Industry Bigs: Music & Michael

Industry Bigs: Music & Michael

Written by Chris Yandek

Wednesday, 08 July 2009


Michael Jackson has entertained the world, with his voice and moves, since age six. His recent death has provoked many questions. More than anything, people around the world want to know why the King of Pop suddenly passed on.


In 1979, Michael released Off The Wall through Epic Records – a division of Sony. The album received critical acclaim, while selling over 20 million copies and netting Jackson Grammys for the first time since the early 70s.

Three years later, the Gloved One would release the most popular album in music history, Thriller. His singing, dancing and performance generalship was unlike anything the world had ever seen, leaving an indelible mark on the music video genre.


In 1993, music executive Chris Apostle began his stint as Vice President of Special Recording Projects at Sony Music Entertainment. He would become better known as Tommy Mottola’s – the company’s topper and a music industry legend – right hand man, working with everyone from Mariah Carey to Jennifer Lopez to Marc Anthony.


For the last 20 years, Apostle has been friends with producer/songwriter Cory Rooney. In 1998, Mottola named Rooney Epic’s Vice President of A&R. VH1 has called Rooney the best kept secret in the music industry. He has written and produced for artists including Jennifer Lopez, Mary J Blige, and Destiny’s Child among others. During his time at Epic, Cory became friends with Michael Jackson.


While working on music with Michael, Rooney had an opportunity to see a side of Jackson few ever did. For example, in one telling conversation in 2001, Jackson told Rooney that he was done touring and if he ever toured again it would kill him.


Among other things, Cory shares that Michael was easy to work with – contrary to how the media portrayed him. Rooney relates one instance when Michael apologized for being late to a studio session by sending a gift basket with over 100 DVDs and a note that read, “I’m very sorry for not respecting your time.”


Rooney was not surprised when Jackson lashed out at then Sony head Tommy Mottola in 2002. He says Michael felt nobody was in his corner, that he wasn’t getting the love and respect he deserved. Apostle clarifies that stars at that level are often under extraordinary pressure and may say things in the heat of the moment. Both men were major players during pop music’s peak.


Most importantly, Rooney and Apostle hope people remember Michael Jackson’s contributions to music and as Apostle says, recognize the musicologist he was.


Chris Yandek: Cory, you had a chance to work with Michael, you wrote and produced some songs with him. What was your relationship like with him?


Cory Rooney: “It’s funny, someone asked me this the other day and I said, ‘I waited all my life and my career pretty much to finally get a chance to work with Michael, be recognized, to have my talent recognized by Michael.’ When it came time finally for us to get in the studio, we spent almost a month of just talking and he was educating me on like so many different things. We barely got a lot of music done. It was a completely different experience than I thought it was going to be.”


CY: Kind of like almost an utter distraction, not getting work done and talking about a bunch of other things?



CR: “Yeah. Then the relationship quickly turned into me being an executive at the time. I think I felt like my strengths for him at the time more so than being a writer or producer, but to be his inside man at the time because it was weird. He felt like at the time at Sony that he didn’t really have any allies or anyone that was going to be in his corner.”


CY: Really?

CR: “It was amazing! I quickly became his number one ally at the company.”


CY: So what did you learn from him in that time that you became his ally? Like who he was? It just seems like there were always people trying to leach off of him and telling him to do one thing or another. It seemed like he didn’t at some point have control of his life, am I right?


CR: “Yeah. I mean that’s the – you hit it on the head. I mean, it was to the point. The first thing that I started to learn about him is that he’s always so eager to please. He was so eager to please that he kinda over thought a lot of things. It’s like he would have an album done and I would listen to all this music and say, ‘Michael, this is unbelievable!’ [Michael]: ‘Yeah, but I don’t think it’s ready yet’ Because he’s got a million people in his ear telling him different things in different directions. He was easily led in all sorts of directions by people and I was amazed by the fact that he was so easily led.”


CY: Chris, I have to say for more than a decade there you were a major player at Sony Music Entertainment. What were your dealings with Michael and what did you learn about him while he was with Sony?


Chris Apostle: “Well, my dealings unlike Cory were very limited. The actual time I spent with him was just a couple of days. He was doing a mix of a track with Jay Z and Jay Z had already become quite a player in the business. I just remember walking in the studio before Michael had gotten there and Jay Z was working on lyrics for what he was going to do and I just remember that Jay Z almost was, I never saw him so humble. He was almost a little bit nervously excited that he was working with Michael Jackson. That left a lasting impression to me.


I’m older than Cory and I grew up with Michael since he began. The thing that I learned on the inside from the Sony side was most people, the executives like Cory was saying, giving him direction, all these ideas, what he should do and shouldn’t do, the thing that I think was most forgotten about Michael and what he did was Michael was always working on music. You hear all the other stuff going on and everything, but it’s funny you watch like a recent interview, that Martin Bashir thing and Martin was saying, ‘Well, it’s good you’re working on music again.’ And it was extremely poignant when he said, ‘I’ve always been working on music.’ What do you think Cory? He probably has a couple hundred tracks sitting in the tank somewhere.”



CY: There was a news report that I read an article the other day and he has 200 unpublished songs that are left to his children that they can profit off and it’s valued at somewhere near 60 million dollars Chris.



CR: “Right. I think that was kind of the old Motown way. Stevie Wonder has over 2000 songs that he’s stored and put away for the same purpose. True. Michael was always working on music. Always…always working on music. Like I said, he was never really satisfied with himself.”


CY: The comments he made about Tommy Mottola many years ago, the comments he wasn’t happy with the album he released back in 2002. It was 30 million dollars that was put behind it, but were you surprised when he made those very candid comments calling Tommy Mottola a bunch of different things?



CR: “I was not surprised. Like I said, he didn’t really feel like he had people in his corner at the record company. For the most part, I don’t think people really showed him the love and respect that they should’ve been showing him at the record company. True, they may have spent 30 million dollars on the record, but at the same time the business affairs on that record was set up to the point where Michael couldn’t win if he wanted win. You understand?”



CY: Yeah.


CR: “They set it up and they put such a high marker on the record in terms of his recoupment and things like that. It was kind of a lose…lose situation. And they did that like to dangle a carrot and say ok, we want you to do the whole thing. We want you to sell records. We want you to tour. They thought that he was going to go running after the carrots saying, ‘Man, I gotta do all this so I can recoup.’



CY: Chris, thoughts?



CA: “A powerful artist like Michael, he’s not the first artist that has ever decided when he’s not comfortable at his home, the label to sit there and decides he’s going to take some shots and say his piece. When artists at his level aren’t comfortable they say things. Someone like him, who only dealt with the top level – Japan and Mottola and stuff like that, he came out and said he’s fine. I’m sure the frustration level was out of control. There is a lot of circumstances that pushed him to that point.



The thing that I’m so brutally offended about and it’s only a rumor, but it’s something I really believe, but I really think he got blackmailed in that whole scandal thing. I think at some point the truth will come out. This man gave people millions and millions of dollars to philanthropic stuff. Never comes out what he did. I think his reactions were natural and I’m sure he was getting pushed. If you look at the quality of his work Chris, go back to Off The Wall, which is my favorite Michael Jackson record. But every single record, I don’t care if you go to Dangerous, any single one, these records are perfect, blue book standard records, nothing but hits.





