Motown 25 - Yesterday, Today, Forever

As there are several fans here who have witnessed Michael's legendary Motown 25 performance on TV, I thought it might be great to have an own thread about it to share and discuss some memories.



MJ's Girl and Christine, you have already mentioned how mindblowing this TV performance had been at that time for you. Maybe you can share some more memories about it here?



There are several questions I have, like:

What has been known about Michael's performance before it was aired on TV?

Has it been announced that MJ would have a solo performance?

Motown 25 became a kind of breakthtrough performance for Michael. But how where the reactions regarding the Jacksons’ performance?



I have just collected some facts about this TV special:



Motown 25 - Yesterday, Today, Forever



Taped March 25 1983 in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, aired on May 16 1983 on NBC.

More than 47 million viewers on TV.



The Jackson 5 sang I Want You Back, The Love You Save, Never Can Say Goodbye and I'll Be There, with Randy joining them on stage. Afterwards, Michael performed his non-Motown song Billie Jean.



Other people's reaction:



Here are some great quotes about Motown 25 from other artists, taken from the DVD The One:



Beyonce: Oh my God… that performance - Motown 25… it just was groundbreaking.

Dick Clark: It was standing ovation time. It was mesmerizing.

Mary J Blidge: It was electrifying.

Jill Scott: That was the first time I realized how much emotion could go into music.

Shaggy: That moonwalk… that’s what got me, that’s what got everybody.

Steven Ivory: It was Michael’s coronation.

Pharrell Williams: If you weren’t a Michael fan, you became a Michael fan.





And this is a nice report by Christopher Smith who has been in the audience that night:



[…]

The place exploded. I'm pretty blase about crowd response, but this was different. It wasn't a roar; more the sound of simultaneous shrieks from all over the auditorium, like everyone being scared at once. A couple rows in front of me, two women in my sight line were violently hugging, almost tackling each other, while riveted on the stage, as though they were unconsciously trying to hold onto the moment more than each other.



Oddly enough, 15 seconds into the performance the crowd noise had shut off. Everyone was craning to soak in the performance. I believe we were all mesmerized at this new, adult Jackson, totally in control of his artistry -- the falsetto might still be in place, but otherwise, he was an unfamiliar specter to us.

The key to the performance was his dancing. I had never conceived of Michael Jackson as an adult artist before. His lankiness underscored the razor sharp moves he was throwing off, each held for a millisecond, poses struck for the world to drink him in. That first Moonwalk triggered a resumption of the shrieks -- not surprisingly, later on in the lobby there were people trying and failing to mimic that move.



After the song was done, the moment over and Jackson gone, there was an interval before the next act. I was coming from the bathroom and some slicked up guys were going in, and I heard a conversational fragment. Jackson was like "nobody now."

Nobody since, either.

Source: LA Times





Steven Ivory wrote this about the legendary night in Pasadena:



On the evening of March 25, 1983, I drove to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in an economy car and an ill-fitting tux, both rented, for the taping of NBC's Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. What the tape of Jackson's performance (lip-synched, which is ironic considering his prowess at singing live while dancing) fails to accurately capture is just what was going on the audience: Sheer bedlam.



What seems routine now, was spellbinding then; we'd never seen this Michael Jackson. Even his brothers, after they'd performed a reunion medley with him, were seeing it for the first time from the wings. Michael, goes the story, put his act together the day before.



If you were a Jackson fan, you were glad he was back. If you were a Jackson fan and Black, you were awash in a wave of cultural pride that transcended mere pop music to fasten itself onto American history outright.



To be sure, the five minutes Jackson was onstage alone somehow elevated the whole race--certainly the Pasadena Civic, where, after Jackson left the stage, the show had to be halted so that entire production and building could regain its composure; so that men in the audience could straighten their ties and women could adjust their wigs.



It was as if Jackson had dropped a bomb on the place, walked away and left us there to negotiate the soulful fallout. "Ladies and gentlemen," pleaded a stern, amplified male voice, "please take your seats, we have more show to be taped. PLEASE…." Folk dabbed water from their eyes, hugged one another and high-fived strangers. Performance? We'd just witnessed a coronation. Soon, order prevailed. We politely watched the rest of the show, our collective consciousness stuck on Jackson.



