‘ABC’ and ‘The Love You Save’
By the end of 1969, Michael Jackson, now eleven years old and reunited with his mother, was a bubbly, energetic and happy youngster. ‘All I want now is to see how far we can go as a family,’ he told
Soul
magazine reporter Judy Spiegelman. ‘I like show business, Hollywood, and all that stuff, the things people like Berry Gordy do to make you look good. I'm real excited about things.’
In December, Motown Records released the brothers' first album,
Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5.
It would go on to sell 629,363 copies, an amazing number for a debut album. In Britain, it peaked at number sixteen and remained in the Top 100 for four weeks. ‘Honesty has always been a very special word for me – a special idea,’ Diana Ross wrote in the liner notes. ‘But when I think of my own personal idea of honesty, I think of something being straight out, all there, on the table – the way it is… That's how I feel about The Jackson 5 – five brothers by the name of Jackson whom I discovered in Gary, Indiana. They've got great talent,’ Diana Ross concluded. ‘And above all, they're honest.’
Michael read an advance proof of the album jacket in one of the Motown offices as his brothers and a promotion man looked on.
‘Wouldn't even let us play our own instruments on the album,’ Tito grumbled. ‘But here we are in the picture holdin' 'em like we played 'em. Don't seem right to me.’ In truth, Tito and Jermaine were not permitted to play their bass and guitar in the Motown sessions because Berry didn't think they were ready for studio work. All of the instrumental music was recorded by Motown's top team of musicians before the Jacksons even got to the studio. The boys would then have to learn to duplicate the sound as best they could for live performances.
‘I think we should be playin' on this record album, here,’ Tito decided.
Michael rolled his eyes. ‘So?’ he asked.
‘So, it's not true,’ Tito said. ‘It's not honest, like Miss Ross said on the jacket.’
‘And what about this part?’ Jermaine asked, still looking over Michael's shoulder. He pointed to Diana's line about discovering the group. ‘That ain't honest, either. Bobby Taylor was the one.’
Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘It's called
public relations
,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘C'mon, guys. Get with it.’
‘He was really into this image thing at a pretty early age,’ said Stan Sherman, the independent promotion man who witnessed the exchange. ‘The other boys were sort of befuddled about all the lies, but not Michael. Once you explained it to him, he not only agreed with it but, I think, he even started to believe it. To me, that was frightening. He seemed willing and even eager to adjust to the fantasy of it all.’
Later in the month, on 14 December 1969, The Jackson 5 appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
Although they had already made one national television appearance on
The Hollywood Palace,
in October, being asked to perform on
The Ed Sullivan Show
was an important milestone in their career.
The programme couldn't credit its success to its host. Stiff and usually unsmiling, Sullivan, a columnist for the
New York Daily News,
did little more than introduce his guests, whose names he routinely mispronounced or forgot. Once, when Smokey Robinson and the Miracles appeared, he introduced them as ‘Smokey and his little Smokeys’. The lure of the show was its roster of guests, though. Newcomers knew they had the brass ring in their reach when they were asked to perform; those already established were assured they were still on top. Ed Sullivan never bothered with has-beens or wanna-be's.
As soon as Sullivan introduced this ‘sensational group’, Marlon, Jackie and Michael, flanked by Tito and Jermaine on guitar, started their set with their rendition of the Sly Stone song ‘Stand’. They were dressed in a variety of mod clothes purchased off the rack in Greenwich Village by Suzanne dePasse.
Michael, again, was the star. When he sang, his eyes sparkled. He looked adorable in his magenta cowboy hat. Anyone who saw the performance would remember how impossibly cute this little kid was while on that stage. No diamond in the rough, he already seemed a polished, seasoned performer. When he sang ‘Can You Remember?’ his voice had a purity and range of tone that belied his years. By the time The Jackson 5 finished the set with a rousing ‘I Want You Back’, the audience had been completely won over. Just to appear with Ed Sullivan was an accomplishment, but to receive such rousing applause seemed a clear prophecy for success.