Cory and I sat in an office at Sony once and watched a concert, a live DVD. A colleague of ours Ron Grant called us in and said, ‘You guys want to watch something?’ And we’re figuring alright, middle of day, we’ll watch something for five to ten minutes. It was unedited, two and a half hours from a stadium at Brazil. He never stopped working for two and a half hours. The point that I would love to make about him is that he’s not getting enough play for what he has contributed to the world musically. He’s probably, arguably the greatest musician we’ll ever see in our lifetime. You’ll never see anything like this again. That has to be discussed and mentioned.”





CY: How will the music industry be affected going forward now?


CR: “I don’t really think the music industry has taken a deep enough look at what Michael Jackson meant to everybody, all of us artists, producers, actors, actresses, all of us, entertainment as a whole. I don’t think that they took a deep enough look because everyone is too busy with their head up their own butt. When Michael was on trial, nobody…nobody stopped to go and support him at the trial.”



CA: “Yup.”


CR: “The guy is acquitted on ten counts of child molestation. No one said, ‘Sorry Michael.’ No one said, ‘Michael, we knew you were innocent.’ No one did a BET tribute to him then. Nobody played his music and did a marathon then. Nobody rallied up and did a concert. Why should Michael have to go on tour to raise money? How come all of the artists didn’t band together and say, ‘Hey! You know what? Let’s do a tour like Michael did the We Are The World Tour and let’s raise some money. Let’s get this thing going.’ No one did that. Tookie Williams is the founder of the crips gang. You know the crips and the bloods?”





CY: Yes.

CR: “They were trying to get him pardoned from the death penalty and half of Hollywood showed up for this man. What I can’t understand is like, ok people didn’t want to go near Michael Jackson when he was in trouble.”





CY: But they show up for a murder.


CR: “But they show up for a guy who executed families. A little girl begged for her life and he executed her. They said because he wrote in his time in prison he wrote children’s books that he tried to turn his life around. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, how about the millions of children Michael Jackson has helped over the span of his career? Yet two children come with some false allegations and those two children become the two children that destroy him. It’s crazy. It makes me look at the entertainment business and just say I’m surrounded by a bunch of hypocrites.



When you ask me how would it affect them? I don’t even think they realize what this is. Everyone’s gonna do their tributes, but the tributes now if you look at it, it’s all because now everyone is going to get some spotlight, they’re gonna get some shine. Now all of the sudden everyone wants to say something good about him.”



CY: Everyone wants to be relevant.

CR: “Everyone wants to be relevant and that sucks to me.”


CY: After ‘93, should he have known better going on the Martin Bashir Documentary Living with Michael Jackson and saying it’s ok to share your bed with a child? Don’t you think most people are going to say in some senses well, he kind of set himself up for that?


CR: “Let me explain to you what was said to me directly from Michael. Michael and I spoke about that. He said, ‘Cory, when I was a kid, I was denied not only a childhood but I was denied love. When I reached out to hug my father, he didn’t hug me back. When I was scared on an airplane, he didn’t put his arm around me and say Michael, don’t worry. It’s going to be ok. When I was scared to go on stage, he said, ‘Get your ass on this stage.’ Not just him, but every other adult around him.



So he said to me ‘Cory, I will never deny a child love and if it means that I have to be crucified or put in jail for it, then that’s just what they’re gonna have to do.’ When it was time for him to stand trial, the first time he went through it, his advisors told him, ‘Michael, this is not good. Pay this kid off and let’s keep moving.’ Second time he said, ‘You know what? All that did was make me look guilty like I was hiding something. So this time there won’t be any payoffs. I’m going to fight this in court. You’ll see. I’ll be innocent.’



Right to the day when they finally had to read the verdict and the verdict was in, I talked to his family cause I remember watching on the news that Michael had 45 minutes to get there. So I spoke to some of his family members that were in the house with Michael. I said, ‘Well, what the hell is he doing?’ He’s upstairs getting dressed. He came downstairs. He said a prayer with his family and he told everyone, ‘I want you guys not to worry about me because I will be ok.’





And he rode there, he had maybe a little nervous energy patting his feet, singing in the car and everything and he rode with his brother and his sister. But he wasn’t worried. I’ll tell you something, I would’ve been a mess. I don’t even know if I could have stood up in court like that.”





CY: Chris, any thoughts on any of this?





CA: “When I watched the Bashir thing last night, I just wanted to see what it was all about and reflect on it. When Martin asked him about the first incident where he paid off these accusers, I found it very ironic and I look unbelievably sincere and honest the way he said, ‘I just decided I wanted it to go away.’ And he made it go away, which by the way again, not the first person to do this in the history of our business. He wanted to make it go away. The second time he fought.





But what Cory was saying going back to his childhood and stuff like that, he was reflecting on the fact that he had acne as a kid, which we all gone through at one phase of our life and how his pap would always sit there and make fun of his acne and his skin condition. You’re talking about a young kid here who never had the chance to grow up and be normal. Kid grew up very differently than a lot of people. Granted he’s Michael Jackson, but there is a lot of reasons why he had certain insecurities. As for his bit with the second thing, I believe a thousand percent, I’ll go to my grave with it that he was innocent completely. He was being blackmailed by that gentleman that wanted to be a screenwriter or write books or do movies, whatever. That was inside information that’s close around enough that I can say it.”





CR: “The Martin Bashir thing, I don’t think people remember that a week later or maybe a few weeks later, Michael himself re-aired his own version of that show.”





CY: And he had the whole thing because he was smart enough to video camera.





CR: “He was smart enough to video camera it and it clearly showed that the guy just twisted everything and made it, he turned everything into a false or a lie. They ask Michael a question. Are you gay? And Michael said, ‘I don’t want to answer that question.’ Now that was the one that he said. So it quickly edited to Bashir going, ‘Obviously he didn’t want to answer for obvious reasons.’





So then when Michael showed his version, he said, ‘Are you gay?’ Michael said, ‘I don’t want to answer that question.’ Then he said, ‘But if you turn your camera off, I will answer your question.’ Then the guy said ok, turn the camera off. Then Michael said, ‘No. Absolutely not. I am not gay, but I have millions of gay fans and if they believe I’m gay, then let them believe I’m gay.’ He said, ‘I don’t care. I don’t want to offend anybody.’ You know?”





CA: “I gotta say something here, I can’t believe at this point that these are even issues that are being discussed.”





CR: “Yeah. I mean this is crazy.”





CA: “Anything about what this man contributed to the world and I have a very good friend that Cory doesn’t know that we know that was working on this tour with him, someone that worked with Cory with another diva in our lifetime and he said, ‘He was looking better than ever.’ He was struggling cause it was a long hard show, but this was going on. He canceled a couple of shows, fine. This guy had 50 shows lined up.





This was going. They were in Staples Center, full production. You’re talking about a multi multi million dollar show. This was going. This poor kid goes home the night before and says he doesn’t feel well and the next day he’s taken from us. I’ll use a word that Cory used, probably the most devastating thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life. I feel like my right one has been taken from me. People have to pay a little bit attention to what he contributed to the world and stop with all the Whacko Jacko stuff.”





CR: “But they won’t because that’s what they like better.”





CA: “Liza was very cool. I watched her the other night.”





CY: Yeah. I watched her on Larry King.





CA: “She sits there and says stop and she was talking to Larry King. She said stop, come on, let’s celebrate for a little while. The stuff will come out, people will start flipping, you’ll start hearing stuff, the books will start. Sony’s pressing records. I’m sure they got four plants going right now repressing all his records. I’m sorry. I’m just, I’ll let Cory take the floor here, I’m devastated by this. I’m sad. I’ve been very emotional and I’m going to go to my farmhouse this weekend where Cory, I have all the original vinyl and I’m pulling them all out. Someone has got to talk about what this man contributed and cut the crap.”





