THE OTHER JACKSONS

We are all familiar with these five talented brothers, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and little Michael Jackson who took the world by storm as the Jackson 5. The group signed with Motown Records in 1968 and after years of many chart toppers with the label, they decided to sign with Epic Records in order to have more control over their music.

They were unable to legally continue using the name The Jackson 5, so they became The Jacksons. Jermaine left, then younger brother, Randy joined the group and they continued with more hit songs. In 1979, Michael teamed up with producer, Quincy Jones and released, "Off the Wall" which was the beginning of him ultimately becoming a global musical superstar and because of this, he soon distanced himself from the family group.

Over the years, all of the other brothers (as well as sister, LaToya, although the less said, the better) attempted a solo career as well as tried to continue as The Jacksons without Michael with not much success.

This post is to focus on the rest of the family who managed to step out of Michael's very large shadow to create a moment for themselves.

Jermaine played bass guitar and shared lead vocals with Michael in the group. Like Michael, Jermaine had begun a solo career while still performing with the Jackson 5. After the group decided to leave Motown in 1975, Jermaine, who was married at the time to Hazel Gordy, the daughter of the label's founder, Berry, remained to continue as a solo artist. He has recorded thirteen albums and had numerous top forty hits throughout the 1970's and 1980's which includes one of his biggest songs, "Let's Get Serious" (1980), that was written and produced by Stevie Wonder and becoming his first number one on the R&B charts and reaching number nine on the pop charts. He produced three tracks and sang a couple of duets with Whitney Houston on her debut album. Jermaine has been married twice and has seven children. He converted to Islam after a trip to Bahrain in 1989.

This is one of my favorite songs by Jackson, "Let Me Tickle Your Fancy" where he teams up with Devo which gives the song a strange funky/new wave mash-up that really works:

Maureen Reillette Jackson or as she is professionally known by her nickname, "Rebbie" is the eldest of the Jackson clan. Although she participated with the family during their Las Vegas stage shows in 1974 as well as the Jacksons television variety series in 1976, she was the last to embark on a recording career. Rebbie Jackson's first album, "Centipede" (1984) was released when she was thirty-four years old. The title track was written and produced by her brother, Michael and he provided background vocals in addition. The song was her biggest hit and reached number four on the R&B charts and twenty-four on the pop charts. She has recorded a total of four CDs to date. She has been married to her childhood sweetheart, Nathaniel Brown since 1968 and they have three children.

This is Rebbie's first hit song, "Centipede" and the very campy and very 80's music video for the song:

Janet Damita Jo Jackson is the youngest of the family and has had the most success outside of Michael. She began her career at the age of seven during the Las Vegas shows at the MGM Grand Casino. She would initially concentrate on acting with appearances on the television sitcoms, "Good Times" and "Different Strokes" before she moved on to music. Her debut album., "Janet Jackson" was released in 1982 and was produced by R&B singing duo, Rene Moore and Angela Winbush as well as Leon Foster Sylvers III of another family musical group, The Sylvers. The album was a modest hit that consisted of light r&b with touches of pop and new wave and it sold a half a million copies in the U.S. In 1984, shortly after the release of her second album, "Dream Street", Janet eloped and married James DeBarge of the singing group, DeBarge. Her father, Joseph, who was her manager at the time, saw to it that the marriage was quickly annulled. Soon after the divorce, Janet dropped her father as her manager, took over control of her music career, went to Minneapolis to record a new album and the rest is history.

This is Janet's first single, "Young Love" off of her self-titled debut album: