Michael Joseph Jackson is born near Chicago in Indiana, USA in the year 1958.
He was the 8th in the 10 children of the family. Theirs was a working class family and they lived in a 2 bedroom house.
Michael Jacksons mother played the Clarinet and Piano and also worked for “Sears” which is a chain of Departmental stores.
His father was a former boxer and a crane operator who played guitar with a local rhythm with the Falcons band.
Michael grew up along with 3 sisters and 5 brothers (as 1 brother died after birth).
In 1964 when Michael was just 6 years old he along with his another brother joined the “Jackson Band” set up by their father which already had the 3 elder brothers.
The 2 joined as backup musicians for playing congas and tambourine.
Michael Jackson said that his father told him that he had a fat nose and abused him mentally and physically.
Their father sat in a chair while they rehearsed with a belt to whip who committed mistakes. His father acknowledged that he whipped Michael regularly.
In the same year 1964 when Michael was just 6 years old, he started singing lead vocals with his brother Jermaine and the group name was changed to Jackson 5. (How he could do lead vocals when he was barely 6 years old beats me).
The first single song of Jackson 5, “Big Boy” was recorded in 1968 (when Michael was barely 10 years old).
Rolling Stone, the leading music magazine of the US which currently has a circulation of 7 lacs described Michael as a “Prodigy with overwhelming musical gifts”. He was just 11 years old then.
In January 1970 the song of the Jackson 5 band “I want you back” topped the US Billboard 100 charts and stayed there for 4 weeks.
In 1971, the Jackson family moved to a 2 acre estate in California.
Between 1972 and 1975 (that is when he was 14 to 17 years old) Michael released 4 solo albums.
The 4 are
Got to be There (1972)
Ben (1972)
Music & Me (1973)
Forever Michael (1975)
The first two albums sold well. Michael maintained the ties with Jackson 5 despite releasing the singles.
Motown Records with whom Jackson 5 was associated refused to record some songs of Jackson 5.
Therefore the band moved over to Epic Records in 1975 and renamed them the ”Jacksons”.
The Jacksons toured internationally and released 6 more albums between 1976 & 1984.
Michael was the group’s main song writer during this time.
In 1978 Michael Jackson moved to New York city.
He starred in the musical movie “Wiz” and Diana Ross who was by then a famous singer actor. The musical however proved to be a big box office failure.
During this time Michael visited the Studio 54 night club where he got acquainted to hip hop and that influenced his future tracks.
In 1979 Michael broke his nose during a dance routine. A nose surgery led to breathing difficulties and affected his career.
Michael’s 5th solo album “Off The Wall” released in 1979, established him as a solo performer and made him go into complex sounds.
At that time 4 of the songs from the album made into the US top 10 list. The album sold over 20 million copies.
In 1979 (when he was jus 21) he won a Grammy for the Best male R&B Vocal Performance for the song “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”.
This is a song from the above mentioned solo album “Off the Wall’.
Michael recorded along with the “Queen” singer Freddie Mercury (“Queen” is a British rock band) from 1981 to 1983. The recordings were for an album of duets.
However, the relationship between them broke when Michael brought a llama (A South American camel of smaller size) into the studio. Michael in turn did not like Freddie’s drug use.
Michael released his hit solo album “Thriller” in 1982. He was just 24 years old then.
That was the bestselling album worldwide in 1983 and also the best selling album worldwide ever. It sold 70 million copies.
In 1984, it also won 8 Grammy Awards which is a record which he still holds with the Rock band “Santana”.
“Thriller” topped the Billboard 200 charts for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. That was a fantastic record.
It also had 7 songs in the top 10 Billboard Hot 100. Those 7 included “Billie Jean”, “Beat It” & “Wanna Be Startin Something”.
Michael then recorded with Mick Jagger, the British singer who is one of the founding members of the Rock Band “Rolling Stones” in 1984. This is for the Jacksons album “Victory”.
Michael was also associated with Paul Mc Cartney in 1984.
Michael had the largest royalty rate in music industry at that time netting about USD 5 (as per 2020 rates) per record.
Thriller sold 70 million copies which means he got 350 million USD or over Rs 2900 crores as per the latest USD rate.
In 1984 President Reagan gave an award to Michael for his support for Alcohol and Drug Abuse charities.
In 1984-85 Michael and his brothers partnered with Pepsico in a USD 5 million promotional deal.
On the deal while performing a simulated concert in 1984, the pyrotechnics made Michael’s hair accidentally catch fire and he had to be treated and also had another nose surgery.
The Victory Tour undertaken in December 1984 was a concert tour of the US and Canada in which all the 5 Jacskon brothers participated including Michael.
The group performed 55 concerts to an audience of App. 2 million.
This was the last tour Michael did with his brothers. Most people came to the concerts to see Michael as his “Thriller” album was roaring then.
Following a controversy over the concerts ticket sales Michael donated his entire share of the concert proceeds that amounted to USD 3-5 million for charity.
His charitable work continued with the release of ‘We are the World” in 1985.
Michael co-wrote it with Lionel Richie and it raised charity for the poor in the US ad Africa. It sold 20 million copies and made USD 63 million. It also won 4 Grammy awards in 1985.
Michael had medium brown skin during his youth. But from the mid 1980’s it gradually grew paler.