CY: A lot of people say that maybe he wasn’t the same after the second trial in 2005 and things kind of went downhill, went through all these personal issues and of course there were the rumored health issues in the recent years. Any thoughts or any knowledge of those situations?





CR: “I know for a fact he had health issues. That’s number one. Michael Jackson had other health issues that never were discussed like what is called dancer’s feet. Dancer’s feet is when your feet over years of dancing, a dancer wraps their feet to dance. You wrap them in tape and things like that. But of course because you don’t get enough oxygen skin dries up. Your skin starts to crack and splint, almost like paper cuts and Michael suffered bad with that.





What would happen is sometimes it be so bad he’d have to wrap his feet in a cast. That’s why sometimes you would see him with a cast on. The pains of that was excruciating. And yeah, was he on the painkillers for that? Yeah. I’m sure he was. I never physically seen him take a pill or a painkiller, but I’ve definitely spoken to him about it. Now whatever the autopsy shows, whatever the true factor on how this man has gone from here becomes it’s all still a result of what this business has done to him period. It’s all a result of what the business did to him.”





CY: Fair to say that the business because he had all the financial issues that he was kind of pushed into a corner? He said he wanted to do 10 shows, but then it became 50 for this thing in London that was supposed to happen next month. Did he feel like he was backed in a corner because he had to fulfill financial issues?





CA: “Listen, I’m sure he decided to do this comeback tour and net a bunch of cash, which he honestly deserves to have. I still think that like Cory said, he was pushed to the brink by people that were extremely powerful and he was not treated fairly. We always started in this business and someone Cory and I knew very well said, ‘You can’t do anything in this business without the artist even if the artist are what you considered to be the worst thing in the world and stuff like that. You still need the artist.’ Well, it seems to me the big cheeses in the business forgot that at some point where he was concerned.”





CR: “This was years ago. I’m going to go back probably eight years ago and Michael told me, ‘Cory, I can’t tour anymore. I’m not gonna tour anymore. Ok?’ I said, ‘why Mike?’ He said, ‘Because it will kill me.’ That’s what he said to me. He said, ‘It will kill me.’ Why would you say something like that? He said, ‘Well, remember when I was preparing for my concert and I passed out at the Sony Studio?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s because when I get ready for a tour I get dehydrated. I don’t eat. I don’t drink. I don’t sleep. I put so much of myself into preparing for a tour.’





He said, ‘I’m not doing it on purpose. This is just something I don’t think about anymore. You understand? I’ve just become so driven that I can’t even think about these things anymore. They made me walk around with an IV last time. He said, ‘So I just decided, my doctors decided that maybe you shouldn’t do this anymore. He said he wanted to make the Invincible album work to the point where that was it. He’s done with the tour. He’s gonna do this Invincible album. He wanted to continue to put out albums. He said, ‘I’ll do albums till I can’t do it anymore, but I just can’t tour.’”





CY: Is it fair to say the downfall of Michael Jackson were people who were greedy and obviously wanted the 85 million dollars that the ticket sales had sold for the thing over in London for example? Is it fair to say that greed got the best of him and other people that were forced into a situation?





CR: “I wouldn’t call it greed. I just don’t think he had a choice. I think financially, sometimes we all do what we have to do. It’s the same reason that a boxer like Joe Lewis would go in after he was long into retirement. Joe Lewis still got in the ring and had to fight cause he had no money. I’m not saying Michael didn’t have any money.”





CY: But he owed 400 million dollars.





CR: “But he did have debt. He definitely had debt. Ok, when you got debt and you got people hawking you down and doing all this stuff, ok Michael, one more tour and let’s clean up this debt. Ok, well you know what? The person that he is, the entertainer he is, well let’s get to work.”





CY: It’s a surprise to many, but at the same time is it one of these great tragedies we’re gonna look back upon and say he had all the highs but he had all the lows also?





CR: “I would say my deepest prayer to ask God to just give this man peace and hope that his legacy lives on and it’s untainted with all the bullshit if I can say. But I’m afraid that forever it’s always going to be a problem. Just like there is always all kinds of crazy things said about whatever, Elvis Presley.”





CY: How he died.





CR: “How he died.”





CY: The conspiracy theories.





CR: “A conspiracy theory. How did Bruce Lee die? How did Marilyn Monroe die? You know what I’m saying? Michael’s not comparable to these people. I would say Elvis Presley is the closest you’ll get to that. It had to be in Elvis Presley’s career even from Michael to stand on those shoulders and move beyond that. I’m not gonna discredit Elvis Presley, but they’re two different people. Michael, as far as I’m concerned, surpassed Elvis and everything that Elvis was about a long time ago.





And he stood for something different. No one talks about when he did the Victory tour, I remember as a kid Michael being on tour with the Victory tour right? And every night on the news they would announce that Michael Jackson donated his money from every city that he did, he donated it to a new charity. He donated his money from the Victory tour to charities. I thought that was amazing. I’m like, wow! This guys donating millions of dollars every night to a new charity. Then he would stop in every city and every city he would stop at a hospital and visit kids that were burned, ill or whatever. He took the time to do all that.”





CY: Chris, any thoughts?





CR: Two things. Comparing the Elvis Michael comparisons are obvious considering what they were to the American culture and actually the world culture. Differences, Elvis I believe died at 42. And Elvis, the most money he’s ever made was after he died, far more than while he was alive. Go back to the highs and the lows, all artists have highs and lows. Most of the lows are generally contributed to the lack of creativity, the skill diminishes, the body goes, etc…etc. Michael had the highest of highs and if you remember the highest of highs, there’s never gonna be anything like that in our life.





Number one, the albums were brilliant. The performances were brilliant. He was brilliant. He was an icon, probably the most famous person in the world. I think his lows weren’t totally attributed to creative decline. I think the lows were forced upon him and he was put into caves and holes and by people doing things to him. That to me is really sad. Artists get old like athletes. They change.





They go on different tours. They start playing the casinos. They start picking up the city festivals, the package tours, etc. This guy was forced, he was forced to go lower than an artist should ever have to go. It wasn’t because of lack of skill. Something about Michael that people don’t realize is I would call him a musicologist. This guy knew every song, ever recording, every studio, the whole Sun Studios thing, Memphis, Motown, New York, LA, everywhere. He knew everything. The musicians. The instruments. The mics. No one talks about this. No one discusses this and it’s unbelievable. And by the way, unlike Elvis, this guy was doing it still for 43 years. 43 years Chris. My God man.”





CY: I think looking at this whole industry and the way things have been moving forward now and it’s more about the name value as you like to call it the bonafide musical talent. Is the music industry crumbling? There’s talents out there that are going to do well always, but is it crumbling in a sense that we don’t have these huge identities, these larger than life figures anymore? It’s just kind of one act after another.





CR: “I feel like because of the newfound independence that the internet has given us all. I think we’re in kind of like in a whole new revamping stage.”





CY: A transitional stage.





CR: “Well, I always say it’s a transitional stage sure. But when I say revamping or I would say an incubating stage because right now we’re about to witness the rebirth of real music. That’s because there was a time when you can have an Earth, Wind, and Fire like or Michael Jackson like Off the Wall sounding record that someone worked their ass off for independently and it sounds good. A record company wouldn’t even give it the chance because if it didn’t sound like Chris Brown or Rihanna that’s not what they were looking for.





Now independently when that becomes the most played thing on the internet and people have no choice but to role with it, record companies start to get behind it. We’ll be back to people not being pigeon held or feeling like they have to follow suit or what’s going on just going on just to get a deal.”





