The King Of Pop has passed away.
I found out the other day, when I called my friend, a young R&B singer. I could hear she was in tears.
“What’s wrong, are you ok?” I asked. What could it be? Boyfriend problems? Fight with her mom? Whatever it was, I was ready, morphing into the ‘understanding friend,’ like Clark Kent becoming Superman.
“Are you watching the news?” she asked. I feared the worst. It’s probably a disaster of some kind. That’s when she told me that Michael Jackson died.
There was a small sense of relief that it wasn’t a terrorist attack, but this momentary elation quickly waned as the implications started to hit me. I thought back to the day John Lennon died, when I was eleven years old. I cried that day. And while I didn’t feel that same emotional reaction in this case, I could sense the magnitude of millions feeling that loss.
When “Thriller” came out in 1983, MJ had been someone I and my peers mistakenly thought of as a ‘disco’ artist. There was no way you could get me to listen to one of his albums. But leave it to Michael Jackson to achieve the impossible.
For the song “Beat It,” he and producer Quincy Jones brought in Eddie Van Halen, who was my favorite guitarist and arguably the most influential hard rock guitarist of all time. By doing so, they made a statement that hard rock and R&B could go together, forever altering the course of pop music. They also got legions of stubborn teenage male rock fans like myself to pay attention to Michael Jackson.
Suddenly his earlier work, such as the “Off The Wall” album, started to resonate with me. Was it going to replace Ozzy and Judas Priest in my cassette deck? No. But was it worth putting on once in a while? Absolutely. Besides, girls liked it.
Then I heard his work with the Jackson 5. It was understandable why Michael had been labeled a ‘boy genius.’ His singing at eleven years old was on par with his label mates, which included The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.
Anytime “Rock With You,” comes on, I’m taken to a different time period. A more innocent one. A time where all of us were a little less cynical and less jaded. Great music has that quality.
Strangely enough, it was just last weekend, at an event, that I met the drummer who played on “Rock With You,” John “JR” Robinson. He and others who’ve worked with MJ all agree that yes, he grew into someone odd, a mysterious figure with many unanswered questions. But more importantly, he was one of the great American entertainers, on the level of Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplain, and a musician worthy of all the great musicians who’ve backed him up over the years. And while many of today’s superstars rely on ‘auto-tune’ devices, digital editing and lipsyncing, Michael was the real deal. When those Jackon 5 albums were recorded, you had to just go in the studio and sing.
Sadly, there is darkness looming over the legacy of this exemplary artistry like a fecund rain cloud. Whether the numerous accusations against him are true or not, this was a man in need of serious psychological help. It is widely reported that no one could say no to him. In Erica Jong’s novel, “Fanny,” she describes a man who is a good person at heart, but whose behavior has “always gone unchecked. He never learned self-control, self-rule, or moderation.”
I guess if there’s a bright side to this, it’s that, unlike Lennon, his death was not cause by an assassins bullet, but by him reconnecting with the artistry that we all associate with him. MJ was prepping for an upcoming tour. He knew that, unlike a Billy Joel or Paul McCartney show, his concerts could not subsist on just singing of the songs. The audience would not accept that. We need the ‘Billy Jean’ dance, the ‘Beat It’ gang fight, the “Thriller” Zombie routine and the Mafia stealth of ‘Smooth Criminal.’ In short, he had to get up there and be ‘Michael Jackson’ again. Unfortunately, his failing health and lost youth could not withstand it.
When I see the guy in the photo here, I see someone on top of his game. The little boy from The Jackson 5, all grown up and doing a whole new thing and ready to impact music for generations to come. This is the MJ I’m going to remember.
Whether we admit it or not, we have all been influenced by Michael Jackson.