when it was in love, and then all the colors would shine - all the colors of the rainbow on one body.
I was immediately taken with that beautiful image and the meaning behind it. That bird's plumage conveyed the
message I was looking for to explain the Jacksons and our intense devotion to one another, as well as our multifaceted interests. My brothers liked the idea, so we called our new company Peacock Productions, to sidestep
the trap of relying too heavily on the Jackson name. Our first world tour had focused our interest in uniting people of
all races through music. Some people we knew wondered what we meant when we talked about uniting all the races
through music -after all, we were black musicians. Our answer was "music is color-blind." We saw that every night, especially in Europe and the other parts of the world we had visited. The people we met there loved our music. It
didn't matter to them what color our skin was or which country we called home.
We wanted to form our own production company because we wanted to grow and establish ourselves as a new
presence in the music world, not just as singers and dancers, but as writers, composers, arrangers, producers, and
even publishers. We were interested in so many things, and we needed an umbrella company to keep track of our
projects. CBS had agreed to let us produce our own album - the last two albums had sold well, but "Different Kind of
Lady" showed a potential that they agreed was worth letting us develop. They did have one condition for us: they
assigned an A&R man, Bobby Colomby, who used to be with Blood, Sweat, and Tears, to check in with us from time
to time to see how we were doing and to see if we needed any help. We knew that the five of us needed some outside
musicians to get the best possible sound, and we were weak in two areas: the keyboard and arranging sides of things.
We had been faithfully adding all the new technology to our Encino studio without really having a mastery of it.
Greg Phillinganes was young for a studio pro, but that was a plus as far as we were concerned because we wanted
someone who would be more open to newer ways of doing things than the seasoned veterans we had encountered
over the years.
He came to Encino to do preproduction work, and we all took turns surprising each other. Our mutual preconceptions
just dissolved. It was a great thing to watch. As we sketched out our new songs for him, we told him that we liked the
vocal tracks that Philly International always put a premium on, but when the mix came out, we always seemed to be
32
fighting someone else's wall of sound, all those strings and cymbals. We wanted to sound cleaner and more funky,
with a flintier bass and sharper horn parts. With his beautiful rhythm arrangements, Greg put into musical form what
we were sketching for him and then some. We felt he was reading our minds.
A Bobby Colomby recruit who came to work with us then was Paulinho de Costa, whom we worried about because it
seemed to us that Randy was being told he couldn't handle all the percussion by himself. But Paulinho brought with
him the Brazilian samba tradition of adapting and improvising on primitive and often homemade instruments. When
de Costa's sound joined forces with Randy's more conventional approach, we seemed to have the whole world
covered.
Artistically speaking we were caught between a rock and a hard place. We had worked with the smartest, hippest
people in the world at Motown and Philly International, and we would have been fools to discount the things we'd
absorbed from them, yet we couldn't be imitators. Fortunately we got a running start with a song that Bobby
Colomby brought us called "Blame It on the Boogie." It was an up-tempo, finger-poppin'-time song that was a good vehicle for the band approach we wanted to cultivate. I had fun slurring the chorus: "Blame It on the Boogie" could be sung in one breath without putting my lips together. We had a little fun with the credits on the inner sleeve of the
record; "Blame It on the Boogie" was written by three guys from England, including one named Michael Jackson. It was a startling coincidence. As it turned out, writing disco songs was a natural for me because I was used to having
dance breaks incorporated into all the major songs I was asked to sing.
There was a lot of uncertainty and excitement about our future. We were going through a lot of creative and personal
changes - our music, the family of dynamics, our desires and goals. All of this made me think more seriously about
how I was spending my life, especially in relation to other people my age. I had always shouldered a lot of
responsibility, but it suddenly seemed that everyone wanted a piece of me. There wasn't that much to go around, and
I needed to be responsible to myself. I had to take stock of my life and figure out what people wanted from me and to
whom I was going to give wholly. It was a hard thing for me to do, but I had to learn to be wary of some of the
people around me. God was at the top of my list of priorities, and my mother and father and brothers and sisters
followed. I was reminded of that old song by Clarence Carter called "Patches," where the oldest son is asked to take care of the farm after his father dies and his mother tells him she's depending on him. Well, we weren't sharecroppers
and I wasn't the oldest, but those were slim shoulders on which to place such burdens. For some reason I always
found it very difficult to say no to my family and the other people I loved. I would be asked to do something or take
care of something and I would agree, even if I worried that it might be more than I could handle.
I felt under a great deal of stress and I was often emotional. Stress can be a terrible thing; you can't keep your
emotions bottled up for long. There were a lot of people at this time who wondered just how committed I was to
music after learning of my newfound interest in movies after being in one. It was hinted that my decision to audition
had come at a bad time for the new band setup. It seemed, to outsiders, to come just as we were about to get started.
But of course it worked out just fine.
"That's What You Get for Being Polite" was my way of letting on that I knew I wasn't living in an ivory tower and that I had insecurities and doubts just as all older teenagers do. I was worried that the world and all it had to offer
could be passing me by even as I tried to get on top of my field.
There was a Gamble and Huff song called "Dreamer" on the first Epic album which had this theme, and as I was
learning it, I felt they could have written it with me in mind. I have always been a dreamer. I set goals for myself. I
look at things and try to imagine what is possible and then hope to surpass those boundaries.
In 1979 I turned twenty-one years old and began to take full control of my career. My father's personal management
contract with me ran out around this time, and although it was a hard decision, the contract was not renewed.
Trying to fire your dad is not easy.
But I just didn't like the way certain things were being handled. Mixing family and business can be a delicate
situation. It can be great or it can be awful; it depends on the relationships. Even at the best of times it's a hard thing to do.
33
Did it change the relationship between me and my father? I don't know if it did in his heart, but it certainly didn't in
mine. It was a move I knew I had to make because at the time I was beginning to feel that I was working for him
rather than that he was working for me . And on the creative side we are of two completely different minds. He
would come up with ideas that I would totally disagree with because they weren't right for me. All I wanted was
control over my life. And I took it. I had to do it. Everyone comes to that point, sooner or later, and I had been in the