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The Commodores is an American funk soul band of the 1970s and 1980s. The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for The Jackson 5 while on tour. The Commodores have sold over 75 million records worldwide.

In Tuskegee, they played local parties and fraternity parties playing mostly cover tunes and some original songs with their original singer, James Ingram (another “James Ingram” – not the more famous solo artist Ingram). Ingram, older than the rest of the members of the band, left to serve active duty in Vietnam, and was later replaced by Walter “Clyde” Orange, the second lead singer who wrote or co-wrote many of their hit tunes before Lionel Richie came on board. Lionel and Clyde alternated as lead singers. Clyde was also the lead singer on the Top 10 hits,”Nightshift” and “Brick House” among others.

After Richie left to pursue a solo career, former Heatwave singer J.D. Nicholas assumed co-lead vocal duties with drummer Walter “Clyde” Orange. However, with the exception of the Grammy-winning “Nightshift”  the band never achieved the same level of success it had enjoyed with Richie.

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Janet & Michael

“We shared every dream, every confidence. I was his little sister and he always knew that I had his back… Later on in life, certain things that he was going through, I tried to be there for him as much as I could.

“I was his little sister who was there who had his back. To go toe-to-toe. We were very close, we did everything together. We shared a lot of things.
“There’s still not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. Not one day. Not one day.”

In October 2009, a documentary film, ‘Michael Jackson’s This Is It’ – which chronicled the star’s rehearsals for his planned 50-date residency at The O2 in London – was released and Janet initially refused to watch it as she found it too painful to see her brother in the weeks leading up to his death.

However, the ‘Together Again’ hitmaker has now viewed the footage and thinks it helped her through her grief.

She explained in an interview on US TV show ‘Today’: “I finally was able to…I was in Paris and I just spent the night just watching all his videos, listening to his music. There were moments when I felt to cry, moments that make me laugh. It was good for me.”

Janet also takes comfort from knowing her last meeting with Michael – two days before she turned 42 in May 2009 – was filled with love.

She recalled: “The last thing we said to one another, I said ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘I love you too, Dunk.’

“My nickname. Dunk. Dunky fried chicken. It makes no sense. Michael was always silly like that.”

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Thanks Phyl – That was a lovely link that you sent us

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Loyal Reader Phyl sent us this article but she did not know who the engineer was. So we did some digging and we think it was by Ron Hoffman.

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Back Row: Craig, Andrew Scheps, Rob Hoffman, Brad Sundberg, Matt Forger
Front Row: Bruce Swedien, The Glove, Eddie Delena

Memories of Rob Hoffman

I was fortunate enough to work with MJ early in my career. He was an incredible artist. Talented beyond your wildest dreams. Extremely generous, and a hard worker. I actually went from a staff assistant at the Hit Factory in NYC to freelance engineer under Swedien and MJ. They were due to start in Los Angeles when the Northridge earthquake hit so they moved to New York. One room was all Bruce, the second room was the writing room. I started assisting Bruce’s writing partner Rene Moore. I would track stuff with Rene, and Bruce would come in and tell me what I did wrong, sit in for a few hours and set us straight.

After a couple months MJ arrived and the entire tour rig was moved in along with Brad Buxer, Andrew Scheps, and Eddie Delena. I continued to assist them until the whole crew moved to L.A., they decided to take me with them. I would assist Bruce during the day, and help out every where else at night – assisting, engineering, programming, and on one song playing guitar. We had two rooms at Record One, and two rooms at Larrabee where I met John. At one point in NYC we had just about every room at the Hit Factory. The crew was great, and I learned so much from all of them. I learned to engineer from Bruce Swedien, John, and Eddie, and got to sit in with producers like MJ, Jam And Lewis, Babyface, David Foster, Teddy Riley, and Dallas Austin.
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Wow we found this amazing article on Brett Ratners old blog….MUST READ!

Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein

By Patrick Goldstein From the LA times:

My father loves to brag to his friends that while his son is a big-shot Hollywood reporter, it was his father who actually met Michael Jackson. Until he retired a few years ago, my dad had a store called the 24 Collection on the Lincoln Road Mall in Miami Beach that specialized in fashion, jewelry, art and one-of-a-kind oddities (I still have a clock set into a Cuban cigar box with a portrait of Fidel Castro on the clock face). One day Brett Ratner, who grew up in Miami and whose mother was a regular customer at the store, called my dad and asked if he could bring his pal Michael Jackson by to look around. As he often did as a courtesy for celebrities who might be annoyed or hounded, my father closed the store that afternoon and put the staff at Jackson’s disposal.

