[youtube]XGY7lKUwnu8[/youtube]
The Blog Article:
Michael Jackson’s First Moonwalk: Thirty Years Later
May 24th, 2013
Thirty years ago this month: on May 14, Syria rejected Lebanon’s attempt to persuade it to go along with the U.S.-based plan for an Israeli troop withdrawal; on May 2, a 6.7 earthquake injured 487 in Coalinga, California; on May 13, in a 5-4 loss to Minnesota Vikings, Reggie Jackson, who was then part of the Oakland A’s, became the first major league player to strike out 2,000 times; on May 31, the Philadelphia 76ers swept the Los Angeles Lakers in four games of the NBA Finals. Superstar Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” was a number one hit on both the pop and R&B charts; on May 25, Return of the Jedi was released in movie theaters; on May 10, the classic comedy Laverne & Shirley aired its final episode. And on May 16, Michael Jackson premiered his Moonwalk dance step on national television on the Emmy Award-winning NBC TV Special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever and forever changed pop music.
Michael Jackson will forever be known as one of the greatest entertainers of all time. He studied many that came before him in the entertainment industry in order to hone his own craft and develop his own style. In the arena of dance, he studied the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, whom Michael stated at the 2003 BET Awards “influenced him more than anyone.” He also studied the fancy footwork of Jackie Wilson, David Ruffin of the Temptations, Fred Astaire and many others.
Michael was an avid Soul Train watcher and whenever his schedule permitted, he watched the program with dedication. Even when he was out on the road, he and his brothers found out what channel the show was on in whatever city they happened to appear in. Jackson admired the Soul Train Gang’s freestyle movements. The Jackson family were such huge fans of the dancers on the show that they invited several members of the show to their home for parties and get-togethers. Soul Train dancers such as Patricia Davis and Damita Jo Freeman taught Michael and his brothers some of the eye-catching routines they did on the show. As Michael stated in his autobiography Moonwalk, “We picked up ideas from those [Soul Train] dancers who were from our part of the country.”
One of the popular dance moves he learned from Soul Train was the Robot. Years later he learned another dance from watching Soul Train, the Moonwalk, which was originally called the Backslide.
Michael might have learned some elements of moonwalking early on in his middle-teens. In 1973, Michael attended a show given by the world famous mime artist Marcel Marceau who was known for his precise robotic-like mime movements. In one of his most famous routines, “Walking Against the Wind,” he appeared to be walking backward and forward at the same time as imaginary wind pushed him back.
“I saw his show last year and he was really interesting to watch,” Michael stated in a 1974 Right On! magazine interview, referring to Marceau. Motown mogul Berry Gordy even recalled in interviews that Jackson studied Marcel Marceau in his teens. In fact, Michael incorporated abridged versions of this move in some of his concert and TV performances, in which he sort of slid in place but didn’t go all the way backwards. He did a bit of this move towards the end of his performances of “Dancing Machine” on Soul Train and the talk show Mike Douglas, and towards the end of a performance of the Jackson 5 hit “Get it Together” on a TV special entitled “One More Time.” From that time on, the move he saw Marcel Marceau do stuck with him and as the years went on, he became obsessed with it and wanted to perfect it.
The exact origins of the dance that later became known as the Moonwalk are unclear. Many agree that it started many years ago in black Vaudeville. Indeed, perhaps the earliest performance on film of this dance was at the Apollo Theater in 1955 by singer and dancer Bill Bailey, who tap danced and gracefully moonwalked off the stage towards the end of his performance. This performance is on YouTube and is a must for anyone who wants to see the roots of where this dance came from.
Michael had also seen kids doing this dance on inner-city streets. As he recalled to Rev. Jesse Jackson in a 2005 interview, “The moonwalk is a dance I would like to take credit for but I can’t. I have to be completely honest here. I get a lot of ideas from watching black children. They have the most phenomenal rhythms of anybody on this earth. I remember riding through Harlem in the late seventies, early eighties and I would see the kids dancing on the street. This one kid was doing this sliding backwards illusion dancing I call it. I took a mental picture of it and I started to dance, create and perfect it. But it definitely started in black culture, there’s no doubt about that.”
In the 1970s, a dance group called the Electric Boogaloos came out after the world renowned Lockers dance group. The Electric Boogaloos’ movements were more entrenched in popping, roboting and miming. One of its members, Creepin’ Sid, became well known for his dance step called the Backslide.