Michael’s dermatologist indicated that he had “Vitiligo” in which some patches on the skin lose their pigment and become lighter.
He also said Michael had ‘Lupus” which gives inflamed painful patches on the skin with scaling.
So Michael’s skin condition was not good. Michael used fair colored makeup and skin bleaching creams to cover up the unevenness of the skin.
Michael claimed later that he only had 2 nose surgeries and 1 cleft chin surgery.
He was often dizzy and suffered from “Anorexia Nervosa” which is an overpowering urge to be thin which led to low weight and eating lesser food.
In 1986 newspapers reported a host of untrue stories about Michael which were all denied.
Now this is the problem if one becomes over successful in any field and specially in the arts because the gaze of the entire public is on you.
The public wants to know more about you and so the press invents nonexistent stories to feed their curiosity.
On top of that based on those stories, these tabloids gave him a name of “Wacko Jacko” which he hated.
Michael came out with another super Album “Bad” in 1987 which was widely awaited.
It won the Grammy in 1988. It was a hit, topped the charts in 25 countries and was a worldwide hit. It sold about 40 million copies.
For the album “Bad” tour 504,000 people attended the 7 shows at Wembley averaging 72000 people per show. And that created a Guinness record.
In 1988 Michael released his autobiography “Moonwalk” which also reached the top of Newyork times bestseller list. It sold 200,000 copies.
In March 1988 Michael Jackson bought 2700 acres of land in California for a new home.
A security staff of 40 patrolled the grounds. It even had a Zoo.
Michael became known as the King of Pop. When Elizabeth Taylor presented him with an award in 1989, she called him the true king of Pop, Rock & Soul.
President Bush designated him as the White House’s artist of the decade.
In 1991 Michael renewed his contract with Sony for a record breaking 65 million dollars. (At this point I think money meant nothing to him. What would a person do with thousands of crores).
In 1991 also came in his 8th album “Dangerous”. It contained his famous song “Black or White”.
That song hit the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and was there for 7 weeks with similar performances elsewhere in the world.
Michael founded ‘Heal The World Foundation” in 1992. It spent millions of dollars to help children threatened by war, poverty and disease.
The “Dangerous” albums world tour began in 1992 and it grossed an amazing 100 million dollars.
Michael performed in 70 concerts outside the US which 3.5 million people watched.
Part of those proceeds went to Heal The World Foundation.
In February 1993 Michael won the “Living Legend award” at the 35th Grammy awards in Los Angeles.
In the same year Michael was accused of child sexual abuse by a 13 year old boy and his father. Ultimately he settled with them for 23 million dollars.
Michael was taking pain killers after the fire accident at Pepsi and then became dependent on them due to the sex abuse allegations and also painkiller addiction.
In late 1993 Michael proposed to Elvis Presley’s daughter. Their marriage lasted just 1 and half years and broke in 1995.
In 1995 Michael released the double album “History, Past, Present and Future, Book I. In this there are 2 discs ‘History Begins” & “History Continues”. They both together sold 40 million copies.
This again was a big hit and again won him another Grammy.
In their review New York Times said “the testimony of a musician whose self pity now equals his talent”. That must have truly depressed poor Michael further.
In 1995 the anti defamation groups complained that some his songs had defamatory words against the Jews. Michael then changed the words.
In late 1995 Michael was admitted into a hospital after he collapsed during the rehearsals of a performance caused by stress related panic attack.
In 1995 Michael merged his ATV Music with Sony and earned 95 million USD even when he retained half the share in the company.
In 1996 he won another Grammy for “Scream”.
Michael started his earlier album History world tour in Sep 1996.
In 1 month and 1 week he performed in 82 concerts in all the 5 continents, 35 countries and 58 cities to over 4.5 million fans. The tour grossed him 165 million dollars.
During the tour in Australia he married Debbie Rowe. His son known as Prince was born in February 1997. They had a daughter in 1998. They divorced in 1999.
In June he did a number of charity shows, the proceeds of which went to children from various countries.
One of these concerts featured AR Rehman, Prabhudeva & Sobhana.
In 2001 he released his 10th album “Invincible” which was preceded by a dispute between him and Sony Entertainment Television regarding the contract.
As usual ‘Invincible” also did very well in sales.
In January 2002, he won the American Music award for the artist of the Century.
But 2002 got him into more and more controversies and that must have put him under even greater stress.
In April 2002 he performed in a theatre for raising funds for Democrats and Bill Clinton. It raised 2 million dollars.
That was Michael’s last live performance. In July 2002, he got into a fight with Sony and it refused to renew his contract.
In December 2003 he was charged with 7 counts of child molestation and 2 counts of intoxicating minors with alcohol.
The trail started but Michael denied it. If convicted in that he would get imprisonment for 20 years, so it must have proved very stressful for him.
Ultimately he was acquitted and proved not guilty.
After the trail he kept away from the public and moved to Bahrain as a guest of Sheikh Abdulla( 2nd son of the King of Bahrain).
After that surprisingly he got into financial difficulties and one institution threatened to sell his ranch which was mortgaged. However, he came out of it.
In March 2009 amid concerns about his health and finances, he announced a series of comeback concerts.
He suggested that he would retire after the shows. The concerts tickets sold like hot cakes and were sold out.
They were to run from July 2009 to March 2010. At the end of June 2009 just before his concerts were about to begin Michael died from cardiac arrest.