CY: Chris, your thoughts?





CA: “It’s been a longer transition than most people would expect. The industry is not dying. And if you look at certain aspects of it, Live Nation is having their biggest years now with the touring industry with the 360 deals it’s obviously different for artists, labels, etc. The labels, you used to have creative people working under the executives and labels, but now you have the executives maintaining their salaries by making sure they have no staff. I went to see a group tonight in New York, a kid that’s showing up all over the place. Every label was there. It was all low level people with no signing power. It’s different. They can’t sign bands. They can sign one band at a time.





As for the internet and stuff like that, I have an opinion about the fact that all the genius that we all profess to myself, Cory, and everyone that we worked with five to six years ago this industry suddenly decided that I liken to it like this. Trying to sell the public – remember the car the Hugo? ”





CY: Yes.





CR: “Yea.”





CA: “Sitting there saying, ‘You know what? We’ve come up with this great car. It’s a Hugo.’ And people are like, oh wait, I’ve heard there is this really cool car out of Germany called a Mercedes, no…no…no, you want to have the Hugo. But wait, I hear BMW makes a pretty good car, I hear Chevrolet, Escalade is really hot, whatever. No…no….no, you want the Hugo.





The industry that we worked in that came up with all these huge artists Michael included, the U2s, the Bruce Springsteen's, the Dylans suddenly decided, you know what? We’re gonna give you Lindsay Lohan. We’re gonna give you Paris Hilton. We’re gonna give you Kelly Osbourne. And the public sat there and said, ‘This is the best you have to offer? I’m not paying $17.99 for this. To hell with this, I’ll steal one song off the internet.





And the labels were slow to come to form realizing it was changing and now they’re getting screwed because of it. Fans are doing it independently Chris. They’re doing it differently. If you notice the live concert situation, the records that sell, if you look at the top 40 SoundScan you’ll probably see five country artists, five Disney artists, two or three older artists, live people listen to Bruce Springsteen, U2. Why do you think quote on quote country Keith Urban is so popular? It’s not that people like country and Keith Urban is definitely not country, it’s a singer-songwriter. They want to hear songs. Talking about Michael, he made songs. The bands that last for a record, they don’t have songs. They don’t have staying power.





When you’re 21 years old, I always ask people, name five artists under the age of 20 that were truly geniuses? And they sit there and ponder everything. I sit there and say ok, I’ll give you a few, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson, a Mariah Carey that was truly legitimate at that time in her career and there is one or two others, but you see where I’m going with this. Now you have every band out that is 20 year olds and they can’t play.”





CR: “Being the producer, what you find is, see, I grew up in my household when I was a kid, the Isley Brothers would be in my living room rehearsing with my dad. My dad was a producer as well. I grew up and I couldn’t wait to get in the business and kind of do it that way. And then all of a sudden I got in the business and I found well Cory, that’s kinda like too much. People don’t want to hear the live band thing and the live instrument thing. So all of a sudden I had to teach myself, force myself how to make music based on eight bar loops and write things repeat around, repetition.”





CY: You felt like you were dumbing yourself down.





CR: “I had to dumb myself because when I first started producing, I was producing strictly to make some money to take care of my family. So I had to follow suit. I was never ever…ever happy. I got very happy when I got the chance to work with the Mariah Carey or a Michael Jackson or someone like that because I knew I could be me. There’s been artists that will remain nameless that it’s like I’ve had to just sit there and just do it basically because it’s for a check and not for love.”





CA: “You also grew up surrounded by monster players.”





CR: “Oh absolutely.”





CA: “Chris, Cory never mentions this and he’ll never mention it, one of the things I’m most impressed by musically is I’ll go to his house and he’ll sit at the piano without the musical training and I came from the classical training. Cory can sit down and play the whole Stevie Wonder book note for note.”





CR: “But you know what’s crazy? When I was a kid, I remember seeing the guy walk down the street like with a base guitar on his back or I remember seeing a guy carrying like in his car like he’s got his drums or this and I was fascinated like wow! This guy’s a musician. Now, a guy walks out with a base on his back, walk in studio sessions and someone will laugh at him. Like, where the hell you going to? What is this? A parade? What are you doing? They don’t get it. A horn player, like they don’t exist anymore.”





CA: “Oh, you can’t make a living.”





CR: “Yeah. I feel like now that the internet is what it is. It’s ok to make those records because now they’ll get past those gates that where people go, oh, I’m sorry. We don’t allow that music here. Now it’s gonna go past that right over their heads and be out there and all of a sudden you’re gonna start hearing music that sounds so organic, so good, so stimulating that it’s going to go right back where it needs to be.”





CA: “Here is a good one for you guys. You both know Steve Lukather, the guy that played most of the guitar on all of Michael’s records. He was the leader of the Toto, etc. His son is 19 years old. This kid grew up in Los Angeles four houses down from Eddie Van Halen. His father did every record from Boz Scaggs to Michael Jackson to Lionel Ritchie. You name it his dad has played on them. This kid is the most brilliant prodigy, rock and roll guitar player in the world today. He can’t get arrested. He can’t get arrested. I would put him up against anyone and people hear him and they’re horrified, he can’t get arrested.”





CR: “Yeah. I know. It’s disgusting.”





CA: “But the players, listen it’s changing yes, but fine. The industry sold 1.3 billion records last year instead of 1.5.”





CR: “It’s all a hoax. I just want you to know that if you really do some research and look at the statistics on the amount of records sold in the industry now versus over the last 20 years, we’re only down by like a few million records. It’s like 10 percent. It’s nothing crazy. Nothing crazy. All of that internet nonsense is just a hoax because the record companies, the majors always felt like, ‘Wait a minute. If we don’t start to put the word out and keep people off the internet, we’re going to lose ground here.”





CA: “Oh I got blasted at Sony once and I’ll say this. I made a suggestion once we should allow every new artist to have their first single downloaded as many times as we want, the fans want for free. ‘So, well, you don’t want to work here very long.’ I said, no. I do. He said, ‘Well, our publishing division isn’t going to like that and neither are the artists.’ I said, you know what? Maybe you’ll get three out of five.





Maybe you’ll get two out of three that love the artist, want to buy the single and do this, but this was after talking to my niece who’s like 13 at the time. I said, ‘What record store do you go to?’ She goes, ‘Record store?’ Well, there is a Coconuts around there. A Sam Goody’s still in that time. She goes, ‘I haven’t been to a record store in three years.’ I said, ‘You got 100 CDs in your room.’ ‘I get them off the computer.’





CY: Because she’s buying it from Amazon.com.





CR: “That’s what’s happening. Amazon.com, Itunes, whatever. I’m telling you, music is going to get really good now. It’s gonna get interesting. It’s gonna get good and everyone is going to see because I don’t know if you got a chance to see what BET tried to do the other night.”





CY: It was horrible. It was a train wreck.





CR: “It was a train wreck. It was horrible. It just made no sense. Let me tell you the shame of it all. The best performance of it that night was The O'Jays and they’re old guys but they just bring the truth. Everything else is just garbage.”





CY: The Beatles, The Supremes, those are acts that are part of music history. And you look at the acts today and you’re gonna say to yourself, how many of these acts are we really going to remember in 50 years?





CR: “No one’s special right now. The O’Jays were special. The Beatles were special. Why were they special? Because they sat down and worked on being special. The combination of John Lennon and Paul McCartney writing and I don’t know if you ever pay attention to the fact that they always were kind of like opposite or contrary of each other. That’s what made it crazy. It was brilliant.”





CY: And now everybody just wants to go make a record, collect a paycheck, and go home.