Michael has said that, initially, after leaving the stage, he was disappointed with his performance. His plan, when he went up on his toes, was to simply stay there, suspended infinitely. Just as well that he didn't; the house could not have handled it. As it was, they went nuts when he showed up at the after party, held at an indoor shopping mall across the street that Motown shut down and converted into a massive disco.



As his security team wedged him through the crush of excited well-wishers, Tops, Tempts, Supremes and others pushed their way toward Jackson as if they themselves weren't legends, as if they hadn't made music that influenced and inspired this man. Chaos ensued. It was all Jackson's bodyguards could do to turn him around and push him back out to his limo out front.



Those of us lucky enough to attend the taping had to wait weeks for the show to air. Would Jackson's performance be all that we'd raved to anyone who'd listen? Yes, even to the Jacksons. Rebbie Jackson told me when the show aired, they, like other viewers across America, taped it off the TV. The next day, friends, entertainers and assorted dignitaries, acknowledging that the universe had indeed tilted, phoned, sent flowers and wired kudos. "People came by Hayvenhurst (the Jackson home in Encino) all day long," she said. "It was as if someone got married or brought a baby home from the hospital. We played that tape over and over all day until it broke."



And the day after "Motown 25" aired, all retail hell broke loose. At the height of its phenomenal sales history, the album was nationally selling half a million copies a week. With more than one million copies sold in Los Angeles alone, "Thriller" demanded its own zip code. Years later, Quincy Jones confided to me that at some point it all began to frighten him.

Source: eurweb.com





Michael in his own words:



This is what Michael said about the performance in the Ebony interview 2007:



Ebony: Another big moment was the Motown 25 performance…

Michael: I was at the studio editing Beat It, and for some reason I happened to be at Motown Studios doing it––I had long left the company. So they were getting ready to do something with the Motown anniversary, and Berry Gordy came by and asked me did I want to do the show, and I told him ‘NO.’ I told him no. I said no because the Thriller thing, I was building and creating something I was planning to do, and he said, ‘But it’s the anniversary...’ So this is what I said to him. I said, ‘I will do it, but the only way I’ll do it is if you let me do one song that’s not a Motown song.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘Billie Jean’. He said, ‘OK, fine.’ I said, ‘You’ll really let me do “Billie Jean?” He said, ‘Yeah.’



So I rehearsed and choreographed and dressed my brothers, and picked the songs, and picked the medley. And not only that, you have to work out all the camera angles.



I direct and edit everything I do. Every shot you see is my shot. Let me tell you why I have to do it that way. I have five, no, six cameras. When you’re performing––and I don’t care what kind of performance you are giving––if you don’t capture it properly, the people will never see it. It’s the most selfish medium in the world. You’re filming WHAT you want people to see, WHEN you want them to see it, HOW you want them to see it, what JUXTAPOSITION you want them to see. You’re creating the totality of the whole feeling of what’s being presented, in your angle and your shots. ‘Cause I know what I want to see. I know what I want to go to the audience. I know what I want to come back. I know the emotion that I felt when I performed it, and I try to recapture that same emotion when I cut and edit and direct.

[…]

But back to Motown 25, one of the things that touched me the most about doing that was, after I did the performance––I’ll never forget. There was Marvin Gaye in the wings, and the Temptations and Smokey Robinson and my brothers, they were hugging me and kissing me and holding me. Richard Pryor walked over to me and said [in a quiet voice], ‘Now that was the greatest performance I’ve ever seen.’ That was my reward. These were people who, when I was a little boy in Indiana, I used to listen to Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and to have them bestow that kind of appreciation on me, I was just honored. Then the next day, Fred Astaire calls and said, ‘I watched it last night, and I taped it, and I watched it again this morning. You’re a helluva mover. You put the audience on their ASS last night!’ So, later, when I saw Fred Astaire, he did this with his fingers [He makes a little moonwalk gesture with his two fingers on his outstretched palm].



