“We actually wrote it with Stevie Wonder in mind.”
That’s how Mick Jackson remembers the start of “Blame It on the Boogie.” Mick was a bearded singer from England, and his name really is the only thing he shares with Michael. He wrote the song with his brother Dave and a songwriting partner, and he pictured Stevie singing it.
That never happened. His record label asked Mick to sing it himself, so he did.
Then things got strange. In 1978 his record was played at a big music business fair in Cannes, France. Somebody working with the Jacksons heard it there and carried it home to America. Mick said Michael and his brothers “quickly recorded a version so it would be out before mine.”
So now there were two records of the same song, by two different Jacksons, headed for the same British record stores.
Both came out in Britain in September 1978. The papers called it “The Battle of the Boogie.” One British music paper even had to tell its readers that Mick, not the famous brothers, had written it.
Here’s the man who wrote it, singing his own version on British TV that fall.
Mick Jackson sings the song he wrote
Michael was 20 years old, and he wasn’t about to back down. On the phone from his family’s home in California, he told a British music paper he’d heard the other version. “It’s okay,” he said, “but it just hasn’t got the groove like ours has.”
He also had his own idea about who rushed whom. He said the other singer had only put his record out after hearing theirs. Each side, it seems, blamed the other one.
The two records climbed the British charts week after week. In the middle of October 1978 they sat right next to each other, at No. 14 and No. 15.
Here’s the version Michael and his brothers made, in the video they filmed that year.
Michael and his brothers dance to “Blame It on the Boogie”
Listen to the two side by side and you can hear why fans argued about them for weeks.
The Jacksons’ version kept climbing. It reached No. 8 in Britain this very week 48 years ago, while Mick’s stopped at No. 15. In America it went to No. 3 on the R&B chart, and it’s been filling dance floors at weddings and parties ever since.
Mick never sounded bitter about it. When he saw the Jacksons’ version take off, he said he “got such a rush” and was “thrilled.” Twenty-five years later, he was asked to compare the two records one more time.
“Our version had 100% of our heart and soul in it,” Mick said, “but the Jacksons’ version had the magic extra 2% that made it incredible.”