CR: “Oh yeah. Eight bars and everyone has the audacity to say that Chris Brown is the next Michael Jackson.”





CY: Are you freaking kidding me?





CA: “But they’re serious.”





CY: I know, but I’m saying are you freaking kidding me? They might be serious, but are you freaking kidding me?





CR: “That’s the way I felt about it. I really can get into this whole thing and go crazy about it, but I said to myself for years ok. There’s times when I try and be different, but there’s other times where I sit there in the studio and say I cannot believe that I’m working with this person and this is what it is. And they all have the nerve to have attitudes.





Then you work with a guy like Michael Jackson who when he was late, he was supposed to be in the studio at twelve and he showed up about quarter to one. He felt so terrible for being late he apologized the whole session. The next day he sent a big giant basket because we’re talking about movies and that how much I love movies. So he sent me this giant basket.”





CY: With all these different movies in it.





CR: “Oh my goodness, it probably had 100 DVDs. It had popcorn, candy, all kinds of books and movie trivia, all kinds of stuff. Again the card said, ‘I’m very sorry for not respecting your time.’”





CY: It’s the thought that counts. Absolutely!





CR: “Right. I would say Mike, what time do you want to start tomorrow? He said, ‘Cory, you’re the boss. You tell me what time. If you want me here seven in the morning, I will be here at seven in the morning.’ He said, ‘You are the boss. Whatever you tell me.’





CY: What I find interesting about those comments is the way the mainstream media projects it is that he wanted to always do things his way.





CR: “Not at all, not at all. That’s what I said. It’s like if the world would just stop and just really pay attention.”





CA: “Stepping back a minute and talking about what’s out there now is I’m horrified to think of the Michael Jackson tributes that’s gonna come out. I’m horrified to think of what his family may attempt to put out. I’m horrified to think of what records the labels are gonna attempt to put together.”





CR: “The one thing that I’m looking forward to coming out is Michael had been sitting on all of the footage of the Victory tour because he owns all of the footage of the Victory tour. I used to beg him all the time please. As a matter of fact, I do have a DVD unedited. It’s the straight footage for you.”





CA: “Maybe Cory will play it for you some time.”





CY: Or he’ll let me borrow it and I’ll promise I’ll return it later.





CR: “It’s amazing. The guy did not lip synch. His voice sounded so amazing. It’s ridiculous. He did all the dancing. He did all the stuff like that. It’s just that he conditioned himself to be able to do that.”





CA: “Only one artist that I’ve ever seen and it’s an entirely different animal that I’ve ever seen two plus hours on stage and Michael usually went two and a half. At least that one concert we watched was close to two and a half in Brazil, the only one that’s close to that and pulled it off single handedly and did all the work, Bruce Springsteen. He never stopped.





He never leaves the stage. When Michael was leaving the stage it was for one minute to change his clothes and it was a real one minute. It wasn’t the ten minutes. It was the 12 beauty police in there. He was back on. By the way, has anybody bothered speaking of dancers’ feet? Has anybody bothered to look how this kid danced? Who idolized Michael Jackson? Fred Astaire. I mean come on.”





CR: “It’s so many stories. It’s so many things. Michael, he loved to sit and tell stories. He loved to talk…talk…talk about everything. Every time he came to like a city or something I remember he wanted to go to the bookstore. They closed the bookstore down. He’d go to get books. He’d read. He’d educate me on Africa and how beautiful Africa is. He said, ‘You know, people don’t want you to know how beautiful Africa is because they’re over there robbing it of all its riches.’ But he said, ‘It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life.’ He brought me pictures. It’s just amazing. Remember Chris, David Blaine buried himself alive?”





CA: “Yeah. Sure. He used to hang out on our floor at Sony. You don’t remember, but he used to hang out up there around the time your friend 50 Cent was running getting us coffee.”





CY: This is a very random story, but continue.





CR: “So David Blaine buried himself alive in the city over by the Trump building.”





CY: Trump National Towers.





CR: “Right. When I told Michael that was going on, he was like, ‘You gotta be kidding?’ I said, I’m telling you. He didn’t even know who David Blaine was. I started like sending for like video footage and everything because we didn’t have YouTube then. I started sending for footage to explain to him who David Blaine was. He was so fascinated. We got in a van that night and we went to see David Blaine late at night. We went over there.





We jumped out the van and he like a kinda partial disguise and no one really knew it was him. He jumped out and walked right over there and we sat there and he was fascinated by it. It was funny. Then we were laughing because sometimes he said, ‘You know what? Half the time someone is going to think it’s an impersonator and not me anyway. Sometimes I can just jump out.”





CY: You seem to have had a lot of personal conversations with him, but did you ever talk with about the plastic surgery?





CR: “Yup.”





CY: And what did he tell you?





CR: “He said, ‘What’s the difference in me and Sylvester Stallone and anybody else in Hollywood?’ He said, ‘So what?’ He said, ‘My skin disease, I don’t want to be white.’ He said, ‘That’s not what I’m trying to do.’ He said, ‘But I couldn’t help my skin disease.’ He said, ‘I did try a surgery to even it all out and do things like that that did not turn out the way I wanted it to turn out, but that’s not the reason I turned into a light skinned black man.’ As far as my nose he said, ‘I hated my nose just like Sylvester Stallone hated his.’”





CA: “Look what he said his father told him.’





CR: “Yeah. He said, ‘I hated my chin. I hated my nose.’ He said, ‘And so what?’ He said, ‘Why is it just me?’ He said, ‘Why is it just me?’ He said, ‘I can show you 20 people in Hollywood that’s got nose jobs, lip jobs, botox, all kinds of stuff.’”





CY: Is there anything else you’d like to share?





CA: “The only thing I want to share, my uncle used to be real close friends with Bill Cosby. In the late 60s he handed me one of the first records I ever had. I think the first record I ever had was The Monkeys. He handed me a Michael Jackson Bill Cosby record that they did. I still have it. It’s kind of like a yellow submarine with a beautiful booklet inside. One of the most cherished possessions I have and I can’t wait to see it on Saturday.





On my thoughts with Michael Jackson regarding anything else, I just hope that the landslide is going to come out in the next couple of weeks. I hope that some people start discussing all the good that he did because if you weigh the good against the bad, he’s the most famous person in the world. It’s been on TV 24/7 for six days. That’s just my hope. God bless him and let him rest in peace and we’ll all see him someday later in our life and I’m sure he’ll be singing and dancing his ass off.”





CR: “As far as I’m concerned, actually Sunday I went to church and I spoke to my pastor at my church cause I wanted to be clear on something. I wanted to make sure that I’m not going to get attacked or get any trouble by expressing myself the way I’ve been expressing myself. I said, not to compare anyone to Christ because there is no comparison to Christ. If you just look at a second this world that we live in within God’s world which is called the entertainment world.”





CY: Yeah. Fair enough.





CR: “Michael, to me, I can only tell you to me and I’m sure I can get you dozens and dozens and dozens and hundreds of thousands of people who feel the same. Michael Jackson was like a Christ like figure for us. To know that this man over the last 15 years has been torn down, crucified, slandered, badmouthed, everyone would rather talk about something negative like he wanted to buy the elephant man’s bones. So what? You know what? I would buy them too.”





CA: “Me too.”





CR: “I think it’s cool. I would do it too. But because it was him, they always had some negative instead of positive. My heart is completely broken. My inspiration, the light of inspiration that I once had from a kid is completely dim at this point for me. I don’t know because I was not one of the disciples or whatever that followed behind Christ and had to look at him being crucified and hung from a cross.





