By Lee Bayley, Holly Lake resident.
I will never forget the Tuesday Elvis died. I was VP of a Los Angeles radio company that programmed over 300 stations. We immediately went into the studio and started producing a 3 hour special that we worked 72 straight hours on, airing it on several hundred stations that weekend. It was still the days of reel to reel tape and ground transportation to overnight the show to the stations around the world. That week was just a flurry of round-the-clock work done at break-neck speed. It didn't really sink in that Elvis was dead until I came out of the studio, saw the TV coverage and glanced at the front pages.
For me, the death of Michael Jackson hasn't been anything like that. With internet and satellites, all the stories, pictures, and interviews have been instant, giving us almost the complete story within minutes of his death. The questions may be the same....drugs, foul play, etc. However, the Michael we are hearing about today is not the Michael Jeriann and I and our two kids were familiar with.
We lived in LA during the 70s, a time where there was almost a daily cocktail party given by one of the big name music stars. The Jackson 5 could not do cocktails.....they were still teenagers...so they did something even better. We were often invited to their Encino home on Sunday afternoons for a backyard party. You parked out front, a shuttle brought you up to the house where Mr. and Mrs. Joe Jackson greeted you. The entire backyard was turned into a playground. There were ping pong tables, badminton nets, and so on. The center of attraction was several long tables that were piled high with every flavor ice cream and toppings you could imagine. The Jackson 5 kids were scattered all over.
Michael was in his early teens at that time. Even though he was incredibly famous, he was just a shy, bashful, kid. Unless we approached him, he spent his time leaning up against a tree just watching. My daughter, Suzanne, and son, Stuart, played badminton with him, ate ice cream with him. He was very approachable....but you had to go to him. Somewhere in my pile of memorabilia I have a picture of my kids playing badminton with him. It has now become priceless....if I can just find it.
You might see pictures of some of these parties if you go to YouTube and pull up JACKSON 5 HOME VIDEO ON SOUL TRAIN.
I loved The 5...but Michael's solo music was awesome, particularly the sessions he did with producer Quincy Jones. He sold over 750 million albums. Perhaps you remember some of the songs: Thriller, Billie Jean, Black or White, She's out Of My Life, Beat it.
Michael might have been skinny and weak looking, but he was an athlete. It took a lot of physical ability to do the dance moves he did....and to practice 12 and 13 hours a day doing them. I think he was a kid at heart, never comfortable with adults. I can't explain many of the things he did, don't intend to try. He had tons of money and tons of time and that is usually a painful combination.
The words to one of his lesser known songs come to mind:
"Like a comet streaking across the sky, Gone Too Soon."
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