Twenty five years ago this Friday, about 45 million people sat down in front of their TVs for one of the biggest music nights CBS had ever put on. The two hour special aired on November 13, 2001, and the star of it was Michael Jackson, the singer the world had been calling the King of Pop since the 1980s.
The real pull wasn’t only Michael, though. It was the sight of all the Jackson brothers back together on one stage.
They had filmed two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York that September, on the 7th and the 10th. Tickets went so fast that a second night had to be added, and even then the whole thing sold out in about two hours. The actress Elizabeth Taylor, who had been one of Michael’s closest friends for years, walked out to introduce the brothers herself.
For a lot of fans in that arena, it was the first time in ages they had seen the Jacksons sing as a group.
What almost nobody in the building understood that night was that one of those brothers was standing up there with the others for the very last time.
That brother was Randy Jackson.
Randy is the youngest of the Jackson brothers, the baby of the famous singing family from Gary, Indiana. He wasn’t part of the original Jackson 5, the group of older boys who first made Motown a household name. Randy joined later, in 1975, when the brothers left Motown and signed a new deal somewhere else. He stepped into the spot his brother Jermaine had held, and from then on he played and sang right alongside Michael, Jackie, Tito and Marlon. He was there through the big years, the hits, the Victory album and the tour that came with it.
So by 2001 he had been one of the brothers on stage for more than 25 years.
The Madison Square Garden shows turned out to be Randy’s last concert with his brothers. Nobody in the arena knew it at the time. It was a warm, happy family night, and only later did people look back and realize what they had been watching.
And it really was a joyful night. When the brothers finally launched into their medley, the whole place lifted. They ran through “Can You Feel It,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” “I’ll Be There,” “I Want You Back” and “Dancing Machine,” then closed it out with “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).” Song after song, one decade of the family’s music rolling right into the next.
For the millions watching at home it was a rare treat. For the brothers it was a rare one too, even if they had no way of knowing yet just how rare.
We’ve gathered real photos of all the Jackson brothers together on that Madison Square Garden stage in September 2001, with Randy right in the middle of it. Take a look and see the last time they all stood on a stage as a group.