But I’m sure their hearts were just as broken as well and my heart is broken. Moving forward with this business, all I can say is that I’m happy that there is a time we live in where we can kinda do things independently and we don’t have to deal with the hypocrites as much, but we are surrounded by hypocrites in this business. It’s just a tragedy. I always wondered what it would be like if something God forbid happened to Michael. I don’t think I ever really wanted to feel it. I just always kind of wondered like my goodness, what would happen? Well, here we are. And so far everything that’s happened is pretty much exactly what I thought what was going to happen.”





CA: “Cory and I speak countless times every day. We have basically for the last 20 years.”





CY: I can tell.





CA: “When this happened as I was emailing Cory and at one moment I got his wife on the phone but that was it. I didn’t hear from Cory for three days. Emails, phone calls, no answer. I knew that he was mourning and I was distraught about this.”





CR: “Because I cried for three days.”





CA: “He called me up Monday morning and I think it’s a very appropriate quote here, ‘Ok, it’s Monday. We gotta go back to work because Michael would’ve gone back to work.’”





CR: “And that’s the truth.”





CA: “Very poignant to me.”





CR: “Michael would’ve gone back to work. Like I said, he took his bumps, he took his bruises. He was one of the toughest men I ever met, and that’s the truth. He was a rugged tough guy. There was nothing timid about Michael Jackson.”





CY: You’ve told me a different story that the mainstream media is totally not focused on. What you’re saying to me is the industry is not totally focusing on really how important this guy was as a whole?





CR: “Nope.”





CA: “Nope. Not even close.”





CR: “They’re not even scratching the surface.”





CY: As you know in this 24 hour news cycle, it’s about what I put out, how quickly do I put it out and who’s listening.





CR: “I think they go off the fact like everything else in the world. This news, it’s the very reason National Enquirer exists.”





CY: Still exists. I’m not sure if either of you heard, but Vibe Magazine for example folded today. With the tabloid outlets online, I would not be surprised if the National Enquirer would join that list. I don’t know if you guys know this, but they’ve been having financial issues in the last six months also. Regardless, it’s all going online.





CR: “Well, I believe that anyway and that’s what I said. You know what? It gives the freedom to people like yourself to be able do something right.”





CY: Yeah. Sure, on the record.





CR: “Instead of trying to follow suit to say the Enquirer, Star Magazine, they position them right like at that cash register when you go in and it says some crazy shit on the title on the cover. Michael Jackson sleeps in the hyperbaric chamber.”





CA: “No. It’s Obama’s gay last week.”





CR: “That’s what I’m saying, enough of that. I think they’re always going to opt for the lowest form instead of saying let’s do a head count and see how many children Michael Jackson changed their life or did anything. Here’s a last fact that no one ever touched on. Both the boys that allegedly accused Michael were both kids that were involved in or their parents were in prior scams or something like that.”





CY: I remember the recent one, she tried to get her kids to fall over like in JCPenney and sue for harmful injury or something like that.





CR: “Yeah and then they tried to do something with George Lopez. They tried to say that he stole their money out of the comedy store when they were at the comedy stores. He said they robbed one of their wallets and stole from them.”



CY: Looking back on that, it was mentioned for 10 seconds and that was mentioned once.





CR: “Because it’s not important to the public.”





CY: Cause it’s not somebody important to the public because they’re not somebody prominent who anyone’s going to care about. Who is the person again?





CA: “The media started this media frenzy, it started with OJ Simpson. It sagged into Bill Clinton. They basically beat the heck out of Bill Clinton. They went after George Bush who I did not like who I didn’t support, but they did a really good job on him. Now they’ll go after Michael Jackson and don’t kid yourself, in a year or two they’re going to go after my president also.”





CR: “Well, they went after Michael Jordan with the gambling.”





CY: He had gambling and infidelity and that’s nothing surprising, honestly anyways for the world of sports and entertainment. That’s their business.





CR: “They do stupid things. Kobe Bryant really fuck** up. He really fuck** up. You understand? But it destroyed him. Right away they ushered in, oh here comes king Lebron James.”







Last Updated ( Saturday, 12 December 2009 )


http://thesportsinterview.com/mjackson.html


http://www.cyinterview.com/

How Michael aquired the Beatles Calalogue

Acquisition


Michael Jackson acquired ATV Music Publishing in 1985 and merged it with Sony a decade later.By the mid-1980s, ATV Music Publishing and Pye Records were both up for sale. The companies were bought relatively cheaply by Australian businessman Robert Holmes à Court, who asset-stripped them and sacked many long serving employees, before selling them on again.[5][6][7] During this time, American singer Michael Jackson was recording "Say Say Say" for Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace album. Jackson stayed at the home of McCartney and his wife Linda during the recording sessions, becoming friendly with both. One evening whilst at the dining table, McCartney brought out a booklet displaying all the songs to which he owned the publishing rights.[8] He explained that music publishing was a way to make big money. Jackson replied by telling McCartney that he would buy The Beatles' songs one day. "Great. Good joke", McCartney laughed.[8]



Shortly afterward, John Branca, Jackson's attorney, advised the singer that the Northern Songs catalogue was up for sale. Warned of the competition he would face in buying such popular songs, Jackson remained resolute in his decision to purchase them.[9] Branca approached McCartney's attorney to query whether the Beatle was planning to bid. The attorney stated he wasn't; it was "too pricey".[9] McCartney had previously attempted to purchase Northern Songs alongside John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono in 1981 for $20 million; the pair would each pay $10 million. Ono refused as she thought it was too high a price. Not wanting to spend the $20 million himself, McCartney let the sale fall through.[9] After months of negotiating, Branca closed the deal and purchased Northern Songs on Jackson's behalf for $47.5 million.[9]



In an analysis of the acquisition, Los Angeles Times noted that if "Yesterday" were to earn $100,000 a year in royalties, the Lennon estate and McCartney would divide 50% of the income; $25,000 each. The publisher, Jackson, would receive the other 50%; $50,000. It was added that "Yesterday" in particular would earn considerably more than $100,000 a year. The publisher would also control the use of the song in films, commercials and stage productions.[9] Jackson went on to use the Beatles' songs in numerous commercials, feeling that it would enable a new generation of fans to enjoy the music. McCartney, who himself had used the Buddy Holly song catalogue in commercials, felt saddened.[9] Privately, Jackson was reported to have expressed exasperation at McCartney's attitude; he felt that the musician should have paid for the songs he had written.[9] At the time, McCartney was one of the richest entertainers in the world, with a net worth of $560 million and a royalty income of $41 million.[9] Jackson stated, "If he didn't want to invest $47.5 million in his own songs, then he shouldn't come crying to me now".[9]



Ono was pleased that Jackson had acquired Northern Songs and called it a "blessing".[9] Speaking in November, 1990, Ono stated, "Businessmen who aren't artists themselves wouldn't have the consideration Michael has. He loves the songs. He's very caring."[9] She added that if she and McCartney were to own the songs, there would certainly be arguments. Ono explained that neither she or McCartney needed that. "If Paul got the songs, people would have said, 'Paul finally got John'. And if I got them, they'd say, 'Oh, the dragon lady strikes again'".[9]

 
For more click on the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony-ATV_Music_Publishing#Acquisition

Where is Jordan Chandler Now?

Take a look....
---

Time flies when you’re living off of Michael Jackson’s money


http://floacist.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/time-flies-when-youre-living-off-of-michael-jacksons-money/

Michael Jackson: It's Time For Outlets to Take Responsibility in Covering the Rock Star

Last week Michael Jackson's guitarist discredited widely reported allegations about the star's behaviour on the road. So why is the media refusing to publish her comments? British writer Charles Thomson explores media bias against black music's biggest star.




