There are more impressions from people who attended that event. It's a lot to read, but really worth doing
Thanks to Seven from mj-777.com for this collection of reports.
1.
Jeremy Horn: My review of 'Genius Without Borders: The Genius Of Michael Jackson' in Chicago. I hope you guys enjoy it.
Hey you guys! I wanted to write my review of this amazing event that I attended at the Pritzker Auditorium at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. I definitely enjoyed this fantastic event! I want to send a big congratulations to Dr. Monica Hairston O'Connell for making this event spectacular.
The event started where Ed Eckstein, who became the 1st African-American to be president of a major non-black owned record company to address his audience about when he was a 11 year old boy, he heard the 1st time the Jackson 5 song 'I Want You Back' was played on the radio. Eckstein also stated that he attended The Forum in 1970 and saw the Jackson 5 performed to a sold out crowd, and girls were rushing the stage. He called the 'boys from Gary, Indiana' the 'Black Beatles!'
Harry Weinger, who is Vice President Of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises, was telling the audience of the catalogs of Motown Records and unreleased material of the Jackson 5. Weinger played an unreleased song from Michael titled 'Love Trip', which was recorded by Diana Ross And The Supremes, and towards the end of the song, Michael's vocals was pure perfection at the age of 11. Weinger also told when J5 were at The Forum in Ingelwood, CA, they were paid $20,000 for that one night, which was top dollars at that time. He also stated when the J5 ended the song 'I Want You Back,' Michael said to the sound engineers to fix the amps. At the age of 11, he handled it like a professional and made the audience realized he was a stage veteran. Finally, Weinger played the acapella version of 'Never Can Say Goodbye' and Michael's vocals was just amazing.
Then, Eckstein introduced the three panels guests. Ricky Lawson, who was the drummer for Michael's 'Bad' and 'Dangerous' World Tour; Greg Phillinganes, who helped produced The Jacksons' 'Destiny,' 'Triumph,' and 'Victory' albums. He was the musical director for The Jacksons' 'Victory Tour' in 1984, Michael's 'Bad' and 'Dangerous' World Tour. And, @SiedahGarrett who wrote Michael's 'Man In The Mirror' and did a duet with Michael for 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You' in 1987, had a standing ovation. They even played the classic music video with Dennis Edwards, 'Don't Look Any Further.'
Eckstein asked Lawson, Phillinganes, and Garrett about working with Michael, and their answers were straight and represented integrity of Michael's legacy in music. Lawson said that during the 'Bad' and 'Dangerous' World Tour, his band were trying to be 2/3 steps ahead of Michael; and to always work with instincts and always trying. Phillinganes was discussing the demos that Rod Temperton of Heatwave was making for Michael's 'Off The Wall' and 'Thriller' and were legends. He also said that when talking to Michael, he was painfully shy, because Michael was chased by girls since the age of 11. He stated that during the recording of 'She's Out Of My Life,' Michael cried. Phillinganes also stated that Michael never played an instrument, but he did see Michael play drums during The Jacksons' 'Destiny' album. He also said to the audience that when they hear an acapella version of 'Rock With You,' during the 'and when the groove is dead and gone,' Michael was snapping his fingers. And, when Michael was recording 'Leave Me Alone' for the 'Bad' album, Michael liked static during the beginning of the songs. Garrett started discussing how she met Michael in 1987 for the duet 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You' and how she came up with the classic song, 'Man In The Mirror.' She was too hilarious and a diva, but she was amazing!
I asked SiedahGarrett a question on advice for up and coming songwriters. She stated, 'Be persistent and always keep auditioning.' She even asked me how old I was, I told her 'I'm 25 years old,' and she said 'I feel old!' LOL Then, a 79 year old Black man who's birthday was on June 25th, read a short poem titled 'Oh Michael Boy' and received a standing ovation, because it was emotional. Then, Garrett along with Phillinganes and Lawson performed 'Man In The Mirror' and it was fantastic!
I enjoyed this event! When I came home, I saw a full moon and a shining star, and said to that star, 'Thank you Michael for being an inspiration and an influence in my life.'
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/67cf22
2. Dianater from MJFC
I attended a presentation called "It's all About the Music: An Insider's Look at Michael Jackson's Art."
It was excellent. There was a panel discussion with Ed Eckstein, Siedah Garrett, Ricky Lawson, Greg Phillinganes, and Harry Weinger. A nice sized audience (200 ppl maybe?)
This of course, was the paid event, not free like the rest of the weekend's events that I unfortunately could not attend. So it was a nice sized-crowd.
So, the night of course was spent discussing Michael's music, but also, there were a whole lot of funny MJ stories.
