Tomorrow is a big day in the Jackson family. Randy Jackson, Michael’s youngest brother, turns 65 on Thursday. Most people know him as the brother who joined the group later and played on their biggest records in the late 1970s. Back when this little story happened, though, he was just the small one at home.
Michael told it himself, years later, in his book.
The family was getting ready for the trip that would change everything. Michael and his older brothers were driving up to Detroit to try out for Motown. Randy was too young to go along. So that afternoon, before the family packed up, Michael walked him home from school. He held his hand the whole way past the crossing guard.
It’s a small thing. But Michael remembered two moments from that walk for the rest of his life.
Before we get to them, it helps to see what that drive to Detroit led to. There’s no film of the walk home, of course. What there is, though, is footage of these same brothers not long after, singing on national TV for the first time with little Michael out front. Randy watched his big brothers do this while he was still a kid back home.
Here are the Jackson 5 on their first big national television appearance, the result of that tryout in Detroit.
The Jackson 5’s first national TV performance after the Motown tryout
Now, back to the walk.
There was a big puddle on the sidewalk. Michael let go of Randy’s hand, jumped it, and spun on his toes so the cuffs of his pants wouldn’t get wet. Randy copied everything his big brother did, so of course he tried the same jump. He wasn’t going to make it. Michael turned and grabbed him, “being a big brother first and a dance teacher second,” and caught him just before he landed short in the water.
That was the first thing.
The second came a minute later. Some neighborhood kids were around, and Michael took the allowance money he had on him and spent all of it on candy for them and for Randy. He knew he was about to go away for a while, and his little brother couldn’t come. “I didn’t want Randy to feel bad about my going away,” Michael remembered.
That’s the whole of it. He was a boy standing right on the edge of something huge, and the thing on his mind was how his little brother would feel when the car finally pulled away.
The brothers did leave for Detroit that evening, loading up the family van for the long ride. Randy’s own turn with the group came a few years later, in 1975. And all this time on, he’s about to turn 65.
Happy early birthday to the little brother Michael walked home.