By Michael A. Gonzales

As one of the first generation of kids who embraced those five flamboyant brothers known as The Jackson 5 in the pre-rap music ’70s—especially the perky innocence of the Afroed rug-rat that was Michael—it is difficult to comprehend that the “King of Pop” is now dead.

In those long-lost years before brother Jackson became a parody of his former self, his gorgeous voice and staggering image seeped into the fertile imaginations of America’s chocolate city children. ”We embraced the J5 like family, like imaginary best friends or make-believe boyfriends,” wrote soul historian David Ritz in his 1995 liner-notes for the four-CD Jackson box-set Soulsation! ”We loved their bounce and joyful rhythms.”

Many current artists from Jay-Z to Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake to Usher, viewed M.J. as a guiding light. “I would sit in class and look out of the window hoping I’d see a limousine pull up outside,” Missy Elliott once gushed. “I’d hope to see a glittery glove on the limo door and it would be Michael Jackson and he’d say, I’m here to get Missy.”

I can only imagine how difficult it must be for her to think of M.J. lying in a coma, taking his last breath.

Before Michael started acting off the wall in the early ’90s and transformed himself into the biggest super freak of the century, he was just another black boy tossed into the flames of show-biz Babylon.

Signed to Motown in 1969 and introduced to the world by the label’s leading lady Diana Ross, baby boy Mike had a virginal image and a gorgeous voice. Michael Jackson’s youthful tenderness was as sweet as chocolate, as buttery as popcorn, and as endearing as a twinkling star in the night sky.

With a power that thrilled prepubescent girls to the verge of ecstasy while provoking young boys to intense imitation, Michael became a public icon before he grew his first pubic hair.

As a childhood fan, perhaps the worst headache I ever had in my life resulted from wearing my mother’s hard pink curlers overnight so I too could have a “curly afro” like the ones the Jackson bros styled while performing the hypnotic “Dancing Machine” on The Carol Burnett Show.

Trying to remember when I first heard the Jackson 5 is a bit of a strain on my old brain, but I believe it had something to do with my cousin Deenee. Three years older, Deenee dictated the youthful soundtrack of my musical initiation by introducing my ears to the funk. Spinning big-hole-in-da-middle seven-inch discs on a small black record player transported from the cluttered basement to her girly neat bedroom, Deenee stereo-boomed seminal jams by James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Curtis Mayfield and The Isley Brothers. Still, no other group moved us like those wailing Jackson brothers. Maybe it was the fact that we felt like the Jackson 5 could be our own playground buddies or blood brothers.

Stuffing ourselves on Jiffy-Pop popcorn and countless glasses of grape Kool-Aid, we transformed my Aunt Ricky’s basement into our own personal nightclub. Setting the record player on the black leather bar—cluttered with tacky highball glasses, a crimson lava lamp, and two bugged-eyed Keane kids on the wall—Deenee would attempt to teach my brother Perky and I how to dance while “Rockin’ Robin,” “ABC” or “The Love You Save” blared from the small speakers.

Whenever I was alone in the basement, the Michael Jackson track I compulsively played was the intoxicatingly soulful “Maria (You Were the Only One).” The aural narcotic of “Maria,”  the b-side to J5’s syrupy 1971 single “Looking Through the Window,” became my drug of choice.

At the time, my young ears didn’t hear the song for what it was—the rawest soul that 13-year-old Michael had ever recorded. Paying homage to legends like Jackie Wilson and James Brown, Michael’s bewitching vocals slowly erupted like a black velveteen volcano. As lonely teardrops rolled from his sad eyes, M.J. jumped-up the good foot and screamed until he was satisfied: “Come back, come back, you… you keep a-running away!” Overflowing with heartache and a blues sensibility rare in a singer so young, “Maria” was a stirring anthem of lost love. And to me, one of the most endearing songs ever made.

