When the big “Michael” movie plays in theaters, it carries a quiet dedication to one member of the Jackson family. Not Michael himself. His older brother.
His name was Tito Jackson, and this Thursday, October 15, would have been his 73rd birthday.
Tito was born in 1953 in Gary, Indiana. He passed away in September 2024, and the family and the fans have missed him every day since. But his birthday is a good moment to remember something most people don’t know. The whole Jackson 5 story might never have happened without Tito and a broken guitar string.
Here’s how it goes. When Tito was about 10, he used to sneak his father Joe’s guitar when Joe wasn’t home. One day he was playing it and snapped a string. Joe was a strict man, and Tito knew he was in trouble.
But what Joe did next surprised everybody.
Tito himself tells how the Jackson 5 really started
Listen to Tito tell it in his own calm, gentle voice. This is the start of one of the greatest acts in music history, straight from the brother who was there at the very beginning.
Instead of only punishing him, Joe told Tito to play something and prove he could. Tito played. Joe listened, and he liked what he heard. Not long after, Joe bought his son a guitar of his own. That guitar pulled the brothers together, and the group that became the Jackson 5 was born.
So Tito’s broken string is where it all began. Which makes the next fact a little hard to believe.
Once the Jackson 5 started making records at Motown, the label almost never let Tito play guitar on the actual songs. Studio session players handled the guitar parts on the hits you know by heart. The brother whose guitar started everything mostly didn’t get to play it on the records.
That never seemed to sour him. Tito kept a guitar close his whole life, and in his later years he became a real blues musician in his own right, playing the instrument he loved on his own terms.
Here he is doing exactly that, live on stage with his brothers.
Tito Jackson plays a live guitar solo with his brothers
Watch his hands and his smile. This is a man playing the instrument that changed his family’s life, finally front and center where he belonged.
So this Thursday, raise a little toast to Tito, the quiet brother who broke the string that started the music and the one the “Michael” movie chose to honor above all.
Happy birthday, Tito.