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The great thing about having readers send us links in that you get a holistic view of things. Both of our girls Beth and Bayo sent us links. We are going to post both reports and then see if we can pick out the facts between them. Okay so bear with us guys. Report 2 is below. Click here for Report 1.

This is report was taken from www.mj4justice.com – The Amazing Michael Campaigners. We think it might be a press release that has been issued. Not sure though.

Headline: MICHAEL IS THE #1 SELLING GLOBAL ALBUM

Article below:

The Legendary Icon Continues His Worldwide  Success Shipping Platinum or Gold in 31 territories

New York – The King of Pop showed once again that his music knows no borders as the Sony Music/Epic Records release MICHAEL - thefirst album in nine years of new Michael Jackson tracks  -- debuted globally at #1 in its first week of sales and shipped over 3 million units worldwide making it one of the biggest albums of 2010.

Hailed by TIME as “a carefully assembled recreation of his finest moments as a solo artist and a reminder of why we cared about him to begin with,” MICHAEL clearly has been embraced not only by his most passionate fans in virtually every corner of the world, but a new generation discovering his recent artistry, collaborations and poignant gems featured on MICHAEL.

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Remember when we blogged that Quincy supposedly said

“The new Michael Jackson album should not see the light of day”

WELL apparently Teddy has hit back with…

“Look at his [Jones'] age. He can barely hear you talk. How the hell could he hear Michael? Anybody who says [it is not Jackson on the album], I do have a comeback, because you’re not right. That’s just the bottom line.”

This sounds like a MONSTER brewing to us. Rappers are beefing and now producers! Can’t we just HOLD HANDS and get along…smh

READ THE FULL REPORT BELOW

Teddy Riley, one of the key producers behind the first posthumous Michael Jackson album Michael, has struck back at the criticisms of Quincy Jones relating to the album’s release.

Riley contributed 3 songs to the album, and says that the 77 year-old Jones’ hearing is not good enough to determine whether or not it’s actually Jackson on the album. Originally, Jones was quoted as saying that there is “no way ['Michael'] should be coming out”. Jones was the man behind the classic Jackson albums Thriller and Off the Wall.

Riley responded that with this: “Look at his [Jones'] age. He can barely hear you talk. How the hell could he hear Michael? Anybody who says [it is not Jackson on the album], I do have a comeback, because you’re not right. That’s just the bottom line.”

Riley also said it is “disappointing” that Jackson’s family have also been critical of Michael, as they are set to be “reaping the benefits” of sales of the album. Last month, MJ’s brother Randy contested the authenticity of the vocals, saying “some of the songs are him and some aren’t”.

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Janet Jackson on Tupac

‘Pac was just silly,’ Jackson says of the late rapper, who was shot dead in Las Vegas three years after the film’s release. ‘He was completely different from what people knew.

‘Not that it was an act, the person that the world knew, because that was him, too. I adored him; he liked to play and laugh.
‘I remember when he said he was going back into LA to get a tattoo. And, I said, “Why are you going to LA? We’re not supposed to leave, we have to shoot tomorrow.”
‘He looked at me and said, “Square!’ she says, laughing. ‘When he came back he showed me the tattoo he got on his stomach. He was sweet. Granted, there was another side, but he wouldn’t just snap or go crazy out of nowhere.
There had to be something that triggered that. I miss him,’ she says softly.

Janet Jackson on Gaga

She met Lady Gaga recently backstage at one of the flamboyant star’s concerts.
‘We had a good conversation,’ Jackson says. ‘She asked a lot of questions and I felt she really listened to what I had to say. I love how she puts melody in music and I think that has been lost in a lot of music.

It’s a little reminiscent of Grace Jones, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s a little left and over the top, but still good and fun. It’s exciting to see what she is going to do next.’

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We always wondered what the connection was in this photo. Learn something everyday.

We found this report on www.gnepse.com

Kobe Bryant spoke about his relationship with Michael Jackson recently with Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski.

Bryant, who had spoken about Jackson shortly after the singer’s death in 2009, described the King of Pop as a mentor and credited his tough mentality to Jackson’s teachings.

