Moonwalk, p.12
Moonwalk, page 12
We sat there in the studio, Westlake Studio in Hollywood, and listened to the whole album. I felt devastated. All this pent-up emotion came out. I got angry and left the room. I told my people, “That’s it, we’re not releasing it. Call CBS and tell them they are not getting this album. We are not releasing it.”
Because I knew it was wrong. If we hadn’t stopped the process and examined what we were doing, the record would have been terrible. It never would have been reviewed the way it was because, as we learned, you can ruin a great album in the mix. It’s like taking a great movie and ruining it in the editing. You simply have to take your time.
Some things can’t be rushed.
There was a bit of yelling and screaming from the record people, but in the end they were smart and understood. They knew too; it was just that I was the first to say it. Finally I realized I had to do the whole thing—mix the entire album—all over again.
We took a couple of days off, drew a deep breath, and stepped back. Then we came to it fresh, cleaned our ears out, and began to mix two songs a week. When it was done—boom—it hit us hard. CBS could hear the difference too. Thriller was a tough project.
It felt so good when we finished. I was so excited I couldn’t wait for it to come out. When we finished, there wasn’t any kind of celebration that I can recall. We didn’t go out to a disco or anything. We just rested. I prefer just being with people I really like anyway. That’s my way of celebrating.
The three videos that came out of Thriller—“Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller”—were all part of my original concept for the album. I was determined to present this music as visually as possible. At the time I would look at what people were doing with video, and I couldn’t understand why so much of it seemed so primitive and weak. I saw kids watching and accepting boring videos because they had no alternatives. My goal is to do the best I can in every area, so why work hard on an album and then produce a terrible video? I wanted something that would glue you to the set, something you’d want to watch over and over. The idea from the beginning was to give people quality. So I wanted to be a pioneer in this relatively new medium and make the best short music movies we could make. I don’t even like to call them videos. On the set I explained that we were doing a film, and that was how I approached it. I wanted the most talented people in the business—the best cinematographer, the best director, the best lighting people we could get. We weren’t shooting on videotape; it was 35-mm film. We were serious.
Jermaine joins the Jacksons on stage for the first time since the Jackson 5 days. A very special evening. Motown 25, 1983.
For the first video, “Billie Jean,” I interviewed several directors, looking for someone who seemed really unique. Most of them didn’t present me with anything that was truly innovative. At the same time I was trying to think bigger, the record company was giving me a problem on the budget. So I ended up paying for “Beat It” and “Thriller” because I didn’t want to argue with anybody about money. I own both of those films myself as a result.
“Billie Jean” was done with CBS’s money—about $250,000. At the time that was a lot of money for a video, but it really pleased me that they believed in me that much. Steve Baron, who directed “Billie Jean,” had very imaginative ideas, although he didn’t agree at first that there should be dancing in it. I felt that people wanted to see dancing. It was great to dance for the video. That freeze-frame where I go on my toes was spontaneous; so were many of the other moves.
“Billie Jean’s” video made a big impression on the MTV audience and was a huge hit.
“Beat It” was directed by Bob Giraldi, who had done a lot of commercials. I remember being in England when it was decided that “Beat It” would be the next single released from Thriller, and we had to choose a director for the video.
I felt “Beat It” should be interpreted literally, the way it was written, one gang against another on tough urban streets. It had to be rough. That’s what “Beat It” was about.
When I got back to L.A., I saw Bob Giraldi’s demo reel and knew that he was the director I wanted for “Beat It.” I loved the way he told a story in his work, so I talked with him about “Beat It.” We went over things, my ideas and his ideas, and that’s how it was created. We played with the storyboard and molded it and sculpted it.
I had street gangs on my mind when I wrote “Beat It,” so we rounded up some of the toughest gangs in Los Angeles and put them to work on the video. It turned out to be a good idea, and a great experience for me. We had some rough kids on that set, tough kids, and they hadn’t been to wardrobe. Those guys in the pool room in the first scene were serious; they were not actors. That stuff was real.
Now I hadn’t been around really tough people all that much, and these guys were more than a little intimidating at first. But we had security around and were ready for anything that might happen. Of course we soon realized we didn’t need any of this, that the gang members were mostly humble, sweet, and kind in their dealings with us. We fed them during breaks, and they all cleaned up and put their trays away. I came to realize that the whole thing about being bad and tough is that it’s done for recognition. All along these guys had wanted to be seen and respected, and now we were going to put them on TV. They loved it. “Hey, look at me, I’m somebody!” And I think that’s really why many of the gangs act the way they do. They’re rebels, but rebels who want attention and respect. Like all of us, they just want to be seen. And I gave them that chance. For a few days at least they were stars.
They were so wonderful to me—polite, quiet, supportive. After the dance numbers they’d compliment my work, and I could tell they really meant it. They wanted a lot of autographs and frequently stood around my trailer. Whatever they wanted, I gave them: photographs, autographs, tickets for the Victory tour, anything. They were a nice bunch of guys.