In 1979, dancer Geron “Casper” Candidate reportedly called Jeffrey Daniels, a former Soul Train dancer who became a member of the group Shalamar, who was on tour at the time and told him about a new style of dance that he had to see to believe. When Jeffrey was off the tour, Casper tried to demonstrate the move to him, but couldn’t execute it properly. Sometime later Casper, Jeffrey, and dancer Derrick “Cooley” Jackson went to an awards show at a club in Santa Ana, California called Crescendo’s where the Electric Boogaloos received an award for best new dance group. After receiving their award, they decided to give a performance as well which left Daniels and the rest of the audience speechless when he saw Creepin’ Sid perform the Backslide.
From then on, Jeffrey learned everything he could to perfect and perform this dance. In September 1979, Daniels debuted both the Moonwalk (which was technically popping in a circular motion) and the Backslide on a Soul Train performance with his group Shalamar during the instrumental break in their hit “In the Socket.” A month later, Jeffrey, Casper, Cooley Jackson and Don Newton performed a dance routine on Soul Train as a dance group called Eclipse to Michael Jackson’s hit “Working Day & Night,” in which they demonstrated popping, roboting, moonwalking and backsliding routines to an excited studio audience. Before they performed, Jeffrey told host Don Cornelius that their dancing originated from the Electric Boogaloos, who were booked to perform on the show at the following month’s taping and returned to perform again in the spring of 1980. Michael was intrigued by the Electric Boogaloos as well.
Coincidentally, Jeffrey, Casper and Cooley all looked like the late seventies Michael Jackson with bouncy afros, black shoes and white socks.
Little did Eclipse know, Michael and his brothers happened to be watching Soul Train that particular day. Michael was in awe of what he saw. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli’s book Michael Jackson: The Magic & The Madness, Michael, through his then-manager Ron Weisner, got in touch with one of the group’s dancers, Casper. Weisner introduced Casper to Michael. Casper and Cooley both demonstrated various moves to Michael, but it was the backslide he wanted to learn. Michael wanted to know if they had wheels on the bottoms of their shoes, but they told him it was just a dance step. With the aid of a chair, Casper taught Michael the move within an hour. Michael had a couple more lessons with Casper, but he was stiff and it bugged him and he wanted to do it flawlessly like Casper.
During that time, the Jacksons were on the last leg of their Destiny tour and when Casper went to see their concert in Los Angeles, a month after teaching Michael the Backslide, Michael did not do it. Casper was allowed backstage and asked Michael about it and Michael said he didn’t feel ready to do it yet.
Hence, Michael continued to practice the step on his own.
Jeffrey went on to do a solo dance routine on Soul Train in late 1980 to the Jacksons hit “Lovely One.” He wore white gloves and a black policeman’s hat and did the Backslide while walking a toy dog on a leash, which drew cheers from the Soul Train dancers. But the performance he became internationally memorable for was his solo dance routine on the UK TV show Top of the Pops in 1982, when he moonwalked and did the Backslide and other popping routines to the Shalamar hit “Night to Remember.”
Michael had seen these performances and was enthralled by what he saw, continuing to practice these steps until he got it right.
In an interview with former Soul Train dancer Damita Jo Freeman for SoulTrain.com’s Diary of an Ex-Soul Train Dancer column, she recalled that in 1982, Michael attended one of Cher’s shows in Las Vegas which Freeman had choreographed. During one segment of the show, Damita did the Backslide. Michael went backstage later and asked Damita to demonstrate the step to him which she did. He asked her where she learned how to do that move and she told him by studying and watching Marcel Marceau. Although Michael watched Marcel in his teens, he began to study him more closely and seriously, watching and paying strict attention to many of his performances. Moreover, the more Michael saw this dance being done by other people, the more fascinated he became with it. People did the move various ways and he wanted to learn it various ways.
In February 1983, Berry Gordy approached Michael about participating in a 25th anniversary television special saluting Motown Records. Michael was ambivalent about performing on television but relented and agreed to do a medley with his brothers, but also wanted a solo spot. Berry obliged, thinking Michael wanted to do one of his old Motown solo numbers like “Ben.” But Michael said he wanted to do “Billie Jean,” which was a number one smash at the time. It would be the only non-Motown song performed on the special. Berry gave in.
So Michael and his brothers rehearsed at the Jackson compound in Encino and at Jackie’s house. Jermaine recalled in his book You Are Not Alone that he and his other brothers had no idea what Michael was going to do for his solo performance. Even Michael didn’t know what he was going to do with his performance the night before the special’s taping. He recalled that in the kitchen of his house, he played “Billie Jean” very loud and let the song tell his body what to do and let the dance create itself.