Aging glam-rocker Gene Simmons made international headlines last month when he claimed to know that Michael Jackson had molested children. In an interview with Classic Rock, Simmons alleged that Jackson was on tape ordering alcohol for children and that during the star's 2005 trial a travel agent had testified to importing Brazilian boys for Jackson's amusement. He also claimed that a musician friend had quit a Jackson tour after seeing 'boys coming out of the hotel rooms.'



What followed was a classic example of copy and paste journalism. Within hours the story had been duplicated by hundreds of blogs, forums and news websites from Australia to India to the USA. None of them had fact-checked the story before they re-hosted it. Jackson was never on tape ordering alcohol for children. There was never any testimony during his trial about young Brazilian boys. Both of these claims were easily disproven by trial transcripts.



As a relative Jackson expert, I was also unaware of any musician ever leaving one of the singer's tours midway through. So when I sat down a fortnight ago for an interview with Jackson's long serving tour guitarist Jennifer Batten, I ran the story by her.



She told me that no musician had ever quit a Jackson tour. Two musicians had been fired but both were let go before the show hit the road, so they couldn't possibly have witnessed anything going on inside hotels.



When Sawf News published Batten's rebuttal I observed an all too familiar phenomenon. Although the story appeared on Google News and was picked up fairly swiftly by the Examiner, nobody else seemed willing to touch it. Whilst Simmons's speculative and ultimately baseless accusations had been reproduced the world over, Batten's expert rebuttal was being suppressed.



I soon began receiving emails from Jackson's fans telling me that they were sending the story to every celebrity news outlet they could think of, including several of those which published Simmons's initial allegations.



But more than 48 hours later, typing an exact quote from Simmons's rant into a search engine produced almost 350 webpages. The number of news outlets hosting Batten's rebuttal? Three.



This was not the first time I'd had a Jackson story suppressed. After Evan Chandler's suicide in November 2009 I was contacted by the Sun and asked to supply information about the 1993 allegations. I spent quite some time compiling my research, advising the newspaper of common myths and how to avoid them, being careful to source all of my facts from legal documents and audio/visual evidence.



When I read the finished article I was stunned to find that all of my information had been discarded and replaced with the very myths I had advised them to avoid. I alerted staff to the inaccuracies but my emails were not replied. The same inaccuracies appeared in every single article I read about the suicide.



The same bias manifested itself the following month when Jackson's FBI file was released. Across more than 300 pages of information there was not one piece of incriminating evidence -- but that's not the way the media told it.



A videotape seized at customs in West Palm Beach and analysed for child pornography was repeatedly referred to as belonging to Jackson. In actuality, files stated merely that the tape was 'connected' to Jackson and that connection appeared simply to be that somebody had written his name on the sticky label.



In another document the FBI logged a telephone call from a tipster claiming that the bureau had investigated Jackson during the 1980s for molesting two Mexican boys. The files made no other mention of the supposed investigation and the claim was ascribed no validity -- the call was merely noted. But the media persistently referred to the anonymous tipster's unsupported allegations as the FBI's own conclusions.



Jackson's FBI file overwhelmingly supported his innocence but its contents were routinely manipulated to give the opposite impression.



Many are quick to scoff when Jackson's fans speak of a media conspiracy to destroy the star's reputation and I used to scoff with them. As a member of the industry I prefer not to think of it as sinister and conspiratorial, but I find it increasingly difficult to explain away the bias with which Jackson is treated.



I wonder whether the problem is pride. When the 1993 allegations broke, the vast majority of information available was released, either officially or unofficially, by the prosecution. Jackson, meanwhile, remained characteristically silent.



Perhaps because the prosecution's version of events went almost completely unchallenged (although I imagine that drama and selling newspapers had something to do with it, too), the media primarily chose to portray Jackson as guilty.



But as the facts started to trickle out it became increasingly apparent that the case was full of holes. The allegations had been instigated not by the boy but by his father, who had demanded a scriptwriting deal from Jackson before he went to the police. He was on tape plotting to destroy Jackson's career and dismissing his son's wellbeing as 'irrelevant'. Then the boy told cops that Jackson was circumcised, but a police body search concluded that he was not.



Although Jackson's innocence looked increasingly likely, most news outlets had made their bed and to this day they seem unwilling to do anything but lie in it.



Whatever the motivation, be it pride, profit or plain old racism, the bias against Jackson is undeniable. The suppression of Batten's comments proves once more than when it comes to Jackson the media is interested not in fact or reason but negativity and sensationalism. Batten accompanied Jackson on all three of his world tours and was known for a decade as his 'right hand woman'. But Simmons -- who self-confessedly did not know Jackson -- has been given over 100 times more media coverage for his inaccurate ranting than Batten has for her firsthand experience.



It is time for outlets to assume responsibility for their own content. Websites should not re-host other publishers' stories unless they can be completely certain that the content is factual. Even if the media refuses to print the truth about Jackson, they should compromise by not printing the lies either. At least that way he can rest in peace.
--



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-thomson/michael-jackson-its-time_b_482176.html

Michael Jackson's Security Guard: Singer Is Innocent

Michael Jackson's Security Guard: Singer Is Innocent


Michael Jackson's private security guard and assistant, the one who traveled with him exclusively during the time Jackson knew his current accuser and family, says the singer will be proven innocent of all charges.



Yesterday I talked to Mike LaPerruque, a retired sergeant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who remains on reserve after a 22-year active career.



LaPerruque says he worked for Jackson from August 2001 until June 2003, was with him in New York for the 30th anniversary solo concerts, Jackson's escape from New York following September 11, and on several occasions met the boy who's accusing Jackson of child molestation, as well as the boy's mother and siblings.



If he's called before a jury, LaPerruque — who signed a confidentiality agreement with Jackson during his employment — will testify that the singer can only be innocent of all charges.

 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114041,00.html

'Why' was Michael Jackson taking an extreme drug?

The recently released FBI files debunk the myth of Michael Jackson as child molester. Is it time to ask who is really responsible for his death - Dr Conrad Murray or the media? Photo Credit: Sawf News


By Deborah Ffrench



January 13, 2010, (Sawf News) - The one question I hear no-one asking in the press or blogland in general is:- 'why' was Michael Jackson taking an extreme drug? What made a relatively fit man known for abstention from the early part of his career until the mid-1990's, end his days in a made-to-measure trauma room?


http://www.sawfnews.com/Gossip/62205.aspx

FBI Files Support Jackson's Innocence; Media Reports Otherwise

FBI Files Support Jackson's Innocence; Media Reports Otherwise



I should begin by saying that the release of Michael Jackson's FBI file was not motivated by any desire to damage his legacy or smear his name. Many of Jackson's fans are understandably distrustful of the establishment which repeatedly pursued the star on trumped up charges, but the release of Jackson's FBI file is no conspiracy. Jackson's file was requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and I was one of those who requested it.


http://charlesthomsonjournalist.blogspot.com/2010/01/fbi-files-support-jacksons-innocence.html

The Lynching of Michael Jackson

The Lynching of Michael Jackson

Written by Jeff Koopersmith
Friday, 26 June 2009
---


First published in 2003, Jeff Koopersmith not only warned about the power of FOX News Channel&039;s Bill O'Reilly to foment hate but mustered a bold defense of Michael Jackson.