The truth of that experience came out on the screen. The “Beat It” video was menacing, and you could feel those people’s emotions. You felt the experience of the streets and the reality of their lives. You look at “Beat It” and know those kids are tough. They were being themselves, and it came across. It was nothing like actors acting; it was as far from that as possible. They were being themselves; that feeling you got was their spirit.
I’ve always wondered if they got the same message from the song that I did.
When Thriller first came out, the record company assumed it would sell a couple of million copies. In general record companies never believe a new album will do considerably better than the last one you did. They figure you either got lucky last time or the number you last sold is the size of your audience. They usually just ship a couple of million out to the stores to cover the sales in case you get lucky again.
That’s how it usually works, but I wanted to alter their attitude with Thriller.
One of the people who helped me with Thriller was Frank Dileo. Frank was vice president for promotion at Epic when I met him. Along with Ron Weisner and Fred DeMann, Frank was responsible for turning my dream for Thriller into a reality. Frank heard parts of Thriller for the first time at Westlake Studio in Hollywood, where much of the album was recorded. He was there with Freddie DeMann, one of my managers, and Quincy and I played them “Beat It” and a little bit of “Thriller,” which we were still working on. They were very impressed, and we started to talk seriously about how to “break” this album wide open.
Frank Dileo and I clown around for the camera.
At John Branca and Julia McArthur’s wedding with Little Richard, who performed the ceremony.
Frank really worked hard and proved to be my right hand during the years ahead. His brilliant understanding of the recording industry proved invaluable. For instance, we released “Beat It” as a single while “Billie Jean” was still at number one. CBS screamed, “You’re crazy. This will kill ‘Billie Jean.’ ” But Frank told them not to worry, that both songs would be number one and both would be in the Top 10 at the same time. They were.
By the spring of 1983 it was clear that the album was going to go crazy. Over the top. Every time they released another single, sales of the album would go even higher.
Then the “Beat It” video took off.
On May 16, 1983, I performed “Billie Jean” on a network telecast in honor of Motown’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Almost fifty million people saw that show. After that, many things changed.
The Motown 25 show had actually been taped a month earlier, in April. The whole title was Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever, and I’m forced to admit I had to be talked into doing it. I’m glad I did because the show eventually produced some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life.
As I mentioned earlier, I said no to the idea at first. I had been asked to appear as a member of the Jacksons and then to do a dance number on my own. But none of us were Motown artists any longer. There were lengthy debates between me and my managers, Weisner and DeMann. I thought about how much Berry Gordy had done for me and the group, but I told my managers and Motown that I didn’t want to go on TV. My whole attitude toward TV is fairly negative. Eventually Berry came to see me to discuss it. I was editing “Beat It” at the Motown studio, and someone must have told him I was in the building. He came down to the studio and talked to me about it at length. I said, “Okay, but if I do it, I want to do ‘Billie Jean.’ ” It would have been the only non-Motown song in the whole show. He told me that’s what he wanted me to do anyway. So we agreed to do a Jacksons’ medley, which would include Jermaine. We were all thrilled.
So I gathered my brothers and rehearsed them for this show. I really worked them, and it felt nice, a bit like the old days of the Jackson 5. I choreographed them and rehearsed them for days at our house in Encino, videotaping every rehearsal so we could watch it later. Jermaine and Marlon also made their contributions. Next we went to Motown in Pasadena for rehearsals. We did our act and, even though we reserved our energy and never went all out at rehearsal, all the people there were clapping and coming around and watching us. Then I did my “Billie Jean” rehearsal. I just walked through it because as yet I had nothing planned. I hadn’t had time because I was so busy rehearsing the group.
The next day I called my management office and said, “Please order me a spy’s hat, like a cool fedora—something that a secret agent would wear.” I wanted something sinister and special, a real slouchy kind of hat. I still didn’t have a very good idea of what I was going to do with “Billie Jean.”
During the Thriller sessions, I had found a black jacket, and I said, “You know, someday I’m going to wear this to perform. It was so perfect and so show business that I wore it on Motown 25.
But the night before the taping, I still had no idea what I was going to do with my solo number. So I went down to the kitchen of our house and played “Billie Jean.” Loud. I was in there by myself, the night before the show, and I pretty much stood there and let the song tell me what to do. I kind of let the dance create itself. I really let it talk to me; I heard the beat come in, and I took this spy’s hat and started to pose and step, letting the “Billie Jean” rhythm create the movements. I felt almost compelled to let it create itself. I couldn’t help it. And that—being able to “step back” and let the dance come through—was a lot of fun.
I had also been practicing certain steps and movements, although most of the performance was actually spontaneous. I had been practicing the Moonwalk for some time, and it dawned on me in our kitchen that I would finally do the Moonwalk in public on Motown 25.
Now the Moonwalk was already out on the street by this time, but I enhanced it a little when I did it. It was born as a break-dance step, a “popping” type of thing that black kids had created dancing on street corners in the ghetto. Black people are truly innovative dancers; they create many of the new dances, pure and simple. So I said, “This is my chance to do it,” and I did it. These three kids taught it to me. They gave me the basics—and I had been doing it a lot in private. I had practiced it together with certain other steps. All I was really sure of was that on the bridge to “Billie Jean” I was going to walk backward and forward at the same time, like walking on the moon.
