers wearing had the J5 logo printed onto them. I believe these were probably created as Motown promotional items. This is clearest on Randy's shirt, which says Motown Records about the J5 heart logo.


Here Tito and Jermaine model two different versions of shirts with the J5 logo imprinted on the chest.



Why can't they sell shirts like this now in the Motown Store?

In all my years of collecting, I have never found any shirts exactly like these. But I have found some that are similar. For for the next week, we'll delve into the J5 Collector vaults to take a closer look at each one.

Get the Jackson 5's Hits on Sugar Crisp

A few weeks ago I wrote about one of the cereal commercials featuring the Jackson 5. Post cereal offered special premiums with the Jackson 5 in the early 1970s, free inside each box. Or even on the box itself, as was the case with the Jackson 5 records you could cut out and play on your record player.

In all there were eleven different Jackson 5 songs issued on these cardboard records. The version seen above was from Sugar Crisp and it had two variants. One of them listed 1) Sugar Daddy -- 2) Goin' Back to Indiana -- 3) Who's Lovin' You. The other had 1) I'll Be There -- 2) Never Can Say Goodbye -- 3) Mama's Pearl.

Version number two was available on Rice Krinkles and Alphabits. It was cleverly designed so that when you cut it out, it was a picture record. It listed five songs: 1) ABC --2) I Want You Back - 3) I'll Bet You -- 4) Darling Dear -- 5) Maybe Tomorrow.

Because of the list of songs, some people have assumed that the records were EPs with 3-5 songs per record. But speaking as someone who actually played the records (yes, they worked but they ruined my brother's hi fi needle), I can confirm that there was only one song on each record. If you look closely, you can determine which one it is because the number is stamped in a circle. The record below is stamped with a numeral 3, so you know it's "I'll Bet You."

Post also used the Jackson 5 to promote the cereal on Saturday morning TV commercials and in two of the commercials they talk about their records. Here they are singing "I'll Be There" while the Sugar Crisp spokesman, Honey Bear, tells you about the free records:

And here's Michael telling you about the records available on Rice Krinkles and Alphabits. This is one of two commercials that show the J5 floating through the sky on an airship. It is the rarer of the two and it isn't on YouTube, so I uploaded it for you to see.

We had to eat a whole lot of cereal to bring home those hits. But we dug it, so we got it.

Brand New Thing: Cool Stuff from the First Product Sleeve

I've written elsewhere about Motown's inner LP sleeve that was advertised Jackson 5 mail-order products. Prior to Maybe Tomorrow, when this sleeve made its first appearance, there was another Motown product sleeve, found in LPs pressed from 1970-71. It advertised fan clubs and products for several Motown artists, including the Jackson 5.

Here is that first product sleeve from my own childhood copy of ABC:


You'll find that the order coupon is missing. That's because I dutifully cut it out and sent it to Motown with my heard-earned $1.50. Like a good little fledgling collector, I left a note in its place, recording what I had ordered, and when.


You may wonder why I didn't just order one of everything back when I had a chance. Well, money was scarce in 1970, and I'd much rather have spent my hard-earned babysitting money (50 cents an hour in those years) on actual music. With singles costing 49 cents a pop and LPs at nearly four dollars, I didn't have a lot left over for Motown memorabilia.

So I read over all the descriptions and selected what I thought were the best deals. The 11 x 17" wall poster for 75 cents was a no-brainer. But why on earth would I buy a calendar (or, calender, as I spelled it back then), instead of an 8 x 10 glossy photo for just 10 cents more? I can't remember my reasoning, but I'm sure I was swayed by the fact it was an 18-month calendar. I probably figured there would be a different picture for each month, and I'd get 18 different photos of the Jackson 5, right?

Instead, here's what my money bought me:


Huh? That's it? Well, I had to look on the bright side -- at least the 18 months didn't begin for another five months. I'd have felt really cheated if it had been a 1970-71 calendar. Of course, that also meant I'd have nearly two years to be reminded of my folly on a daily basis.

Overall Fan Satisfaction:
(Jackson 1)




And I couldn't feel completely ripped off because the poster I ordered at the same time offered a cool way to decorate my room, as promised. I also got my first glimpse of each brother's signature, including Toriano and Sigmund. I only wished the poster had been in color and had been a photo I hadn't seen a million times before.


Overall Fan Satisfaction:
(Jackson 3)

Johnny Jackson (No Relation)

Johnny Jackson joined the Jackson 5 as their drummer in the late 1960s, when they were still in Gary. In his early days with the group, they called themselves "The Jackson Five and Johnny," and he was nearly always featured in photos as a bona fide member of the group. He signed with Motown at the same time the Jackson 5 did, and moved with them from Indiana to California. But things changed once they were in L.A. Although Johnny (and organist Ronnie Rancifer) lived with the Jackson family, was referred to as their "cousin," and toured with the Jackson 5, it was almost as if he no longer existed. He was just there, in the background, playing drums.

So I was thrilled when I came across this in-store promo display for Ludwig drums featuring Johnny Jackson as one of three drummers (along with Roger Pope and John Bonham) who used the brand.

Drummer's revolution, indeed!

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.

"To Yvonne..."