As was his tradition, Sullivan engaged in some minimal banter with his guests, but he soon turned his attention to a member of the audience: ‘The person who discovered The Jackson 5, Diana Ross.’ Diana, clad in what can only be described as a grown-up version of a little girl's pink organdy party dress, stood and modestly took a bow.
The difficult task at hand for Motown was to follow The Jackson 5's first number-one record with another chart-topper. Since it was his policy to allow the writers and producers of a hit song the opportunity to come up with another one just as successful, Berry Gordy gave the chore to Deke Richards and the Corporation. ‘One night I was at Fonce's [Mizell] and Freddie's [Perren] apartment and we were fooling around on their electric piano,’ recalled Deke Richards, ‘and I started thinking about Holland, Dozier and Holland and how they often did the same types of records over and over again, using the same progressions. Theirs was a proven hit formula. SoI took a section of “I Want You Back” – the part where the group sings the chorus – and decided to make those exact same chords the foundation of their next single.
‘I was sitting at the piano, playing chords and I came up with the lyric, “A, B, C”. Fonce and Freddie looked at me likeI was crazy.
‘“So, now what?” I asked myself. “I know, how about, one, two, three.” By now the guys thought I was nuts. And then I came up with the next line, “Do, re, mi.” And I finished with a big bang: “You and me.”’
‘That's it,’ Deke told his partners, laughing. ‘That's a hit.’
In a short time, the three men were in the studio recording the song ‘ABC’, with Michael and his brothers.
‘I loved “ABC” from the first moment I heard it,’ Michael said. ‘I had more enthusiasm for that than I did for “I Want You Back”. It was just such a hot song, such a great idea with a hot track. I couldn't wait to record it. I remember when Deke and the other guys were coming up with the middle of the song right there on the spot. “
Siddown
girl, I think I love you.” Then it was “Shake it, shake it, baby”, you know, like The Contours and old groups like that. I didn't know you could do that in the studio, just come up with parts like that at the last minute.’
In February 1970, Motown released ‘ABC’ as the second Jackson 5 single. It went straight to the top of the
Billboard
charts in just six weeks, supplanting ‘Let It Be’ by The Beatles. The song, which sold 2,214,790 copies – even more copies than ‘I Want You Back’ – seemed to poke fun at, and also make acceptable, a new and growing trend in popular music, the predominantly white ‘bubble gum’ style. In the UK, the song peaked at number eight and remained on the charts for almost three months. With ‘ABC’'s buzzing bass, sprightly keyboard and charming chorus, The Jackson 5 were on a roll.
Freddie Perren recalled, ‘After those two hits, Berry kept asking, “What about the follow-up? What about the follow-up?” He really wanted to bring that third one home. We were cutting the track for that third song at the Sound Factory in Hollywood. Berry never came to tracking sessions, but he came to this one. He listened for about fifteen minutes and said, “I'm not worried. You guys got another hit.” And he left. That's when we knew we had the third hit.’
The song was ‘The Love You Save’, which was released in May 1970, another terrific teenybopper song with a breathless lead by Michael. For ‘The Love You Save’, a cute verse and a pleading chorus was the bait, the infectious combination of guitars and percussion the hook. Just as Deke Richards predicted, the Corporation had developed a successful hit formula for The Jackson 5 in much the same way that Holland-Dozier-Holland had done for The Supremes. Diana and the girls' first three number one hits, ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ ‘Baby Love’ and ‘Come See about Me’, were basically the same song with the chord structures cleverly changed in the right spots. Deke and company applied the same magical twist to ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’ and ‘The Love You Save’ – songs that sound so much alike, it's easy for the uninitiated to confuse them. Berry had wanted three number-one songs for The Jackson 5, and, as usual, he got what he wanted.
At 1,948,761 copies sold, ‘The Love You Save’ came up a bit short in comparison to the sales of the preceding two singles but was still considered a huge hit. In England, it reached number seven and was in the charts for almost two months. The song also gave The Jackson 5 the distinction of being the first group of the rock and roll era to have their first three songs go to the top of the charts. Again, they knocked The Beatles (‘The Long and Winding Road’) out of the number-one spot.