[Dez]

Hello all,

I'm new to the fourum and I'm a serious MJ/J-5 fan. I'm not sure if this has been covered already, but I'm curious as to how the J5 rehearsed and prepared for the shows during the pre-Motown days. I've read the J. Randy Taraborrelli book ( Michael Jackson – The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story), and several others. Of course we all know that Joe Jackson's rehearsals were very demanding, but I wondered if there were actaul stories from family/friends who can account for how they actaully rose to greatness. I live in the Washington D.C. and one of the landmarks near wher I grew up is the Howard Theater. I've been told this was DC's version of the Apollo, where the famed acts would play shows througout the day. Of those acts, I was told the J5 would play there. Any stories would be great! Ading please excuse me if this has already been covered.

Dez

[raisa]

Hi!

I just saw your thread.
I can't really come up with a source where they elaborate about how the rehearsals were but I recently read this article again and I really recommend it if you haven't read it yet .
http://www.chicagore...672&storyPage=1
It's about the steeltown and one-derful recordings and it has some details of what the boys did before they went to motown.
this snippet from the article might interest you, it's about the one-derful studio, they went there in 1967:
The Jackson family, including Joseph and his wife Katherine, would drive in from Gary after school three or four days a week, Hayes continues, arriving at One-derful around 5 PM—about when Larry Nestor left the office, which could explain why he doesn't remember any of this. Hayes, Silvers, and Jimmy Jones would coach the boys for two or three hours as they studied chord progressions and vocal harmonies, rehearsed their sets, or just jammed, impressing Hayes with their creative tweaks to popular songs. At times the adults would accompany the boys to gigs at clubs and record hops in Gary or Chicago. This went on for perhaps five months, helping transform a talented teen band into an act on the verge of greatness.

And these 'Jam sessions' where you can hear Joe too are pretty interesting too:

[Thrill]

That's a coincidence I actually put up a video to this Jam Session on YouTube just the other week. I love their Steeltown recordings they have such a raw energy. Earlier I had put up Going Back To Indiana and I got a couple of comments from someone last week who was actually at that concert because Gary was his home town too and he said they were beyond amazing and everyone was so proud of them. I would love to have been there, you can see that the atmosphere was just electric.