I never met the Jackson 5 in person, so all the autographed items I have added to my collection over the years have been signed for people who will be forever anonymous to me -- with one exception. The autographed 8 x 10 glossy you see here was signed by Jermaine for Yvonne Fair (you have to click on the photo to get an enlarged version in order to see "To Yvonne" written in Jermaine's afro). Fair was a singer who signed with Motown shortly after the Jackson 5 did, and who worked as their opening act in 1971, sandwiched between the Commodores and the Jackson 5.

By the time she signed with Motown, she had already had a long career as a professional, starting in the 1950s as a replacement singer for the Chantels, and then as a featured singer with James Brown from 1962 to 1965. After that she joined the Chuck Jackson Revue for a few years before she signed with Motown. She even had a small role as a raunchy club singer in the 1972 movie Lady Sings the Blues, where she shocked young Billie Holiday (Diana Ross) with her performance of "The Low-Down Shuffle Blues."

We can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her to have paid her dues for so many years, only to be put on the bill with a headlining group whose lead singer had not yet been born when she started in the business. In addition, she had to perform her mature set, night after night, in front of a group of over-excited pre-teens and teens who had already sat through an over-long act by the Commodores, and just wanted her to get off the stage so they could see their idols.

The May 1971 Rolling Stone cover story actually gave quite a bit of ink to Yvonne Fair's opening act in their description of the Jackson 5's January 30 concert in Columbus, Ohio. They recounted this hilarious conversation between Fair and a teenage J5 fan in the audience:

Yvonne: "This song is for like young ladies with men who have a habit of taking everything — we mean from clothes to money to... whatever." She goes into "Piece of My Heart." Then a break. She moves back and points to her stage-prop man, the Commodores' lean young bass player. This is her property, she tells her audience. "He's mine."

Teenage girl: You can have it!

Yvonne: He ain't much, but he's mine. [To bass man, heatedly:] You don't got to go show off!

Girl: He ain't got much to show!

Yvonne: Pose more, honey, pose more.

Girl: He's gonna have to pose a whole lot!

Yvonne: What you see is what you get!

Girl (and friends): Right on!

At Motown she worked with producer Norman Whitfield and she released a few singles, including a great version of "Funky Music Sho' 'Nuff Turns Me On," with backing vocals by Marvin Gaye. But she released just one LP with Motown, The Bitch Is Black, from 1975. Happily, it has recently been reissued on cd. Yvonne Fair was a great singer and deserves to be remembered.

She died in 1994 and took with her the secret of how this autographed photo of Jermaine came into her possession. Sure, she would have been seeing him on a regular basis in 1971, but this photo is a bit later than that. Did Jermaine just assume that, since she was female, she would want an autographed picture of him? Or did she ask him for it? She did, after all, seem to have a thing for "lean young bass players."

Brand New Thing: Jackson 5's Private Photo Album

Ah, the J5 product sleeve, chock full of beautiful things you could order through the mail in the early 1970s. This version of the product sleeve made its first appearance with the Maybe Tomorrow LP, and was included in every subsequent Jackson 5 release, as well as the solo albums made by Michael, Jermaine, and Jackie.

Let's take a look at one of the items included on the back of the product sleeve, the Jackson 5's Private Photo Album. For those of us kids who were hungry for photos of The Five, what could be more enticing?

What You Ordered



What You Got


Okay, the first thing you'd have noticed when you got this in the mail was that it was smaller than expected -- not much bigger than a Jet magazine, and there were just 22 pages total. All of the pictures were printed in black and white on cheap paper stock. Your first reaction would likely have been disappointment. But then you opened it up, and found those 22 pages contained nearly 60 rare photographs that you had never seen before. And most of them were so rare that the J5's Private Photo Album was the only place you'd ever seen them. Here are some sample pages to give you an idea of what it's like.





And what's a family photo album without the embarrassing photo you wouldn't want your friends to see?


All in all, it's one of the top three collectibles from the product sleeve.

Overall Fan Satisfaction:
(Jackson 5)

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.

Michael Monday: The Single that Never Was

Michael's second solo LP, Ben, was issued on August 4, 1972, less than eight months after his first solo LP. Although there were three singles pulled from the first album, Got to Be There, only one single was issued from the second album -- the title song, "Ben."

A test pressing I bought years ago shows that there had, however, been plans for a second single from the album, scheduled as Motown 1218. The A-side was "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," a dreamy slow-tempo number that had previously been recorded by jazz greats such as Lionel Hampton (his wife, Gladys, shared a writing credit on the song), Etta James, and Dinah Washington. But Motown producers Mel Larson and Jerry Marcellino may have been thinking of the version by the high-pitched vocalist for Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra, Little Jimmy Scott, when they decided to have Michael record a cover version.



The B-side was a cover of a Stevie Wonder song, "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day," produced by Hal Davis. Michael turned in one of his strongest vocal performances of his early solo years with this song, which was filled with riffs showing an amazing amount of vocal control for a singer of any age, let alone one on the brink of an adolescent voice change.


We'll probably never know why Motown decided to cancel the single. We do know, however, that the same catalogue number was used in April of 1973 for Michael's next single, taken from from his third album, Music and Me. It, too, was a cover version of a Stevie Wonder song, "With a Child's Heart."

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.