Michael Jackson Biography
Posted On November 4th, 2009 By Celebrity Biographies
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson, the renowned ‘King of Pop’, a distinguished singer and songwriter was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana. He was born to an African-American family and his father’s name is Joseph Jackson. His father had given up his musical aspirations in order to run the family. He believed in the talents of his sons and moulded them into a musical group that was introduced in the sixties. The first of the Jackson family performers were his older brothers Jackie, Jermaine and Tito. Michael joined this group when he was five years old and turned out to be the lead vocalist in the group. He could convey complex emotions with ease and captivated the audiences with his depth. The oldest brother Marlon also joined the group shortly after, therefore evolved the group into ‘Jackson Five’.
Joseph Jackson is known to push his sons, behind the scenes and is also known to have become violent with them. Michael would spend hours with his brothers, rehearsing the act. To begin with, the group played local gigs, which brought them a lot of fan following. Their only compilation, ‘Big Boy’ along with ‘You’ve changed’, but failed to attract a lot of audiences. The group then started working on open acts for renowned R&B artists of the time such as the Pips, Gladys Knight, Sam & Dave and James Brown. It is also known that Berry Gordy was pretty impressed with the group and signed them to his exclusive label in the year 1968.
Works
By the age of 13, Michael Jackson launched a solo record in addition to his work with the group. He first made it to the charts with his song, ‘Got to Be There’ from the album with the same name. In 1972, Jackson got his first hit with the ballad about the rat. For several years thereafter, Michael Jackson and the group maintained a busy tour schedule; however the group broke all its ties with Gordy by the year 1975.
The group was renamed as the ‘Jacksons’ and they signed a new recording deal with the Epic Records. In 1978, the youngest brother Randy joined the group and Michael Jackson wowed the music industry in the year 1979 with his solo album called ‘Off the Wall’. The album was a rare combination of pop and funk and included the highly popular tracks of all time. The next album called ‘Triumph’ was the one that escalated Michael’s career to the highest peak with about one million copies of the album being sold then. Pairing up with Paul McCartney, Michael sang his first duet called ‘The Girl is mine’ in the year 1982. This song also appeared on his next album called the ‘Thriller’. This album contained 7 of the biggest hits.
In a special television show to honour ‘Motown’, Jackson performed a famous hit called ‘Billie Jean’, where he debuted his world-famous dance move referred to as the ‘moon walk’. He created this step himself and thereby choreographed his other dance sequences in the video ‘Beat It’. The horror-tinged video for the ‘Thriller’ became exceedingly popular and the album was nominated for 12 Grammy awards and ended up winning 8 of those. With the diversified talent displayed at the Grammys, he found recognition all around the world.
Around this time, he signed a $5 million endorsement with Pepsi-Cola and got badly injured while filming for this commercial. He got severe burns on his face and scalp in the year 1984 and this is the time when he started experimenting with plastic surgeries. His face, essentially his nose went through a lot of dramatic changes in the years to come. That year, he concluded his support to the Jackson group with the album called ‘Victory’. In the year 1991, Jackson released the ‘Dangerous’ featuring one of the biggest hits called ‘Black & White’. There was a huge controversy revolving around this song since Michael was seen with some sexually proactive actions. Thereafter he was seen performing at important events around the world including the Superbowl XXVII.
Controversies & Personal Life
Jackson was a quiet and a shy person off stage, he was never comfortable in front of the media and he rarely gave any interviews. In the 80’s, he created his own fantasy retreat called ‘Neverland’ in California. He kept amusement rides and exotic pets such as chimpanzees there. It almost seemed as if he was living his estranged childhood. It was also heard that he used to sleep in special chambers that would increase his life span and also lightened the colour of his skin in order to appear white.
He gave a rare interview to Oprah Winfrey in February, 1980 where he explained the change of the colour of his skin was due to a disease called ‘vitiligo’. He also detailed the abuse from his father in that show. A year later, there were allegations of child molestation against him. He was allegedly having sleepovers with young children in his ranch, but there was no particular evidence against him.
In 1994, he married Lisa Marie Presley and the couple was seen giving a joint interview with Diane Sawyer, however the union was pretty short lived. The couple got divorced in the year 1996 and it was believed that the wedding was a ploy to cover up his molestation charges. He married a nurse called Debbie Rowe, later that year and the couple had two children through artificial insemination process. Michael also has a third child from an unknown woman and the couple got divorced in the year 1999. He then took custody of all his children.
The Decline
His career started to decline from the year 1995 and he started facing criticism for his works. With the release of ‘Invincible’, more and more stories were published about his behaviour as compared to his talent. He was often seen in public wearing a surgical mask and covered the faces of his children under veils. In the year 2002, he seemed confused and disoriented on the stage at an MTV awards program. He was criticised for dangling his son over a balcony in Germany. In 2003, he received a severe blow on his reputation with the release of a documentary called ‘Living with Jackson’ by a British journalist called Martin Bashir. In 2004, he was arrested for molesting children, however all charges were dropped in the year 2005 and he moved to Bahrain for a while.
He sold the ‘Neverland’ ranch in the year 2008, after facing severe financial crisis. He also auctioned some of his home items and announced that he would be performing some shows in London as his ‘final curtain call’ to mark his retirement. The series was named ‘This is It’, which is now converted into a documentary by Columbia Pictures with his rehearsal footage. It was a speculation whether the singer would be able to handle a continuous series of 50 concerts.
Despite all the rumours and controversies surrounding him, 50 year old Michael Jackson remained a figure of great interest and was supposed to perform at the O2 arena on July 8th, 2009. He suddenly died of a cardiac arrest on June 25th, 2009. However, all the tickets of his shows were sold out within a few hours. After his death in Los Angeles, millions of music fans mourned his death all across the globe.
For the past four decades, Michael Jackson has been entertaining the world with his music and dance and he shall always be considered as an integral part of the contemporary culture.