The night started with Ed Eckstein. I must admit things started out a bit slow (he had his whole speech written and was reading it to us). But he told us about how his “bromance” with MJ started when he was away at college and heard the Jackson 5 for the first time on the radio. He later began to work with Quincy Jones in 1974, and of course, ended up meeting and working with Michael.
He showed a picture of himself and a young teenaged MJ and went on to talk about some general stuff...How Michael was a genius, etc. He talked about how the Jackson 5 were pretty much the Black Beetles with all the hysteria they were causing everywhere they went. This set the tone for the night.
Then he introduced Harry Weinger. This is when things started to pick up because Harry had music for us, lol.
Harry Weinger had some amazing recordings of Baby MJ to share with us. He focused on Michael's musical evolution, and how Michael was truly a child prodegy. He discussed the evolution of Jackson 5 songs back when the boys were at Motown.
He played the classic “The Love You Save” for us, and then discussed how the song came to be. Apparently, the song started off as “Guess Who’s Making Whoopy with Your Girlfriend” (which I could have sworn was the original of “Mama’s Pearl" ...but, not according to Harry. I guess the musical track for GWMWWYG eventually was reused and a new song was written for it, Mama's Pearl). But anyway, he says the song’s title was too long and had to be reworked. It evolved into another version of “The Love You Save”, which he played for us. It was so fascinating to hear this stuff! You could hear “The Love You Save” in development…It was there, but not quite there yet. Some of the lyrics were the same, but the phrasing and the way Michael was singing it was different. Interesting stuff, getting to hear the steps that were taken to reach the final version. He told us how their were plenty of Jackson 5 songs that never saw the light of day, as well as recordings of some of their biggest hits in the developmental phases. What was interesting though, is how he showed us how their sound began to change (as MJ started getting older and using more input). He started playing other things, songs he described as the "bridge" between J5 Motown-esque songs, and Jacksons era songs. Songs that you could hear early Motown influence, but was moving in the direction of later Jackson songs as they worked to change their sound.
One incredible thing he shared with us is how they have recordings over at Motown of Michael singing different takes of songs and how on each one, he is in perfect harmony with himself. He said listening through these old recordings, they played them all together, and Michael consistently remained in the same key, same inflictions of his voice...And he was 10-11 years old. So it was evident at that early age, he already had an incredible ear for music, and incredible control over his vocals.
Weinger gave us some really special treats with these old recordings he played for us. One was an absolutely beautiful acapella of Michael singing "Never Can Say Goodbye." Talk about the voice of an angel...That was an understatement. The audience was in awe just listening to him. His voice so clear, beautiful, so controled. And that fantastic ad-libbing at the end, when he was so young.
Another treat...Weinger discussed how of course, Young Michael is always described as being so incredibly mature. But every now and then, the 11 year old that he was would creep out. So he plays us this clip of Michael singing a cover of Diana Ross' song, "He's My Sunny Boy." The lyrics were changed to "I'm Your Sunny Boy" though. Michael is singing, so professional and all. And then at the end, singing, "I'll be your sunny boy baby" or something along those lines, he just starts cracking up laughing all of a sudden. It was SO f-reakin' adorable. The sound of BB MJ's voice laughing throughout the auditorium. Priceless.
Then Harry played some audio of live Jackson 5 performances for us (being recorded to make a J5 Live album). Only thing is, this particular recording had some issues, lol. The Jackson 5 were singing...The Love You Save (I think? don't quote me...I'm forgetting now, lol). Anyway, something is wrong with the amplifier. You hear the J5 singing, you hear the crowd screaming. They get to the end of the song, and BB MJ is not too thrilled about the jacked-up amplifier. All of a sudden, you hear BB MJ going, "I don't know what's wrong with this amplifier. Do you know what's wrong with it? Do you know." LOL!
He was so serious. Something onstage was sounding off to him, and he wanted it fixed! Harry said it reminded him of MJ in TII, trying to make sure everything was sounding right. Apparently the man was a perfectionist and had a very keen ear since he was a child.
Next, we got some fun stories about J5 performances. Of course, they drove girls crazy. BB MJ was already a ladies' man, and already knew how to work an audience. There was a huge, but fake, diamond ring that Michael was given to wear onstage during performances. A little trick he learned onstage was how to make the ring catch light in just the right way to reflect on someone in the audience. So what he used to do was scan the crowd, and single out a girl. He'd make eye contact with her, hold out his hand, and "flash" the ring at her. Drove girls crazy, lol. So even at that young age, he was already trying to connect personally to the audience...Putting extra things into the performance. The little flirt, lol.