“It sounds weird, I guess, but it’s true: I was really mentored by the preparation of Michael Jackson,” Bryant told Yahoo!, adding:
“We would always talk about how he prepared to make his music, how he prepared for concerts. He would teach me what he did: How to make a ‘Thriller’ album, a ‘Bad’ album, all the details that went into it. It was all the validation that I needed – to know that I had to focus on my craft and never waver. Because what he did – and how he did it – was psychotic. He helped me get to a level where I was able to win three titles playing with Shaq because of my preparation, my study. And it’s only all grown. That’s the mentality that I have – it’s not an athletic one. It’s not from [Michael] Jordan. It’s not from other athletes. It’s from Michael Jackson.”

After Jackson died, Bryant wrote a tribute for TIME, saying that Jackson encouraged him to be different and offered to let him host his wedding at Neverland Ranch for privacy.

“Beyond the genius of what he was, he was just a genuinely, genuinely nice person,” Bryant wrote of Jackson. “He was just a genuinely nice person who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally bright, and driven and talented. You mix those things together, man, you have Michael Jackson.”

Bryant also described Jackson as “extremely misunderstood” in another interview. We #cosign on that statement Kobe.

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After reading this post, we went straight to Time.com to read more…

One of the things he always told me was, Don’t be afraid to be different. In other words, when you have that desire, that drive, people are going to try to pull you away from that, and pull you closer to the pack to be “normal.” And he was saying, It’s O.K. to be that driven; it’s O.K. to be obsessed with what you want to do. That’s perfectly fine. Don’t be afraid to not deviate from that. One of the books that he gave me that helped him communicate with me was Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was about that.

Beyond the genius of what he was, he was just a genuinely, genuinely nice person. He got me hooked on movies that I would normally never watch. Fred Astaire movies. All the old classics. I would never, never watch those. I remember my fiancée and I telling him we were getting married, and him just being really excited and actually just offering up the ranch to have our wedding there, because privacy was going to be an issue. We wanted to get married in a church, so that’s what we wound up doing. But he made the offer. He was just a genuinely nice person who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally bright, and driven and talented. You mix those things together, man, you have Michael Jackson.

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Born Michael George Jackson, singer, songwriter and music producer Mick Jackson grew up in Yorkshire before moving to Germany with the armed forces at the age of 18. He had developed a passion for music early in life, singing in various soul bands and decided to pursue it as a career when he left the army. With his brothers Peter and David he formed the band ‘JACKO’ and began writing songs and establishing himself in the German music industry.

In 1977 he became part of the booming Munich Disco scene and released “You Turn Me On”, his first single as a solo artist. The song opened lots of doors for Mick as an artist and songwriter in Europe.

Around the same time Mick and his brother David wrote a song called “Blame it on the Boogie” with their drummer Elmar Krohn, which (after being rejected by 22 record labels) clinched the deal for Mick’s first album release as a recording artist, produced by Grammy Award winning arranger/producer Sylvester Levay.

Unbeknownst to Mick, his publisher also offered “Blame it on the Boogie” to American supergroup The Jacksons who after leaving Motown were convinced that this would be the song that would lead them into the next stage of their career. Mick’s version was released first in the US, but due to delays and various confusions the two versions – both sung by men called Michael Jackson – came out within days of each other in the UK.

Branded ‘The Battle Of The Boogie’ by the British press, radio stations and the music press began to take sides: Radio One and Melody Maker backing The Jacksons’ version and Captial Radio and NME backing Mick. The public was equally divided, which meant that sales were split and neither record reached the top of the chart. Mick peaked at 15 and the Jacksons peaked at 8, which now seems odd considering the song’s timeless popularity.

www.mickjacksonmusic.com

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A telegraph report

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the US chat show queen, Katherine Jackson said it was the “worst day of my life.”

She said: “My heart just dropped. They called me and said come to the hospital Michael’s in hospital.

“They made the doctor tell me. We stayed there a long time before he came in to tell us, but I guess he didn’t want to either. But the doctor had to tell us. Dr Murray had to tell us.

“He was talking and it took him so long and I said ‘Well, what happened?’ I said ‘Did he make it, how is he?’ And he said ‘He’s gone.’ That’s all I remember.”

Jackson died in June 2009. Dr Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly improperly administering a mixture of sedatives, including the anaesthetic propofol, in an attempt to get the singer, a chronic insomniac, to sleep. He has pleaded not guilty.

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