I remember doing the performance so clearly, and I remembered that I was so upset with myself, ‘cause it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted it to be more. But not until I finished. It was a little child, a little Jewish child backstage with a little tuxedo on, he looked at me, and he said [in a stunned voice] ‘Who taught you to move like that?’ [Laughter] And I said, ‘I guess God… and rehearsal.’

Source: ebonyjet.com





And this is what Michael has told Oprah about it:



Michael: Yes, well, I'm never satisfied. Even when I see something that I've done and people say oh it was so phenomenal - when I did Motown 25 and I did the Moonwalk for the first time, I was backstage crying afterwards.

Oprah: Why?

Michael: Because I was unhappy.

Oprah: You cried after Motown 25??

Michael: After Motown 25, yes. But, then as I was walking to the car there was this little boy, he was like 12, was a little Jewish kid, and he said, " OOOOO, you were amazing. Who taught you to ever dance like that?". And for the first time, I felt I did a good job, because I know children don't lie and I just felt so good about it then.

Source: mjshouse.com





And this is an excerpt from his biography Moonwalk:



"The Motown 25 show had actually been taped a month earlier, in April. The whole title was Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever , and I’m forced to admit I had to be talked into doing it. I’m glad I did because the show eventually produced some of the happiest and proudest moments of my life.



As I mentioned earlier, I said no to the idea at first. I had been asked to appear as a member of the Jacksons and then do a dance number on my own. But none of us were Motown artists any longer. There were lengthy debates between me and my managers, Weisner and DeMann. I thought about how much Berry Gordy had done for me and the group, but I told my managers and Motown that I didn’t want to go on TV. My whole attitude toward TV is fairly negative. Eventually Berry came to see me to discuss it. I was editing Beat It at the Motown studio, and someone must have told him I was in the building. He came down to the studio and talked to me about it at length. I said, "Okay, but if I do it, I want to do Billie Jean." It would have been the only non-Motown song in the whole show. He told me that’s what he wanted me to do anyway. So we agreed to do a Jacksons’ medley, which would include Jermaine. We were all thrilled.



So I gathered my brothers and rehearsed them for this show. I really worked them, and it felt nice, a bit like the old days of the Jackson 5. I choreographed them and rehearsed them for days at our house in Encino, videotaping every rehearsal so we could watch it later. Jermaine and Marlon also made their contributions. Next we went to Motown in Pasadena for rehearsals. We did our act and, even though we reserved our energy and never went all out at rehearsal, all the people there were clapping and coming around and watching us. Then I did my Billie Jean rehearsal. I just walked through it because as yet I had nothing planned. I hadn’t had time because I was so busy rehearsing the group.



The next day I called my management office and said, "Please order me a spy’s hat, like a cool fedora – something that a secret agent would wear." I wanted something sinister and special, a real slouchy kind of hat. I still didn’t have a very good idea of what I was going to do with Billie Jean.



During the Thriller sessions, I had found a black jacket, and I said, "You know, someday I’m going to wear this to perform. It was so perfect and so show business that I wore it on Motown 25".



But the night before the taping, I still had no idea what I was going to do with my solo number. So I went down to the kitchen of our house and played Billie Jean. Loud. I was in there by myself, the night before the show, and I pretty much stood there and let the song tell me what to do. I kind of let the dance create itself. I really let it talk to me; I heard the beat come in, and I took this spy’s hat and started to pose and step, letting the Billie Jean rhythm create the movements. I felt almost compelled to let it create itself. I couldn’t help it. And that – being able to "step back" and let the dance come through – was a lot of fun.

I had also been practicing certain steps and movements, although most of the performance was actually spontaneous. I had been practicing the Moonwalk for some time, and it dawned on me in our kitchen that I would finally do the Moonwalk in public on Motown 25.



Now the Moonwalk was already out on the street by this time, but I enhanced it a little when I did it. It was born as a break-dance step, a "popping" type of thing that blacks kids had created dancing on the street corners in the ghetto. Black people are truly innovative dancers; they create many of the new dances, pure and simple. So I said, "This is my chance to do it", and I did it. These three kids taught it to me. They gave me the basics – and I had been doing it a lot in private. I had practiced it together with certain other steps. All I was really sure of was that on the bridge to Billie Jean I was going to walk backward and forward at the same time, like walking on the moon.