Then there were times of course, when the girls in the audience would rush the stage. At one concert, Berry Gordy and Diana Ross were in the audience and saw the stampeded coming. So they took off. Who else took off? Jermaine. Dropped his guitar and ran for his life. BB MJ was upset about that. In an interview (I forgot what magazine Harry said it was for), BB MJ said something like, "It's a shame we can't perform the songs the way we want to. Jermaine had to drop his guitar."
After Harry, Ed Eckstein came back out to introduce Ricky Lawson, Greg Phillinganess, and Siedah Garrett. Ok, Greg and Ricky had some great stuff to share.
From this point on, we were really just being told stories about MJ and how it was working with him.
Greg talked about how he got into the business, all the countless people he worked with. How he came to work and go on tour with Michael. Funny story…He said he was in the studio with Michael and how Michael just kept asking him, “You like touring? You really like touring, don’t you? You like going on tour?” And Greg said it took him a while to realize Michael was trying to ask him if he wanted to go on tour with him. He eventually was, “Michael, do you want me to go on tour with you?” and Michael smiled and said, “Mmm-hmm.”
Greg absolutely BROKE our hearts at one point though. Would you believe this man had planned on bringing rehearsal footage of him with MICHAEL F-REAKIN’ JACKSON on the Bad tour????!?! He said he meant to bring it and apologized for not being able to find it, and then later realizing it was on a computer that he didn’t have with him! Yes, the crowd all gave a collective cry of anguish. (In which Siedah told us to shut up and watch TII tour’s rehearsals, lol). And then Harry, I think, told us to all follow Greg home to see those videos, lol. But yes, it was a sad, sad moment, to think we were so close to seeing exclusive Bad tour rehearsal footage. *sigh*
Ricky Lawson was so cool. He told us how he came to work with Michael, and such. Discussed how as the drummer, he had to be in tune with Michael’s dancing and how they would come up with ways to mirror each other. The drums would be used to accent Michael’s moves. Again, some fascinating stuff. He treated us to a live performance of Thriller. And it sounded incredible. They had the track playing, Ricky playing along with it live on the drums, Siedah goofing around imitating Michael singing the song. It was awesome. (Then Ed jumped in to tell us a little story about his daughter and friends. He said they were 18 years old, and one night they were out at dinner in a restaurant. I think he said his daughter’s friend was asking her dad to use his car so they could go out later or something. He told her she could use the car if she got up and did the Thriller dance. Of course, she got up and started doing the Thriller dance in the restaurant. And funny thing was, he said people from other tables just started randomly getting up to do with her until suddenly, it was a group of people all doing the Thriller dance in the middle of the restaurant, lol).
But yeah…Hearing Ricky play Thriller on the drums was so cool.
(Also, it's official...MJ could play the drums. Greg saw him. Said one day he heard someone playing a cool beat on the drums, looked around and saw it was MJ. Other instruments though, he said MJ has incredible at mimicking with his voice. The man could SING instruments, lol).
Siedah told us exactly how “Man in the Mirror” came to be. Siedah said getting into the industry was not at all easy for her. She auditioned for every single thing she could. So after audition and audition, she lucked up ended up working with Quincy Jones. She initially had pretty much no experience as a song-writer, having only written poetry. Again, I apologize for not remembering names, but she was working on her song-writing skills with somebody. She said during a session, he got a phone call, answered it, and pretty much forgot she was there. She said she was fuming mad because it wasn’t even an important phone call. He was just chatting. So she said she sat there, annoyed, flipping through her notebook of song ideas. And then at some point in the conversation the guy was having on the phone, he said, “What man? Oh, the man in the mirror.” She said for some reason, she just wrote down the phrase, “man in the mirror” as she listened to him chatting on the phone.
So later, another day, she’s still working on writing songs (because she knew Quincy Jones was working with Michael Jackson and they wanted another song for the Bad album), and someone (Greg?...I know, my memory is horrible, I should have been taking notes!) was playing around on the piano as she was flipping through her notebook. He was playing this melody that ended up being the opening notes to “Man in the Mirror.” Right as he began playing, she said she just happened to flip to the page where she had written the line “man in the mirror.” And then something just happened, she said the lyrics of the song just started coming to her and she could hardly write fast enough to get them on paper. (She said just recalling this still gave her goosebumps). Shortly afterward, she had the song that would become the hit, “Man in the Mirror” written and she was so excited. She called Quincy to tell him that she had a song for Michael. Quincy wasn’t too enthused, lol. She said she was begging him over the phone to listen to the song. She continued to beg and plead until Quincy got ****ed off and said, “Ok, sh*t. Bring it over.”
Then, she tells us about her incredible timing, lol. She went to bring Quincy the song right when he was in an important meeting. So everyone was ****ed at her for interrupting. She gave the song to Quincy, begged him to listen, he said, “Ok, sh*t,” and slammed the door.
Later, she gets a phone call from Mr. Jones, telling her he listened to the song, thought it was great. So of course, Siedah is on cloud nine. Then she hears a “but”…and her spirits drop. It was Quincy saying, “I love the song, but Mike doesn’t really use other people’s songs. He likes being involved in creating the songs, likes to write his own stuff, blah, blah, blah.” She said at this point, she was pretty much blocking out what Quincy was saying because she didn’t want to hear it. Quincy ends up telling her not to worry, because if MJ didn’t want the song, he’d give it to James Ingram.
Siedah said in response to this, she was thinking: MICHAEL JACKSON, James Ingram.
Needless to say she who she was hoping the song would go to, lol.
Then of course, later, she gets another call.
Quincy: Well, we're recording your song.
Quincy: But...
Quincy: Michael says the bridge isn't strong enough. (Pause...someone talking in the back-ground). And the first verse needs to be longer. (Pause). And...(Pause) And.... You know what. Hold on.
Michael: Hello...
Siedah: (inside her mind = OMG, UNF, My Husband!)
LOL! Siedah, being like so many millions of women in the world, said she loved MJ and thought that was her husband, lol. But she had to be cool while talking to him. So while she said she was hysterical on the inside, she put her on "AT&T" voice and said:
"Hello. How can I help you?"
(The audience was laughing so hard at this point).
So she said Michael told her he loved the song, but thought it needed some work. So he told her how he wanted her to fix it up. And of course, if she wanted him to use her song, she had to go with it. She said she ended up writing six different bridges to the song for him. The one he choose:
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and make a change
You gotta get it right while you've got the time
'Cause when you close your heart, you close your mind
So then it came time to do background vocals, so Siedah had to go into the studio to sing with MJ. She was going to meet him, and of course, was nearly hysterical. She said that she forced herself to be calm; she didn’t want to behave like the screaming fanatic that she was on the inside, lol. So she said she was calm and cool when she met him. Apparently, she was checking him out because she remembered every detail about what he was wearing, lol. Black fedora, white shirt, red jacket, black pants, loafers…She said the only thing missing was his white socks. She looked down at his feet and saw that he had on one brown sock, and one blue sock. So after hanging out with him and getting to know him a bit better throughout the day, she finally said, “Michael, what’s up with the socks?” She said Michael looked at her and said, “It was dark when I got dressed.”
The next day, Michael walks up to her grinning. He goes, “Guess what?”
“What?”
“My socks match.”
Siedah said she looked down at his socks, and they were sky blue. She told him, “Yeah, they match each other, but not what you have on.” LMAO. Another story that had the place dying with laughter. She said Michael just cracked up laughing himself and was like “Seid, you so crazy.”
She also told us the story behind, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” So, I think fans know the song was supposed to be MJ and Barbara Streisand (an idea Quincy rejected because he felt Barbara was too old). So then it was supposed to be MJ and Whitney Houston. Whitney was busy. Who was there? Siedah. They handed her the lyrics. She saw Michael’s name, his line, then her name, her line. She was thrilled to be doing a duet with “her husband.”
What she did not know at the time was that MJ was such a huge prankster. There was always so much laughter and joking around going on in the studio that it would annoy Quincy. So whenever Quincy got annoyed with the joking, Michael would make it his business to make other people mess up in the studio. So when they were about to record IJCSTY, Quincy was in “serious mode” and was telling Siedah to go one and sing her part. So she goes behind the mic, starts singing, and all of sudden had popcorn and peanuts being thrown at her (she gives us a hilarious re-enactment of her trying to sing while dodging flying peanuts aimed at her head). Quincy was not amused, kept yelling at her to quit playing around and sing the song. And she said she was just thinking to herself, “Oh, it’s my fault that Michael keeps throwing stuff at me?” And Michael of course, was in the corner, laughing his butt off.
She said she spent the most time with him in the studio, despite being on tour with him (I guess while on tour, she was only with him onstage; they only got to hang out when they were working on songs). But she said recording with him was the best recording experience in her life. She mentioned how Michael had a way of making whoever he was around feel important, because he would be so attentive and made everyone feel like they were important to him and that he could learn something from them.
There was this touching moment where she talked about how Michael liked to observe things and would sometimes stand on the balcony and look over everyone. And then she looked up at the ceiling and said, “Like he is now.”
*sigh*
As to why she was replaced with Sheryl Crow...Siedah missed 5 rehearsals, in attempts to start working on her own album. Sherly Crow was hired. And that was that.
Sign In
Create Account
Follow Us on Twitter
Like Us on Facebook
Subscribe on Youtube
0
Please log in to reply
Back to top
Report
