The Daily Weekend News Oct 9
Moonwalk by Michael Jackson - Excerpt
Jackson was right about being a good example. We see this in songs like We are the world, we are the children ... It also shows us just how shy and vulnerable he was, and how well he writes even in this short passage.
"The goody-goody image in the press". It wasn't until a couple of years after MOONWALK the book that Jackson really became known as ... bizarre ... and another couple of years before my peers picked it up.
With original Foreword by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a new Introduction by Motown founder Berry Gordy, and an Afterword by Michael Jackson’s editor and publisher, Shaye Areheart.
“I’ve always wanted to be able to tell stories, you know, stories that came from my soul. I’d like to sit by a fire and tell people stories – make them see pictures, make them cry and laugh, take them anywhere emotionally with something as deceptively simple as words. I’d like to tell tales to move their souls and transform them. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that. Imagine how the great writers must feel, knowing they have that power. I sometimes feel I could do it. It’s something I’d like to develop. In a way, songwriting uses the same skills, creates the emotional highs and lows, but the story is a sketch. It’s quicksilver. There are very few books written on the art of storytelling, how to grip listeners, how to get a group of people together and amuse them. No costumes, no makeup, no nothing, just you and your voice, and your powerful ability to take them anywhere, to transform their lives, if only for minutes.” –Michael Jackson, in Moonwalk
From the 1988 edition:
Megastar Michael Jackson’s singularly brilliant career and intensely private lifestyle have become a magnificent obsession for millions of rock fans and celebrity watchers throughout the world. His double-platinum singles rocket to the top of the music charts with a velocity equaled only by the inevitable accompaniment of wild rumors about his eccentric personal life. Now for the first time, Michael Jackson breaks the fiercely guarded barrier of silence that has surrounded him in a remarkably candid and courageous book — Moonwalk.
In this intimate and often moving personal account of Michael Jackson’s public and private life, he recalls a childhood that was both harsh and joyful but always formidable. Michael and his brothers played amateur music shows and seamy Chicago strip joints until Motown’s corporate image makers turned the Jackson 5 into worldwide superstars. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 have combined sales of over 200 million albums. He talks about the happy prankster days of his youth, traveling with his brothers, and of his sometimes difficult relationships with his family over the years. He speaks candidly about the inspiration behind his music, his mesmerizing dance moves, and the compulsive drive to create that has made him one of the biggest stars in the music business and a legend in his own time. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Thriller as the biggest-selling-album of all time.
In Moonwalk, Michael Jackson shares his personal feelings about some of his most public friends…friends like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, and Katharine Hepburn. He talks openly about the crushing isolation of his fame, of his first love, of his plastic surgery, and of his wholly exceptional career and the often bizarre and unfair rumors that have surrounded it.
Illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael’s personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for this book, Moonwalk is a memorable journey to the very heart and soul of a modern musical genius.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20819145/Moonwalk-by-Michael-Jackson-Excerpt
Michael Jackson: the song, the album, the movie, the making-of
REVOLVER: There’s life in Michael Jackson yet. Since his untimely death four months ago, ***** has become the biggest- selling artist of the year, but all those people rushing to reacquaint themselves with this weird musical genius by buying his albums represent just the preparatory work for the real ker-ching event that will arrive in two weeks, writes
BRIAN BOYD
For the past few weeks there has been a team of guards outside a Los Angeles recording studio, where the finishing touches were being put to a new Jackson song,
This Is It , which he had planned to unveil at his first London 02 show.
The song has been completed sans Jackson, with new backing vocals from his brothers. From the little that has leaked out about the song, we know it will be a big, barnstorming, orchestral affair, drenched in maudlin sentiment, and will undoubtedly go straight to No 1 around the world.
This Is It is being released only as a “radio single”, meaning you won’t be able to buy the single or download it. The security is such that it’s not being released to the press before its first radio airing next Monday.
There’s a good reason why the press aren’t getting the song and why it’s not being made available to buy: these four minutes are worth millions.
The radio single is being used to trail the album of the same name, which goes on release on Oct 26th.
This Is It will be a double CD affair. One disc will have the original master recordings, including two versions of the new song; the second will have previously unreleased versions of Jackson’s songs (remixes, etc) as well as a new spoken-word poem called
Planet Earth , which will be really nauseating, but never mind.
The full album, including the single, will be on iTunes on October 26th. While there’s been no official confirmation, you can bet the radio single will still not be available as an individual download. To own it, you will have to buy the double album.
That’s why the security is so dramatic. The song is the only thing people really want from the “new” album – most of the rest consists of previous releases or remixes. As long as the song is “locked”, it looks likely that the
This Is It album will be No 1 at the end of the year (The only serious contender will be Susan Boyle).
But Jacksonmania doesn’t end there. There is also a
This Is It film, which has been cobbled together (err, lovingly assembled) and which details all the events in Jackson’s life between April and June of this year – mainly rehearsal footage for the 02 shows. There was a bit of legal argy-bargy about who actually owned these 100 hours of footage, but the two main players, the Jackson estate and AEG Live (the promoters of the 02 shows), struck a deal with Sony Pictures and handed over the tapes for $60 million (€41 million).
The Jackson estate flexed their muscles, insisting that the film could “not include any footage that puts the superstar in a bad light” and that they had approval over the final edit.
Sony Pictures has gone into warp speed marketing overdrive with this. The first thing it did was announce that the film would be released to cinemas for a strictly limited two-week run only. (It goes on release in the same week as the
This Is It album).
Tickets to most of the US screenings have already sold out, and Europeans are being advised to go to the official site (
www.thisis ittickets.com) to order tickets.
Cinemas worldwide are already arranging 24-hour screenings of the film in order to keep up with demand (the two-week timeframe is being rigidly enforced). Still unannounced is the distinct probability that the film will be out on sell-through DVD in time for the Christmas market.
So, there will be no escaping Michael Jackson in all of his multimedia guises over the next few months.
And apparently they’ve just finished a
The Making of the “This Is It” film DVD.
The This Is It single is released to radio stations only on Monday. See listings page 20 for details of the Man In the Mirror Michael Jackson tribute shows in Dublin’s Olympia this weekend.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/1009/1224256235163.html
Today in
Michael Jackson History
1970 - The Jackson 5 began a five-city East Coast tour at the Boston Garden in Boston, MA.
1998 - The BPI certifed the album "Janet Jackson" double platinum.
2001 - Quincy Jones' autobiography was released. In the book Jones describes his work with Michael Jackson.
