Smash hit

Robin Gibb, singer with the Bee Gees

He was a great friend, a very sensitive, gentle, gifted man. My brothers and I first met him in about 1972 when he was in the Jackson 5. We were in the same studio, the Hit Factory, in Los Angeles. Every time he was in Miami he would stay over, particularly with Barry. He often showed up out of the blue: he used to leave Bubbles with someone and come on his own. We hung out, had jam sessions.

I last saw him a few weeks ago in LA at a party. He looked well but he wasn’t well — he was worn down. He was very, very wary about going back into the limelight, and I sympathised with that. It wasn’t the London dates so much that bothered him, it was the way the critics might evaluate him after those dates. I told him he should say, “So what!” instead of “What if?”

The fact was that he wasn’t afforded the respect that he deserved — here was a guy who was acquitted in his trial last year but in, America particularly, he was very troubled. He was very frightened of doing live stage shows after the trial because he was worried about the attacks that might occur. I think it really got to him. The problem is he was very fragile — the nature of artists is that they are sensitive and soft. But that doesn’t detract from their intelligence and their talent.

His death wasn’t a huge surprise — I just wish people wouldn’t have hounded him so much. He was a very lonely man and misunderstood. He had to do it on his own. He underwent a lot in the last two years and I don’t think many people could have stood up to as much as he did.

We had a shared camaraderie. He will be sorely missed because this didn’t have to happen. He was young, like my brother, who died in 2003 — of course, Michael came to Maurice’s funeral. It’s so sad that we can’t praise people while they’re here in the world. When they’re gone it’s too late. The people who were down on him last year are praying to the altar of Michael Jackson today.

Robin Gibb was speaking to Ed Potta

Ben Okri, writer

Every now and again a meteor streaks across our collective consciousness bringing unexpected blessings. And this little child from a steel town in the United States, who appeared in our world with a piercing voice and who achieved an almost blasphemous level of fame, might prove to be more than just a meteor. Michael Jackson managed the rare feat of being not only a child prodigy of popular music but also becoming a modern master.

To achieve classical stature is rare in any genre. He made some of the most distinctive, memorable and feet-intoxicating music of our times. As an entertainer he was a genius, marrying innovation in dance, brilliance in presentation and an extraordinary feel for the pulse of the time. He was also a genius in the art of fame. For he managed to make his voice and his face so much part of our popular culture and so much part of the parallel of our lives that he is as intimate to us as someone we have known for as long as we can remember.

But in the midst of all of this it is possible to miss the peculiar sweetness of his spirit. He came across as one of the gentlest, most sensitive and fragile of performers, and it is a testimony to the profound sweetness of him that he endured such monumental calumny and the persistent monstrosities of fame and still managed to radiate an essential kindness. He came across as someone almost cursed by too much good fortune. And there was often an air about him of an intolerable paradoxical loneliness.

His effect on people was almost unnatural. The Beatles at their best could sway huge crowds with great emotion but there were four of them. Michael Jackson could send a deep gasp, a frisson through a crowd of tens of thousands with just a discernible movement of his shoulder. His public appearances created hysteria. When he descended on cities, it had the effect of that strange power attributed to Pan in the mountains, a mixture of panic and ecstasy seizing the multitudes.

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