So on the day of the taping, Friday, March 25, after great performances by the Four Tops and Temptations (in a classic battle of hits), the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and other acts, it was time for the Jacksons to come on stage. They performed a ferocious medley of “I Want You Back,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There” (they sang “Never Can Say Goodbye” as well but that was edited out of the TV broadcast and later included in the home video release). Then after an emotional exchange of hugs with his brothers, Michael was on stage by himself reminiscing about “the good ole days” and how much he loved those earlier songs, but how he especially liked the “new songs.”
All of a sudden, “Billie Jean”’s throbbing drum beat kicked in and Michael placed a black fedora on his head and starting moving to the beat, tossing the hat into the audience and delivering a performance that was spellbinding. Every spin, pose, twist, leg kick, dip and turn caused shrieks in the audience, which was up on its feet throughout the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
In all honesty, Michael executed several of these same moves in his last TV performance on a 1981 Diana Ross special in which he sang “Rock With You.” That performance in itself was outstanding, but this Motown 25 performance would include something extra special.
For the performance, Michael worked with the special’s director and editor on all of the camera shots, angles and editing. He had complete control of the performance from start to finish.
The audience thought they had already seen a dynamite performance, but they had not seen anything yet. During the bridge, Michael proceeded to demonstrate on television for the very first time the Backslide, which caused screams throughout the entire audience. He did the move again towards the end of the song and he recalls seeing a sea of people standing up and applauding him at the end of his performance.
Everyone backstage–from his brothers, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops and the special’s host comedian Richard Pryor–congratulated Michael on a fantastic performance. He did not feel totally elated about his performance since he wanted to stay suspended on his toes during one part of his performance; he didn’t feel better about his performance until a little kid came up to him and told him, “You are amazing! Who taught you how to dance like that?” “Practice, I guess,” Michael told the star-struck kid.
As a child watching Michael’s performance when it originally aired on May 16, 1983, and having already been a true diehard fan of his since the Jackson 5 days, I knew he had just done something magical. The next day in my class, everyone, even my teacher, talked about his performance. Although backsliding, which is now forever etched in the minds of people as moonwalking, was not new and was being done in inner-city neighborhoods, Michael’s performance made the dance universal to people who may not have been familiar with that step. People everywhere were trying to learn how to Moonwalk. Even one of my teachers was trying to do it, in high heels!
Michael’s performance was nominated for an Emmy Award but he lost to Leontyne Price. But his biggest reward was when one of his idols Fred Astaire called him the day after the special aired and praised him for his performance, telling him that he “put the audience on their asses!”
Sales of Michael’s current album Thriller, which was already number one prior to the special’s airing but had begun to slack off, went through the roof immediately following the special. It remained number one for much of the remainder of 1983 and helped catapult Michael into a world renown megastar, earning him numerous American Music Awards and Grammy Awards and other awards in 1984. Kids everywhere copied his look, from his Jherri curl hairstyle, to the glittery white glove, high water pants and white socks and the jackets he wore in his classic “Beat It” and “Thriller” videos. His popularity surpassed that of Elvis Presley and The Beatles combined. He had people of all ages and races into him.
So Michael learned the Moonwalk from various people, though he officially paid Casper $1,000 for teaching him the step. Although Michael never publicly acknowledged the names of the people, particularly Casper, who taught him the dance step (in his autobiography, Michael said three kids taught it to him), Casper was nevertheless elated that he taught Michael what would become his signature dance step. He, along with Jeffrey Daniels and Cooley Jackson, went on to work with Michael on the “Beat It,” “Bad” and “Smooth Criminal” videos. Jeffrey was very instrumental in choreographing Michael in later years and was later employed as a creative and choreography consultant on Michael’s world tours and also became a consultant to Michael’s MJJ Records label.
Michael undoubtedly made his first Moonwalk in 1983 more famous than that of Neil Armstrong’s Moonwalk in 1969 and his solo career literally went into orbit. Through that one TV performance which almost didn’t happen, Michael truly became a “thriller.” Even though he is no longer with us, his music, his artistry, his performing and dancing are both legendary and historical and are forever cemented in the annals of show business. Indeed, Michael Jackson will always be The King of Pop.
- Stephen McMillian
Stephen McMillian is a journalist, writer, actor, filmmaker, dancer/performer, soul music and movie historian and Soul Train historian as well as a former Soul Train dancer.
The Source:
http://soultrain.com/2013/05/24/michael-jacksons-first-moonwalk-thirty-years-later/