These days the Jackson 3 would be a more appropriate moniker, yet despite their reduced numbers and increasing ages, the remaining brothers are still clearly firm followers of the old adage: the show must go on.
Having begun singing together 59 years ago when they were young boys, Marlon, Tito and Jackie Jackson, now aged 66, 69 and 72 respectively, are heading back to Britain to perform two highly anticipated shows.
And neither the death of their infamous brother Michael, nor the departures of Jermaine and Randy, have come close to breaking them up.
As Marlon reveals to the Daily Express, Michael had been about to reunite with the Jacksons just before his untimely death in 2009.
The 50-year-old was due to perform 50 dates at London’s O2 arena, but less than three weeks before his residency he died of a drugs overdose.
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Marlon, the youngest living member of the original line-up, says he and his brothers were going to join him for the last 20 of those shows.
“No one knew that,” he explains. “We’d have reunited on stage. I do think that if Michael had lived, we would probably have done one more major tour with all the brothers and then that would have been it. That would have been special. I guess we’ll just have to do that when we all get to Heaven.”
When Michael quit the group in 1984 to concentrate on his solo career, he soon became one of the most successful and famous singers in the history of pop music. His album Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, raking in millions.
And although the group continued to rack up chart hits, they were completely overshadowed by their younger brother’s phenomenal success. Claims of inappropriate behaviour with teenagers, clandestine pay-offs and prescription drug abuse have badly tarnished the former King of Pop’s reputation, although he remains enormously popular.
And his living brothers continue to tour.
“We’ve always put 100 percent into what we do, regardless of if a brother is missing or not missing. That’s what we do. Even after Michael died, we didn’t consider giving up, not at all. It’s a part of us,” continues Marlon.
“You keep moving forward. Since Michael died, we’ve got used to it and we feel his spirit with us on stage. He’s always there. I remember, after one show a gentleman walked up to me and said, ‘I want to let you know that Michael would be proud of you guys’.
“It made me feel good inside to know that the fans still enjoy us, even though Michael’s not here.”
What’s more, he insists there were never any hard feelings amongst the brothers Michael left behind. “It was still the name Jackson – that continued on, so I wasn’t sad,” he explains. “There was Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, this Jackson, that Jackson, but we were still all Jacksons and that’s what it was all about. It was still the Jackson brand.”
That said, the Jacksons line-up has changed significantly over the years.
Founding member Jermaine left in 2020 and youngest brother Randy, who only joined in 1976, quit 13 years later.
This week the three remaining brothers will top the bill at the 15,000-capacity Bedford Park, in Bedford, belting out hits including Blame it on The Boogie and Shake Your Body, supported by Sister Sledge and The Real Thing.
“We get a great reception, everyone enjoys the music and they hold on to it,” Marlon smiles. “They raise their kids on it and then their grandkids. Last time I was in the UK I saw some 19-year-olds singing along and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, you weren’t even born when these songs came out!’”
Marlon knows touring and live performance won’t last forever. “I know there’s going to come a time that I decide: ‘Ok, I’ve done this for so many years and now I’m going to do other things.’ That’s not too far away, but until then I give 200 percent in every show we do.”
The Jackson 5 was formed in 1964 by steel mill worker Joseph Jackson when seven year-old Marlon and six year-old Michael joined brothers Tito, Jackie and Jermaine.
Much has been written about Joseph being a brutally tough disciplinarian, drilling his sons over and over until they perfected their routines.
But as Marlon insists today: “We did music and performing because we enjoyed it, we had a great time. And then on top of that we made a little bit of money. People would throw money on stage, so Michael and I would do the splits and dance and pick it up and put it in our pockets and keep it. That’s enough for any kid to say: ‘I want to keep doing this.’”
The group enjoyed a string of hits, including I Want You Back and ABC, but in the early days they faced ugly racism.
Marlon recalls the group being allocated the worst hotel rooms while on tour.
“I didn’t understand it, because I’ve always felt that the Lord created all of us, so he didn’t make nobody better than the other,” he says.
“But back in the early days, a lot of our hotel rooms would be overlooking the garbage and at 3am the garbage trucks would turn up making all kinds of noise. In some cities we went to, we’d be in our limo and then out of nowhere people would start throwing rocks at our car, because of the colour of our skin.”
By the mid-1970s the Jackson 5 had become one of the biggest bands in the world, with screaming fans following them wherever they went.
“It was hard to go places, everyone wanted a piece of us,” Marlon recalls.
“I remember the very first time we arrived in the UK. We were on the aeroplane and the captain came on the speaker and told us that there were 15,000 fans at the airport waiting for us to arrive. When we got there it was chaos.
“They were trying to get us into these Daimlers they’d laid on. Michael was wearing a scarf and the fans were pulling it one way and pulling it the other way and they were choking him. They were pulling our hair and Tito got stuck. We realised how dangerous it was. Everyone wanted a piece of us.”
At the same time Michael’s solo career was blossoming. Tragically, as his fame grew, he became more and more isolated and Marlon acknowledges it became harder to keep an eye on him.
F
or Marlon, who was just 17 months older than Michael and the closest to him, it was difficult to watch. “When you are brothers and you’re with each other all the time you can bounce off each other and share thoughts and feelings. That thing of course wasn’t there as much as it would have been if we’d all been together,” he reflects.
“It’s a rough business – once you reach that pinnacle and you’re up there, the next thing people want to pull you down and I wish we could have protected him.”
Today Marlon lives in California with Carol, his wife of 48 years, who he met while on tour with the Jackson 5, when they were both 12. The couple have three children and six grandchildren. The group’s founder, his father Joe, died in 2018 but he remains close to his mother Katherine, 93, his remaining brothers and his sisters Janet, La Toya and Rebbie.
He also keeps in touch with Michael’s three children Prince, 26, Paris, 25 and Blanket, 21. “We all live in different states, but we still talk,” Marlon says. “We’re family first, before anything else.”
All three have come to see The Jacksons in concert, he says, and have acknowledged the part the original band played in launching their father’s stellar solo career.
“As they’ve got older, they’ve realised how everything happened, and that the foundation was the Jackson 5,” he explains. “They’ve come to understand that now.”
- The Jacksons perform live in Bedford Park, Bedford, on June 23 along with Sister Sledge and The Real Thing. Visit bedfordparkconcerts.co.uk They also perform at Piece Hall in Halifax on June 24, piecehall.co.uk
