‘That’s breathing in. Releasing that air is how you sing, hold and control a note. Think bagpipes.’ I compared my lungs to balloons and bagpipes for many years because knowing how to breathe – swelling the stomach – taught me how to sing.
‘Master the melody before the lyrics. Know where the key change is. Know where the notes are,’ he said. This was the strongest lesson inside 2300 Jackson Street: understanding our voice is the melody, and that the melody is everything. ‘You should be able to sing a song without music.’
Even our ‘ear’ was being trained.
We knew it was all starting to click together when none of us looked down at Jackie’s feet, or muttered a countdown under our breath. We just fell into it. Performing felt like the most natural thing in the world.
MAMA MARTHA WAS EVER-PRESENT IN OUR childhood, always visiting from her house in Hammond, East Chicago, about 20 minutes away. She arrived with pound cake and a big smacker of a kiss, which, when planted on the cheek with vigour, made one of those squelching sounds of puckered lips on skin. A real grandmother’s ‘mwah’!
After we had put in endless practice as a trio, Joseph was keen to show his mother-in-law what his micro man-management had created. What we didn’t know was that Michael was also itching to get in on the action. As our all-female audience – Mother, Mama, Rebbie and La Toya (plus two-year-old Randy) – stood watching, Jackie, Tito and I lined up in formation, ready to do our father proud.
Michael was, as always, seated with his bongos on the floor. As we came out of the intro of some song I now forget, the girls started to clap with the rhythm and Michael stood. Then, sensing the song building, he started to sing spontaneously, coming in on a part. Distracted, I waved him away, trying to hush his mouth. As far as we were concerned, he was ruining our moment.
Before we knew it, Joseph had stopped the record.
‘He’s not supposed to be singing!’ I said, protesting.
Mama Martha jumped to his defence. ‘Leave him alone. Let the boy sing if he wants to sing! You want to sing, Michael?’
His face lit up. We stood to one side to let him have his moment in our grandmother’s sun and Joseph begrudgingly turned on the music as our little brother started to sing. What he produced was no ‘Jingle Bells’ at a Christmas window. It was one hundred times better because it was an invited rendition, not a forbidden carol. This was Michael, shy but confident and knowing exactly what to do: he played the mic, worked the floor and sang beautifully, and we were, like, ‘Damn – that’s good!’
I didn’t know where that voice came from.
‘Heaven,’ said Mother.
The wide-eyed look on Joseph’s face was a picture.
All that time on the sidelines, Michael had been memorising everything we were doing. And then Talent emerged from its hiding place.
As everyone applauded, he felt as big as his brothers, and that’s all a kid brother wants to feel.
Mama Martha and Mother nodded knowingly to one another, as if to say ‘Always knew that one had it in him’.
I don’t remember Joseph immediately installing him in the group because there were still reservations about his age: he had only just turned five on 29 August 1963. But a few weeks later that no longer mattered when Michael became the first brother to perform before a live audience – at a Parent Teacher Association gala at Garnett Elementary School. It was Michael’s first term there, and a set of grey, oblong blocks became his first stage.
The gymnasium was filled with wooden foldaway chairs and it felt like the whole community had turned out to see local kids perform. I was sitting with Mother and Papa Samuel, and we knew Michael’s class was due to sing and that he had been asked to do a solo. We sensed it was a big deal for him because he had left the house that morning in a blue shirt, buttoned up to the neck, and smart pants, not his usual T-shirt and jeans. His chosen song was ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’ from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music (which would become one of his all-time favourite movies).
Michael hadn’t made a big fuss about this spot and I don’t remember him rehearsing his solo at home but that probably speaks of a quiet confidence first being displayed; a boy getting on with something in his own head until the moment of execution. Something he’d do throughout his life.
When it came to his spot, the woman teacher on the piano nodded and Michael stepped forward. Mother squeezed the purse on her lap with both hands and I didn’t know what I was going to do: die of embarrassment or claim him as my own.
I shouldn’t have worried.
He did everything our father had taught us to do – and then came the unexpected ‘wow’ moment: the high note at the end, which soared and echoed around the gymnasium with acoustic perfection. It was like God had reached down into one moment and said: ‘Kid, I’m going to give you a voice that is out of this world. Now use it!’
Michael was animated, wandering the stage with confidence. He didn’t follow the lead of the teacher, like most kids: she followed him. What amazed everyone was that he sang it so high. On that end note everyone stood and applauded. Even the teacher at the piano was up, clapping faster than I had ever seen anyone clap.
That’s my brother! I thought.
Mother was in tears. And even Papa Samuel was choked.
Damn, Michael – you’ve even made Papa Samuel cry!
I suspect that was the very moment Michael’s soul locked into its purpose to entertain, upon feeling the buzz of applause and seeing the reaction he had created. I knew that I wanted to be alongside him, feeling the same thing.
After that day, our musical group became five. Michael was drafted in, and so too was Marlon. Not because he had demonstrated anything outstanding but because Mother wasn’t having him be the odd one out. ‘You’ll crush him if you don’t include him, Joe,’ she said.
Over the years, it has been written that I was somehow hurt or jealous over Michael’s inclusion but I was not: there was nothing to be jealous about. We were a group without a name that hadn’t even broken out of our living room, so there was no limelight to steal. There was nothing but enthusiastic harmony between brothers. We used to lie awake in our bunk-beds, imagining being stars. Our morning singing now took on purpose. As we climbed out of bed, one brother would sing, another would jump in, then another and before we knew it, we had a three-part harmony going.
There were notes I couldn’t hit and all of a sudden, Michael reached them with ease. That boy was like a bird. He found octaves that I didn’t know existed and our father was blown away. You could tell he viewed Michael as the unexpected bonus to his game plan. The only thing missing now was the right name.
I HAVE OFTEN WONDERED HOW MANY names my parents went through before agreeing on the final nine. Not that it mattered in the end, because the choice of ‘Sigmund Esco’ for their first son morphed into ‘Jackie’ when Papa Samuel thought it easy to refer to him as ‘Jackson boy’, then laziness shortened it some more. And ‘Tariano Adaryl’ became ‘Tito’ because it was easier for us all. I was forever curious as a child about how two people’s taste could go from the exotic-sounding ‘Jermaine LaJuane’ to ‘Michael Joe’. From somewhere, and especially after Michael’s death, a rumour began that his middle name was Joseph. Maybe this myth prefers the echo