On the day of the taping, Motown was running behind schedule. Late. So I went off and rehearsed by myself. By then I had my spy hat. My brothers wanted to know what the hat was for, but I told them they’d have to wait and see. But I did ask Nelson Hayes for a favor. “Nelson—after I do the set with my brothers and the lights go down, sneak the hat out to me in the dark. I’ll be in the corner, next to the wings, talking to the audience, but you sneak that hat back there and put it in my hand in the dark.”
So after my brothers and I finished performing, I walked over to the side of the stage and said, “You’re beautiful! I’d like to say those were the good old days; those were magic moments with all my brothers, including Jermaine. But what I really like”—and Nelson is sneaking the hat into my hand—“are the newer songs.” I turned around and grabbed the hat and went into “Billie Jean,” into that heavy rhythm; I could tell that people in the audience were really enjoying my performance. My brothers told me they were crowding the wings watching me with their mouths open, and my parents and sisters were out there in the audience. But I just remember opening my eyes at the end of the thing and seeing this sea of people standing up, applauding. And I felt so many conflicting emotions. I knew I had done my best and felt good, so good. But at the same time I felt disappointed in myself. I had planned to do one really long spin and to stop on my toes, suspended for a moment, but I didn’t stay on my toes as long as I wanted. I did the spin and I landed on one toe. I wanted to just stay there, just freeze there, but it didn’t work quite as I’d planned.
When I got backstage, the people back there were congratulating me. I was still disappointed about the spin. I had been concentrating so hard and I’m such a perfectionist. At the same time I knew this was one of the happiest moments of my life. I knew that for the first time my brothers had really gotten a chance to watch me and see what I was doing, how I was evolving. After the performance, each of them hugged and kissed me backstage. They had never done that before, and I felt happy for all of us. It was so wonderful when they kissed me like that. I loved it! I mean, we hug all the time. My whole family embraces a lot, except for my father. He’s the only one who doesn’t. Whenever the rest of us see each other, we embrace, but when they all kissed me that night, I felt as if I had been blessed by them.
The performance was still gnawing at me, and I wasn’t satisfied until a little boy came up to me backstage. He was about ten years old and was wearing a tuxedo. He looked up at me with stars in his eyes, frozen where he stood, and said, “Man, who ever taught you to dance like that?”
I kind of laughed and said, “Practice, I guess.” And this boy was looking at me, awestruck. I walked away, and for the first time that evening I felt really good about what I had accomplished that night. I said to myself, I must have done really well because children are honest. When that kid said what he did, I really felt that I had done a good job. I was so moved by the whole experience that I went right home and wrote down everything which had happened that night. My entry ended with my encounter with the child.
The day after the Motown 25 show, Fred Astaire called me on the telephone. He said—these are his exact words—“You’re a hell of a mover. Man, you really put them on their asses last night.” That’s what Fred Astaire said to me. I thanked him. Then he said, “You’re an angry dancer. I’m the same way. I used to do the same thing with my cane.”
I had met him once or twice in the past, but this was the first time he had ever called me. He went on to say, “I watched the special last night; I taped it and I watched it again this morning. You’re a hell of a mover.”
It was the greatest compliment I had ever received in my life, and the only one I had ever wanted to believe. For Fred Astaire to tell me that meant more to me than anything. Later my performance was nominated for an Emmy Award in a musical category, but I lost to Leontyne Price. It didn’t matter. Fred Astaire had told me things I would never forget—that was my reward. Later he invited me to his house, and there were more compliments from him until I really blushed. He went over my “Billie Jean” performance, step by step. The great choreographer Hermes Pan, who had choreographed Fred’s dances in the movies, came over, and I showed them how to Moonwalk and demonstrated some other steps that really interested them.
My friend Fred Astaire.
Not long after that Gene Kelly came by my house to visit and also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience, that show, because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world.
Right after Motown 25 my family read a lot of stuff in the press about my being “the new Sinatra” and as “exciting as Elvis”—that kind of thing. It was very nice to hear, but I knew the press could be so fickle. One week they love you, and the next week they act like you’re rubbish.
Later I gave the glittery black jacket I wore on Motown 25 to Sammy Davis as a present. He said he was going to do a takeoff of me on stage, and I said, “Here, you want to wear this when you do it?” He was so happy. I love Sammy. He’s such a fine man and a real showman. One of the best.
I had been wearing a single glove for years before Thriller. I felt that one glove was cool. Wearing two gloves seemed so ordinary, but a single glove was different and was definitely a look. But I’ve long believed that thinking too much about your look is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, because an artist should let his style evolve naturally, spontaneously. You can’t think about these things; you have to feel your way into them.
I actually had been wearing the glove for a long time, but it hadn’t gotten a lot of attention until all of a sudden it hit with Thriller in 1983. I was wearing it on some of the old tours back in the 1970s, and I wore one glove during the Off the Wall tour and on the cover of the live album that came out afterward.
