E-mail a friendBerry Gordy
airdate July 7, 2009
Motown founder Berry Gordy helped groom Michael Jackson for stardom. After being convinced to see the young group from Gary, IN, The Jackson 5, Gordy knew they were right for his label. They signed at the end of '68 and, in fall '69, exploded with "I Want You Back," the first of four consecutive No. 1 pop hits. Jackson's first solo single, "Got to Be There," was released in '71, and put him on the path to superstardom. MJ ultimately left the label, but his Emmy-nominated performance of "Billie Jean" on Motown's 25th anniversary special—where he premiered his trademark moonwalk—was one that would send his career into the stratosphere.
Full interview and highlights from the Michael Jackson memorial. (11:15)
Berry Gordy
[Montage of clips from the Michael Jackson memorial service at Staples Center in Los Angeles.]
Tavis: Scenes from earlier today here in Los Angeles at the memorial service honoring the life and legacy of Michael Jackson.
As a kid growing up in Indiana I had a special reverence for Michael Jackson and the entire Jackson family. Seeing these young Black men go from a small house in Gary, just up the road from me, to the biggest stages in the world was awe-inspiring.
Recently, in his most extensive conversation since the death of Michael Jackson I sat down with Motown founder Berry Gordy to talk about the man, the music, and the icon that was, is, and will always be Michael Jackson.
[Begin clip of Berry Gordy interview.]
Berry Gordy: I look at pictures of him and me and I think about earlier songs. That first song they did, "I Want You Back," was something that I walked around humming in my head because I wanted him to be young. Even though he was dancing like James Brown and he was doing all the great steps, I just felt that anything that he sung like a James Brown would be too old for this young, energetic, powerful, bright young man.
So I walked around humming, "Oh, baby, dah, dah, dee, dah, dee," something that would be bright for him at his age, and me and three other guys produced and wrote it and every time I see it it just throws me into another period, another time. So I open my interview with going back with great memories.
Tavis: I'm glad you're here and I appreciate that. And those memories spark at least two questions for me right now, in no particular order. Number one, you wanted to put Michael in the group out there with the right song, to your brilliant story now, and yet what blew people away was when he started singing stuff that belied the fact that he was so young.
You got this little guy singing songs and putting it out there in such a way but there's no way a kid his age could understand the emotions he was singing about. But he did it in such a convincing and compelling manner, and that's what really blew people away about it.
Gordy: Except that we didn't put that out to the public. The public didn't know that. Insiders knew about it because it was on an album. It was a Smokey song called "Who's Loving You." And he did that early, and I said that would not be one of his first three or four songs because it was just -- it was like 50 years of knowing about love. (Laughter.)
This man was saying -- and I didn't say it in front of Smokey, but man, he was kicking Smokey's ass on that song. (Laughter.) He was putting so much passion in that, man, and I looked at his -- where'd he get that emotion from, what was that? And, well, you've heard the song.
Tavis: But what did you -- we've all discussed this a thousand times. You're the chairman, though. What did you make of that? What did you make of the fact that here was this kid who was taking Smokey's lyrics and singing, as you said, like he'd been loving for 50 years? What did you make of that?
Gordy: Just "He's been here before." We'd just walk around, "He's been here before." (Laughter.)
Tavis: He's lived it -- yeah.
Gordy: Yeah, he's been here before, because it's, like, impossible. And he was this kid who was so excited about everything he was doing. And I hear people talk all the time about he didn't have a childhood and he didn't have this and he was, like, miserable, and he was -- we don't know anything about that, because Michael was happy, he was young, he was vibrant, he was a kid, he was always playing jokes and pranks and doing things.
And we would have baseball games every week -- the Jacksons versus the Gordys, because we had -- and Motown was about love and competition. Everybody competed. Everybody wanted to be -- Michael, the greatest joy, I know when he came to me, and he loved my house so much in Bel Aire and when he got a house twice as big as mine up in Neverland, he was so excited. (Laughter.)
Because, "Berry, you've got to see it." We were love and competition. We just competed on everything. And the sad thing for me was that they all got better than me. Smokey got better, Michael got better, Stevie got better. All of them, they were just so much better in their singing, and I thought I was a great songwriter, but each year when one of them would come along, my rating would drop here, here. (Laughter.)
And eventually, when Lionel and all the rest of them came I just went into freefall. (Laughter.) I just stopped calling myself a writer. I said, I'm not --
Tavis: Yeah, "I'm just the chairman."
Gordy: I'm just the chairman. You guys -- and that was so thrilling, and I'm still thrilled. And the Motown people, they're just -- and to have a child who was nine or 10 years old to pursue his dream and become the greatest entertainer in the world takes work.
People seem to think that oh, he just happened to have been -- had a bad childhood but he all of a sudden became the -- this doesn't happen overnight.
Tavis: It's a lot of discipline.
Gordy: He dreamed of working. He would practice when other people were playing and when we were doing a rehearsal or something and the rehearsal would finish and the other guys might have the guitars and they'd be playing back and forth -- never. He was always staring, what is -- every time I know, if I was working with them, which I did in many cases, I could always look at Michael and he was staring.
He was focusing. No playing, nothing. He did that by choice. He's a genius. He was a genius at nine, at 10. Singing that song showed us that he could do.
So I -- but it's like anything else. Michael, being the biggest artist in the world, folklore just comes. People say stuff and it just -- okay, he was the most miserable kid we've ever seen. Kids would give their right arm to be able to pursue their dream at nine, and to --
Tavis: As would their parents, to cash in on their pursuing their dreams in America. You mentioned, and you were right about this, and it's what makes Motown so great, it's why we celebrate Motown this year.
I was thinking, Michael dies at 50, this is Motown's 50th year, and I'm honored to have you back on this set again, but you mentioned earlier that Motown did, in fact, have so many geniuses, and indeed you did. You can't -- Stevie is a genius, Marvin was a genius, Smokey. These cats were geniuses. Other than being so young, as we discussed earlier, what do you think was Michael's particular genius?
Gordy: Well, he was a different kind of genius. Michael was a thinker. He did more research than any of the artists that I've mentioned. He was a researcher. He researched me, he researched all of the great people came before him. He wanted to meet all of the stars that he -- and he ended up meeting so many of them.
So at nine, he was researching and looking and studying, so he was different -- a researcher. Marvin went with more of his own feelings of things and he was confused in a lot of different ways, but geniuses are geniuses. And when Michael, later in life, because he was a genius and because he had thoughts that were above everybody's, he would think how to promote himself.
Michael was in charge of most of his life because he was that smart. And even though I was at one point his manager, he wanted to do something, he knew how to talk to me about it in a very shy, nice way, and respectful and everything else, and when he'd get on the stage he'd become this impresario and really, his whole attitude would change.
But he was one of those great, rare individuals that deserves to be called the King of Pop.
[End clip of Berry Gordy interview.]
Tavis: As fate would have it, I was actually back home in Indiana on the day Michael Jackson passed away. I immediately harkened back to some of my earliest memories of listening to the Jackson 5 and the pride I felt knowing these young superstars grew up in the same place as I did.
This summer during our annual hiatus I was planning a trip to London like others to see one of the 50 shows that Michael was due to perform. Sadly, those shows will never take place.
The world got a chance to say goodbye to Michael Jackson today, but the music and memories inside all of us will live on, I suspect, forever.
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