Smash hit

“You won’t be sorry,” he said. I wasn’t. In 1979, an otherwise dismal sales year, the Jacksons’ Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) sold more than 2m copies. Some consider it the most sensuous dance song in that supersensuous disco era .

Then Michael told me: “I want to do a solo record.”

Off the Wall was a perfect piece of pop soul, exceeding all sales predictions. The success excited Michael’s ambition. My respect for his talent grew along with my puzzlement about his personality.

Off the Wall retooled his childlike image. Now he was pictured as a dark-skinned handsome young man in a bow tie, tux and fashionably coiffed Afro. He was ready to rock and his love songs, especially Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough, suggested adult sexuality. When you spoke to Michael, though, the adult was not present.

“I never had a childhood,” he kept telling me. All he knew was singing and performing. “Understand,” he told me, “that I was a star when I was six.”

Sometimes I felt that he was still six. He had no social skills. He was a child who sought the company of other children. He sought my company only because I was the man who controlled the hype machine. And if Michael understood anything outside the value of music, it was the value of hype.

Michael liked to call me his Good Father. That’s when I was okaying big promotional plans for his record. At other times he dropped the affection and reverted to normal artist behaviour — whining. Michael was a world-class whiner.

After Off the Wall won only a single Grammy, he called me to complain. “You’re complaining to the wrong guy,” I told him. “I have nothing to do with who wins.”

Michael’s high, almost inaudible voice changed tone when he was unhappy. He became an angry little boy who wouldn’t be happy until he got all the candy in the candy jar. “Mine was the first solo album to have four top 10 singles. That means I should get at least four Grammys.”

“Be happy with one.”

“I want more Grammys.”

“Make more records and you’ll get more Grammys.”

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