One the day of the taping, Motown was running behind schedule. Late. So I went off and rehearsed by myself. By then I had my spy hat. My brothers wanted to know what the hat was for, but I told them they’d have to wait and see. But I did ask Nelson Hayes for a favor. "Nelson – after I do the set with my brothers and the lights go down, sneak the hat out to me in the dark. I’ll be in the corner, next to the wings, talking to the audience, but you sneak that hat back there and put it in my hand in the dark".



So after my brothers and I finished performing, I walked over to the side of the stage and said, "You’re beautiful! I’d like to say those were the good old days; those were magic moments with all my brothers, including Jermaine. But what I really like" – and Nelson is sneaking the hat into my hand – "are the newer songs". I turned around and grabbed the hat and went into Billie Jean, into that heavy rhythm; I could tell that people in the audience were really enjoying my performance. My brothers told me they were crowding the wings watching me with their mouths open, and my parents and sisters were out there in the audience. But I just remember opening my eyes at the end of the thing and seeing this sea of people standing up, applauding. And I felt so many conflicting emotions. I knew I had done my best and felt good, so good. But at the same time I felt disappointed in myself. I had planned to do one really long spin and to stop on my toes, suspended for a moment, but I didn’t stay on my toes as long as I wanted. I did the spin and I landed on one toe. I wanted to just stay there, just freeze there, but it didn’t work quite as I’d planned.



When I got backstage, the people back there were congratulating me. I was still disappointed about the spin. I had been concentrating so hard and I’m such a perfectionist. At the same time I knew this was one of the happiest moments of my life. I knew that for the first time my brothers had really gotten a chance to watch me and see what I was doing, how I was evolving. After the performance, each of them hugged and kissed me backstage. They had never done that before, and I felt happy for all of us. It was so wonderful when they kissed me like that. I loved it! I mean, we hug all the time. My whole family embraces a lot, except for my father. He’s the only one who doesn’t. Whenever the rest of us see each other, we embrace, but when they all kissed me that night, I felt as if I had been blessed by them.



The performance was still gnawing at me, and I wasn’t satisfied until a little boy came up to me backstage. He was about ten years old and was wearing a tuxedo. He looked up at me with stars in his eyes, frozen where he stood, and said, “Man, who ever taught you to dance like that?” I kind of laughed and said, “Practice, I guess.” And this boy was looking at me, awestruck. I walked away, and for the first time that evening I felt really good about what I had accomplished that night. I said to myself, I must have done really well because children are honest. When that kid said what he did, I really felt that I had done a good job. I was so moved by the whole experience that I went right home and wrote down everything which had happened that night. My entry ended with my encounter with the child.

The day after the Motown 25 show, Fred Astaire called me on the telephone. He said – these are his exact words – "You’re a hell of a mover. Man, you really put them on their asses last night." That’s what Fred Astaire said to me. I thanked him. Then he said, "You’re an angry dancer. I’m the same way. I used to do the same thing with my cane." I had met him once or twice in the past, but this was the first time he had ever called me. He went on to say, "I watched the special last night; I taped it and I watched it again this morning. You’re a hell of a mover."



It was the greatest compliment I had ever received in my life, and the only one I had ever wanted to believe. For Fred Astaire to tell me that meant more to me than anything. Later my performance was nominated for an Emmy Award in a musical category, but I lost to Leontyne Price. It didn’t matter. Fred Astaire had told me things I would never forget – that was my reward. Later he invited me to his house, and there were more compliments from him until I really blushed. He went over my Billie Jean performance, step by step. The great choreographer Hermes Pan, who had choreographed Fred’s dances in the movies, came over, and I showed them how to Moonwalk and demonstrated some other steps that really interested them.

Not long after that Gene Kelly came by my house to visit and also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience, that show, because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world.

Thanks to michaeljacksonmoon.com for this excerpt.





Hear what the Jacksons are saying about the performance:

http://www.youtube.c...h/?v=oqe82RTcSXs