MJ by Steve Knopper Read Free Book Online Page A

worked in the reverse, with the exception of Thelma Houston and Brenda Holloway and the Jacksons. They just never came close to what we did here in Detroit.”
    Made in Detroit, Bobby Taylor’s Jackson 5 recordings were not hits. Gordy could tell that right away. Taylor had to go.“Berry was very, very direct about his instructions,” Motown arranger Paul Riser recalls. “He would say, ‘I need hits. I don’t want anything else.’ ” In Taylor’s place, Gordy installed a team of songwriters—Fonze Mizell, Freddie Perren, and Deke Richards, the latter of whom had just helped write Diana Ross and the Supremes’ megahit “Love Child.” The trio created an instrumental called “I Wanna Be Free.” They assembled all-star Hollywood musicians at theSound Factory and other studios. These were hired hands, Los Angeles session players paid handsomely (about$105 per session, or double union scale) to record exclusively for Motown. Some, including guitarists David T. Walker and Louie Shelton, were given thefreedom to improvise within the context of an establishedinstrumental, while others were on hand for their ability to efficiently read sheet music and play the notes flawlessly. They were not, however, the Funk Brothers, and they knew it.“The Funk Brothers were all jazz musicians who played at night and came to the studio in the daytime. The piano parts were so outrageous and so loose. Genius,” says Don Peake, one of the LA session guitarists who would play on numerous Jackson 5 recordings as well as other Motown hits. “On the West Coast, we were a little straighter.”
    Hype had been building for the Jackson 5 throughout 1969 as the group steadily played gigs. They performed at the Daisy, a posh club in Beverly Hills, with the help of Motown’s publicity machine. Diana Ross introduced the band she’d “discovered.”“All we needed was a hit,” Tom Noonan, the late Motown executive, would say. By August 1969, Gordy sent for Joe and the Jackson boys, including keyboardist Ronnie Rancifer and drummerJohnny Jackson, to join him in LA.
    Richards, Mizell, and Perren were thinkingGladys Knight when they assembled their musicians to cut “I Wanna Be Free.” The song begins with a piano glissando by moonlighting Jazz Crusader Joe Sample, and every instrument carries its own sing-along hook, from fellow Crusader Wilton Felder’s loping, simplistic bass lines to the siren quality of the guitar to the string section (recorded at a different studio) to the omnipresent hand claps.
    Satisfied, Richards, Mizell, and Perren booked a flight at the airport, “I Wanna Be Free” tapes in hand, so they could meet Knight in the studio to lay down the vocals. Gordy paged them before they could board. “Don’t get on the plane,” the boss told Richards. “Come straight to my house.” Surprised, they obeyed.
    Gordy asked them to rewrite the song to be more teen-pop Frankie Lymon and less Ray Charles, and give it to the Jackson 5.“Direct it towards kids, so they can identify with it,” he told his new writers. Thus did “I Wanna Be Free” morph into “I Want You Back.”
    Michael could sing the hell out of a blues song, but as critic NelsonGeorge has observed, Motown’s immaculate decision was tomake the Jackson 5 sound like themselves. Like kids. The LA musicians’ more controlled approach fit the Jacksons, who had experience fromJoe’s relentless home rehearsals and the chitlin circuit, but they needed rules.“The writers were different on the West Coast. The energy was a little different,” recalls arranger Paul Riser. “The Jackson 5 were kind of a mechanical group—very, very regimented. The songs are very lockstep. It wasn’t as soulful as we did it in Detroit.”
    DekeRichards recognized the Jackson 5’s vocal versatility immediately, and played to each singer’s strengths—with Michael being the central, unifying voice. On “I Want You Back,” he establishes himself as a superstar the moment he