Re: Michael Jackson: An ode to Joe Jackson - "Song to My Father."

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an intro quickly written for  friend)



Michael Jackson: An ode to Joe Jackson - "Song  to My Father."

"If there was every a man
that was generous
and gracious


and good . . .  ..
that was my dad

... the man."

"Song For My Father" with Leon Thomas on vocals: original composition by
Horace Silvers and the Horace Silvers quintet.



An apparent segment of the literary establishment shaping the ideological
_expression_ of the musical regime of America, have serious problems with Michael  Jackson, in addition to problems with its enormous working class.  The literary  establishment does not create music - not one song. Here is why they cannot  be trusted.

The problem surfaced a little over a decade ago when the entertainer
threatened to sue - take legal action, over what Mr. Jackson understood as his place  in music history. The battle was over the title "King of Popular Music" or  simply "King of Pop."

This "new King" - dom to come, first dubbed "the Gloved One," challenged the  "old King," whose title was jealousy guarded, by many of the same servants to  tear down the "Old King" - after he died and could not defend himself for his  latter years of indiscretions.  The servants of the cultural regime love themselves first and generally do not jeopardize their income and function as grave robbers.

 

Fighting the dead insures one of a "knockout" to the unknowing  living and is a method of engagement street fighters repudiate. Street fighters  have honor and understand the nature of turf wars, which requires the audacity to  fight the living. Those who fight Al Jolson for his black face prevents themselves from understanding his song. "Mammy" and the "Robert E, Lee" have to be listened to first and then spoke about.

 

I do not like to listen to people without a specific historical context because they make me confuse the past with the ancient past and the ancient past with the present. This hurts my ear.

The "old King" was a remarkably good-looking man with fiery blond hair that would later be turned to black for the eye of the motion picture camera. An entertainer of strikingly good looks, grinding hips, bumping pelvis and
wonderful vocal cords. Southern technicians - men of vision, who understood
American music as Southernism, recorded he who was to become King.

He to become King had captivated a generation; personified a juncture in
America's continuing cultural evolution and served the coup de grace to a hundred years of lies and false pretensions.  This Mississippi man of cotton - the history we love to forget, was the history we were not allowed to forget. He was beautiful and wonderful and born in the prison we call "behind the Cotton
Curtain."

One is speaking of Elvis Presley, whose "Jail House Rock" seems to be the
definitive transition from the American Musicals of the "Golden era" to what we call the modern musical video. 

 

Have you seen "Jail Hose Rock" lately?

Overthrowing the "king" - one who has rocked the penal institution,  is not only "Bad" and "Dangerous" but means passing from civil disobedience to social revolution to insurrection. Under any government, the authorities consider this a crime against the state and Elvis was considered crime - the kind of crime that the masses love.

One has to study history to know life as history. Back in 1917 during the
Russian Revolution, Lenin - the songster, understood the art of politics and
power and how to hold on to the title of King at all cost. We are speaking of revolution in modes of thought, feelings, music and behavior. The "gloved one" -  Michael Jackson, did not study Lenin and would not be so lucky and thought that he, as  the historical musical force was the historical force. Michael was wrong and  his father and brothers would have told him "the way to go." 

Overthrowing a tradition is a heavy load and requires mules - ones father and
brothers. Joe Jackson overthrew the hands of industrial traditions by force
of will and remains the song I sing to my father. I understand Joe's
relationship to children. Any mistakes are the kind one makes traveling a blind alley  and seeking a way out and I simply ask for the opportunity to examine your  children so that I can see where one went wrong on the path of righteousness. This  way we can be better men and women. 

Show me your children so that I can look at Joe Jackson's kids and my father
and understand a better way of doing things.

I sing of an ode of Joe Jackson.

"If there was every a man
that was generous
and gracious
and good . . .  ..
that was my dad

... the man."


Joe was not a Nazi . . .he was my dad - the man.

"The self-titled "King of Pop," Michael Jackson," became the watchword of the  hurt white - Anglo American, highly paid indignant pens of the American fossilized cultural establishment - (the white cultural elite that knows what we like). Mr. Jackson did not of course self-title himself, but won the championship belt in the ring - on  stage in front of a billion humans.

 

"Self-titled "King of Pop," is to say that one did not win the fight in open combat. Micheal moonwalked to victory and made me hate my stupid feet.

 

Michael Jackson's "Thriller," currently  remains the most popular record of all time with total sales of roughly 50 million. 

At its core the America's cultural establishment lacks a framework to
understand the music of Michael Jackson. There are notable exceptions to this general  rule, but one tires of hearing Michael J. compared to Frank, S. because all  of us old enough to remember, have always been on a first name basis with both  men.

Mr. Sin  - Frank, was an authentic force of cool, while Michael can imitate
cool in 15 minute video segments. The video "Smooth Criminal" - which I love, is a remake of "Guys and Dolls" with a hellofva lot more dancing. O got upset because Frank and Marlon Brando did not use guns or shot anyone, but Mikes presentation was incredible.

 

Why debase either one with bad descriptions of the complexity of our cultural inheritance? Frank carried forth a different  tradition, sound and complexity of American life in the post Second Imperial  World War era. Frank was "Cool" - that distinct air of behavior in the post war  era, when a huge segment of the proletarian masses had wages enough to thumb  their noses at American bourgeois tradition and alleged social norms. Frank  had a distinct "fuck you" demeanor, a siege mentality and publicly gambled with  money, women and drink. 

