Our Motown Recording Heritage #19

A Session With Michael Jackson
BY ROBERT DENNIS

At first Berry Gordy with his Motown machine and hit artists like Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five seemed immune from the artist raiding that CBS seemed to be engaged in.  But in 1975 Michael and his "Jacksons" brothers announced that they were leaving the label for CBS.  One more album by Micheal and by the Jackson Five had to be recorded under their Motown artist contract.

More than one eyebrow raised in the music industry when Motown contracted HDH to produce half the last two Motown albums completed on Michael and his brothers, "Forever Michael" on Michael and "Moving Violation" on the Jackson Five.  Although the famous writing and producing team was in the middle of bitter lawsuits with their former record label, these independent factions of the black music scene united together against a common enemy, CBS Records, for this project. 

Although Motown had excellent mastering facilities, the HDH team insisted that I, their former mastering engineer, cut the original masters of their contributions to these projects.  Since I visited Los Angeles while the project was in its final overdubbing stage, I was invited to one of the sessions.

The session was a marvel of the then current 16 track recording technology of the day, something that only the best recording facilities of the time could pull off.  In one Mowest studio, Brian Holland was producing the session that was overdubbing the 15 players performing the "string" parts for the tunes, while Edward Holland was overdubbing 15-year-old Michael Jackson doing lead vocals in the other studio.  During mixing the engineers would sync the two reels together for a 32 track mixdown. 

Since the release of the Alesis ADAT in the early 90's, multiple reels in productions is commonplace.  In 1975, using synched two-inch, sixteen-track analog reels in a production was a rarity that could only occur in the largest, best-equipped studios.  Motown paid about $100,000 each for the two tape machines that would have to be used together in the mixdown.

Having worked my entire career in professional recording, syncing up analog tape machines was nothing new to me, but my experience didn't prepare me for the totally weird scene that was happening in the vocal overdub session. 

Inside the baffled-off area for the singer there were two people rather than one.  Michael was there, which was to be expected.  In addition, there was a Japanese girl standing next to him with, also wearing headphones.  It was explained to me that the producer was not allowed to talk directly to Michael.  The producer explained what was to be done to the girl.  The girl then got Michael to do the part.  If Michael couldn't do the part, the girl (who could sing just like Michael) sang it for him!  There was not a direct line of sight between the producer and the vocal booth, meaning that the producer never really knew who was performing the line at any given time.  It seems as though Michael was still undergoing the vocal changes associated with young males growing up, making it necessary to have the girl there.

Scratching my head, I didn't stay in the session for very long, opting instead to return to the string session in the other control room.  There's always something magic about hearing real string players record well-arranged orchestration; there was no magic for me in the vocal session.   Later, when I got the tapes back in Detroit to do the mastering, I listened carefully to Michael's vocal.  If that girl actual did any of the final vocal recording, you sure couldn't tell it by listening.