Marlon Jackson was only about a year and a half older than his little brother Michael. He was born on March 12, 1957, in Gary, Indiana, the sixth child of Joe and Katherine Jackson.
Long before the world knew their names, the Jackson kids lived in a small house at 2300 Jackson Street in Gary. Like a lot of kids in the 1960s, the boys had an after-school routine. And according to Marlon, it almost never went the way they planned.
He told the story at a public tribute to Michael in 2009. Out of all the memories he could have picked, Marlon went back to the family living room and one TV show the brothers tried to catch every single afternoon.
Their mother, Katherine, is a big part of this story. She has her own sweet memories of Michael as a little boy, and hearing her talk about those years is a lovely way to step into the Jackson house before the fame.
Katherine Jackson remembers Michael as a child
By the late 1960s the brothers were already working musicians. Their first label was Steeltown Records, right there in Gary. They signed in November 1967, and their first single, “Big Boy,” came out in January 1968.
That meant real studio time, even for kids who still had homework. If you’ve never heard where it all started, this early Steeltown recording lets you hear young Michael and his brothers on their very first single.
The Jackson 5’s first single, “Big Boy”
So what was the show?
It was “The Three Stooges.”
If you grew up in America back then, you probably remember them too. After 1958 the old Stooges short films were sold to local TV stations, and by September 1959 all 190 of them were airing regularly. They were everywhere.
Here’s how Marlon put it: “I can remember we would come home from school and grab a bite to eat and we would try to watch ‘The Three Stooges'”.
Try is the key word. Because just as the boys got settled in front of the TV, Katherine would walk through the door with the same message every time. In Marlon’s words, “mother would come in and say it was time to go to the recording studio.”
That was it for the Stooges. Off went the TV, and off went the boys to work.
It’s a funny little picture of the Jacksons as regular kids, the kind who wanted a snack and some slapstick after a long school day. But all those afternoons in the studio paid off. The brothers signed with Motown in 1968 and 1969, and their first four Motown singles, “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There,” all went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Here are those same boys on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing the first of those four big hits. Keep an eye on young Michael and think about every Stooges episode the brothers gave up to get there.
The Jackson 5 sing “I Want You Back” on The Ed Sullivan Show
For Marlon, the Stooges story is one of the happy ones. It’s about brothers piled in front of a TV set in Gary, hoping for just a few more minutes before Mom came in.
In that same tribute, he summed up what he’d hold onto: “I will treasure the good times, singing, dancing, laughing.”