While history would prove the staying power of Michaelmania, by 1973 (the same year Jermaine married Hazel, big daddy Berry Gordy’s baby girl) The Jackson 5’s sales began to slip. No longer young enough to be princes of black bubble-gum pop, but not old enough to compete with the heavy funk of George Clinton’s rump-shaking’ army (Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy Collins), Graham Central Station, Ohio Players, or Earth, Wind & Fire, the Jacksons were on the verge of becoming idle idols.

Yet with the release of their last great Motown single “Dancing Machine” in the chilly winter of ‘74, The Jackson 5 decided to pack their soul-pop suitcases and bless their fans with another American tour.

To this day I don’t know how she did it (perhaps it was some kind of Black mama mojo), but somehow my mother managed to get us three tickets for the Ash Wednesday show at Radio City Music Hall.

Come show day, school was closed due to a bad-ass blizzard. Ivory flakes buried the block in a thick shroud of snow. “I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to go see The Jackson 5 tonight,” announced Momduke, stomping her soaked boots at the front door. Sent home early from work because of the white mess gathering outside our window, she could only say, “I’m sorry.”

Falling, wailing, crying, bellowing, weeping, wounded, me and baby brother screamed bloody murder. “Pleeease, mommy!” we howled in unison, tears streaking our faces. ”I think them kids gonna die if you don’t take them to see the Jackson 5,” grandma joked as my little brother Perky and I rolled around on the floor like wounded dogs. Staring at our sour mugs of sadness, mom relented.

“All right already!” mommy said. ” We’re going, just stop crying.”

A few hours later, she dressed us warmly in thick parka coats, heavy snow boots, and wool gloves with matching hats. As we wobbled to the A train station at 145th Street, looking like black Russians from Harlem, silly smiles were frozen on our faces. The famed Radio City Music Hall was packed with rowdy children, high on a micture of sugar and adrenaline, and their long-suffering parents. As we walked towards our seats in the lower orchestra section, a crowd of screaming kids came running down the aisle with autograph books and cameras. “Somebody said Hazel (Jermaine’s wife) is sitting in front!” screamed one wild child. After suffering through the two opening acts, The Hues Corporation (“Rock the Boat”) and Blue Magic (“Side Show”), the clamorous kids could barely contain their excitement.

All week they had danced in their bedrooms, spinning Jackson jewels on the stereo, adjusting their denim applejack hats—just like the one M.J. wore on the cover of Got to Be There—in the mirror while deciding which color marshmallow shoes went best with their bell-bottom jeans. As the girls swooned in front of four-color Right On! posters, their brothers and boyfriends applied Blow-Out lotion to booming Afros.

Although it might have been just another show for The Jackson 5 (which now included younger siblings Janet and Randy), for us it was the most special day of our young lives. Everyone scrambled to their seats as the house lights began to dim. A loud explosion erupted from the stage and The Jackson 5 emerged from the shadows wearing their glittering, Vegas-style costumes and dancing with the wild abandon of a lost tribe.

For the next two hours within the walls of Radio City we experienced a musical dream, and nobody wanted to wake up. With their calculated innocence, complex choreography, and fierce flashes of electrifying elegance, The Jackson 5 performed with a ferocity that hinted to our young minds that tomorrow wasn’t promised.

As those Jackson boys soulfully sang their most popular singles, sweet sweat dripping from their brown faces, we were transported to a wondrous wonderland of boogie down delights. For days following The Jackson 5 concert, I recounted Michael’s performance in exquisite detail to friends, who could then pretend in their own minds that they, too, had attended the show.

“And when he sang lead on ‘Dancing Machine’ while doing The Robot [a dance I could actually do!] that was the joint!” I screamed to anyone who’d listen. “Better than Shaft and Superfly put together.” In my 10-year-old world of Black pop, Michael Jackson was all the art I needed.

Through my adult years, I still bought Michael’s records, went to see him in Los Angeles during the 1989 Bad tour, and even drunkenly sang “Remember the Time” in the middle of the night. But, whenever I rewind the movie of those youthful Harlem days in my mind, Michael Jackson is always on the soundtrack.

Rest in peace my brother…

Soul Legends