"Cool" sketches character lines in one face, that displays to the world ones
history. Sammy (as in Sammy Davis, Jr.)  - see how we are on first name basis, and Dean wore the symmetry of cool in their faces and did not have to pretend  to be "Bad." Frank and the fellows sang to audiences in Vegas and between  shows robbed the joint. They were "Dangerous." 

"Damn, that's the kind of life I want to live - the girls, the act for the masses and the money, and then sticking up Vegas - shit! I want all of that!"

Don't get me wrong because I am a Michael Jackson man from way back - and not  as a latecomer to the game. We were watching the Commodores - Lionel Ritchie, open shows for the Jackson 5.  I was there when he did "I'll Be There" and before that when the Jackson Five did "I Want You Back" and I was not old enough to lose a girl friend and want her back. I still wanted her back before I lost her!

 

The problem is that one gets emotional when segments of the cultural regime refuses to do their homework and debase American tradition and try to explain to us what we have experienced.

Michael's is far to young to be cool. His father - Joe Jackson was cool, and
not unlike the steel industry in which he labored. I understand men like this
that organized their family on the basis of the industrial sequences that
organize their life. Michael was birthed during a period of industrial expansion and lived the life that the mass of proletarian children lived, only better.

Michael went to a different school and unlike many proletarian families of that generation, his dad made sure he took all the right courses.

My dad was the same way and I still disagreed with him. Now that my dad is
passed I understand why he was right and my vision of life was not as broad as his experience of what existed. Joe Jackson remains an incredible man.

Every generation of men and women in my family shall be taught and know of
Horace Silver's "Son for my Father." 

Do you feel me?

________

"Born on August 29, 1958, to a strict, working-class family in Gary, Ind.,
Michael showed an early interest in music, as did most of the family -- his
mother sang frequently, and his father played guitar in a smalltime R&B band,
while his older brothers often sang and played with their father's guitar."  The
controlling allegedly abusive father that emerged was created on the basis of
the industrial archetype created by the controlling abusive bourgeoisie to pin
the family to the industrial archetype - epoch.

Joe is a bad guy for seeing the way out and perhaps liking women and drink to much. Joe abused his children into world fame, indulged in gamble, women and  things everyone dreams about.

Did he abuse one of his daughters? Rebbie, whose record written by Michael and produced by the boys is Minnesota (Prince old crew) I still enjoy. Rebbie
has never said anything about this and assuming this is true, it was a mistake
not repeated. Assuming the worse does not diminish the great.

Deal with Joe Jackson and then one can deal with the sun - the light that
shies called Michael Jackson.

I call this an authentic hero. A genesis of a man and a man's man. 

Pardon, I am industrial and have no desire for a "girl's man," or a man whose
definition I cannot see in my face. Man is defined for me somewhat broader
than my sexual appetite and is manifest in the lines in my face - Joe's face.

 

Micheal changed the symmetry of his face beyond Joe's face or anything we recognize.

Let's forget the bland ahistorical descriptions of social life that tears
life from its historical context and measures reality with a yardstick that did
not exist when the reality took place. Such yardsticks are designed to
overshadow and give importance to the trivial and trivialize that which is important.

Michael came from a different school than the "University of Cool," although
he took several courses in cool.  Michael came from "sweet." "Sweet" is to
"cool" in the same direction as the "Birth of the Cool" was to the "Big Band
Sound." A subtle rearticulating of European harmonic structure and vocals that is  identified as the "Motown Sound." Motown was lyrically sweet and in the hands  of men like David Ruffin, industrial hard and indisputable cool.

"I've got sunshine on a cloudy day . . .
"I've got so much honey the bees envy me .. .
"I've got a sweeter son than the birds in the tree .. .
I guess you say,
What can make me feel this way?

"My Girl." Written by Bill "Smokey" Robinson and sung by the Temptations. 

Here is the "sweet" that crossed over into the center of American the musical
superstructure and would dominate it until the fall of Michael Jackson.
Michael's fall was at the hands of the transition in musical forms that elevated
the "New Jack Swing" - Teddy Reilly, and later the Rap sound and Rap beats, that  shifted European harmonic structure to the bottom and shifted the bass -
bottom, out front or simply stated, African rhythm to the top.

History - tranisition, is killing Mike but his burial would take place in the press on the basis of all the subjective attributes of the individual - symmetry and accusation of being a pedophile.

I could only touch the surface of Mr. Jackson and his father because what is
really needed is an examination of the music produced by the family. We are
dealing with a musical dynasty and by this I mean why "I Am Love" - twenty-five years ago, was updated in Van Halen's riffs on "Beat It." Why Quincy could not exceed the Motown Sound. Why the Jackson's album with Epic - Gamble and Huff, was outstanding and why many of us play "Blues Away" to this very day.

Michael Jackson became King because Motown was King and his dad had enough sense to understand the next move. Michael became of age when the industry changed and carried the Motown legacy further - to its highest point and hit the wall.

One has to listen to the music and understand the glory of his brother J. Jackson's rendition with Whitney Houston Brown. This is good music.

Then one has to understand America, her music and her critics.

One has to understand their father. One has to understand their father's conditions.

Peace.


Melvin P.