Feb. 20, 2003 -- NEW YORK (apj.us) -- Bill O'Reilly, master hatemonger for Rupert Murdoch's/Roger Ailes' FOX News Channel, should be proud of himself this week.


His vicious, nonstop attacks on Michael Jackson have come to fruition in the massively frenzied media lynching of the once-innocent, now-trampled persona of the little boy who led the Jackson Five, and later lost himself to what I call "The American Nightmare": reaching the pinnacle of success only to be gunned down from the envy of it.


http://www.apj.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2474&Itemid=2

DCFS Memo dated 11/26/03 regarding "the children vs. the entertainer"

This is the confidential Department of Children & Family Services memorandum detailing the Los Angeles child welfare agency's February 2003 investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson. The Smoking Gun has blurred the names of the children involved in the probe, which ended with a finding that the charges were "unfounded."



http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/dcfsmemo2.html

About Tom Sneddon's past.....

The following information was posted by a blogger on the Michael Jackson Social Network (www.mjsn.org). I do not have any sources to cite but, after going through the list myself, I doesn’t seem to me like the blogger is making this up.



Also, since these are supposed to be actual court cases, it should not be to hard to do a search on internet to verify their validity.



I do encourage you to do your own research about anything that I post here. The purpose of my blog is to motivate you to want to learn more about what kind of man Michael Joseph Jackson really was.



—–



Blog article by ben



about Tom sneddons past

Saturday, November 21st 2009, 9:29 PM



specially read the ones in bold.



WHAT’S GOING ON IN SANTA BARBARA?



While it is obvious that District Attorney Tom Sneddon has a vendetta against Michael Jackson, there are other allegations of abuse on Sneddon’s part that have been ignored by the mainstream media. The following people have accused Sneddon and his employees of malicious prosecution, conspiracy, abuse of power and civil rights violations.



And these are just the cases that have been made public…



Gary Dunlap

In November 2003, Santa Barbara defense attorney Gary Dunlap filed a $10 million lawsuit against Tom Sneddon, accusing him of racketeering, witness tampering, conspiracy and malicious prosecution. Earlier that year, Sneddon had charged Dunlap with perjury, witness intimidation, filing false documents and preparing false documents in a case that Dunlap had handled. Dunlap was acquitted on all charges but claims his reputation has been irreparably harmed as a result of the proceedings. In an interview with Online Legal Review’s Ron Sweet, Dunlap claimed that Sneddon stacked the charges against him in order to get a conviction on at least one count; apparently, this is a common occurrence in Sneddon’s office. Dunlap also discussed Sneddon’s frequent abuse of power and claimed that there are other lawyers who have seen this. A judge recently upheld most of Dunlap’s lawsuit and the case will soon go to trial unless a civil settlement is reached.



In related news, Dunlap’s lawyer Joe Freeman recently sent a complaint asking that federal, state and county officials investigate Tom Sneddon and members of the Santa Barbara Police Department for misconduct. “In my opinion, the matters to be investigated are the possible criminal violations of several felony and misdemeanour statutes, including conspiracy, illegal taping, deceiving a court and a prosecutor illegally assisting the defense of a case,” Freeman said in his complaint. “I respectfully request that the U.S. Attorney, the California Attorney General, the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury and the State Bar open investigations and seek whatever sanctions are found to be warranted against Sneddon and his staff.” In response to the allegations, the SBPD’s attorney Jake Stoddard said that Sneddon and his employees are immune from legal action because they are prosecutors.



Efren Cruz

In 2001, a man named Efren Cruz filed a federal lawsuit against Santa Barbara prosecutors accusing them of negligence and conspiracy to keep him in prison. The lawsuit also accused District Attorney Tom Sneddon of malicious prosecution. Cruz was incarcerated for four years after being convicted of murder in 1997. The lawsuit claimed that prosecutors had evidence favourable to Cruz but failed to hand it over to the defense before the trial. After Cruz was convicted, the real murderer was caught on tape confessing to the crime. Regardless, Santa Barbara prosecutors stood by their conviction until the case was taken to a higher court where Cruz was exonerated.



Thambiah Sundaram

Thambiah Sundaram’s contentious relationship with Santa Barbara authorities began when he opened a non-profit dental clinic in the county and began to attain political status as a result. After unsuccessfully trying to have the clinic shut down, authorities arrested Sundaram for grand theft, impersonating a doctor and malicious mischief. His wife was also arrested and an employee at the clinic was later charged with committing a drive-by shooting. All three were found not guilty. Sundaram sued Sneddon and his employees for conspiracy, false imprisonment and several civil rights violations. He was awarded almost $300,000 in damages.



Sundaram also attended a private fundraising dinner in 1994 where Tom Sneddon and other government officials allegedly discussed their plans to get rid of certain individuals in Santa Barbara who owned substantial amounts of land. Michael Jackson’s property was allegedly brought up during this meeting; Sundaram claimed that authorities wanted to acquire Neverland for vineyards.



Slick Gardner

Slick Gardner is a horse rancher who owns 2,000 acres of land in Santa Barbara. In 2003, Gardner was investigated for animal abuse after his neighbours reported that some of his horses looked unhealthy. Around the same time the allegations hit, Gardner ran for 3rd District Supervisor against John Buttny, Steve Pappas and Brooks Firestone. Firestone – who owns a successful winery in Santa Barbara and who also has political ties to Tom Sneddon and former Sheriff Jim Thomas – won the election by a landslide. As a result of the bad publicity from the animal abuse allegations, Gardner got the least amount of votes.



While investigating Gardner for animal abuse, Santa Barbara authorities also stumbled upon evidence of grand theft. Gardner was charged with 12 felony counts and hired defense attorney Steve Balash to represent him in the case. Balash later backed out of the case saying it was too complicated.



According to Gardner, Sneddon has had a grudge against him for 30 years and is only prosecuting him out of spite. “It just seems like it’s almost a vendetta deal. These guys are going so far out of their way to do things to me that normally wouldn’t be done,” Gardner said.



“The same thing that’s happening to Michael Jackson happened to me. One day Sneddon is going to wake up with a boot up his ass with a white glove in it, and it will be about time.”



Judge Rodney Melville, the same judge who will be presiding over Michael Jackson’s trial, is also involved in Gardner’s case.



Adams Bros. Farming, Inc.

In 1997, the Adams brothers purchased 268-acres of land in Orcutt and began agricultural grading on the site. 95-acres of their land was deemed an “environmentally sensitive wetland” by Santa Barbara authorities, which prevented the farmers from using it.



The brothers filed a lawsuit against the County in 2000, alleging that officials had falsely designated a portion of their land as wetland in an attempt to jeopardize the company’s financial earnings. At the request of Santa Barbara County officials, Judge Rodney Melville dismissed the brothers’ action. The brothers took their case to an appeals court where Melville’s decision was overturned.



The Court of Appeals ruled that the County had violated the company’s constitutional right to use its land and that the County and a county consultant had conspired to interfere with the company’s income.



Emilio Sutti

Emilio Sutti is a dairyman and farmer who recently filed a $10 million lawsuit against Santa Barbara County, claiming to have been the target of a government conspiracy to interfere with his company’s profits. Sutti alleged that Santa Barbara authorities have been targeting his family’s land for years. The battle began when Emilio’s brother and business partner Ed was sued by Santa Barbara County Planning and Development for alleged environmental and grading ordinance violations.



After winning a partial victory in the lawsuit, Ed Sutti was arrested and indicted for arson, witness intimidation, making terrorist threats, making false statements to an insurer, giving false deposition and four counts of state income tax evasion.



Emilio’s Sutti’s civil lawsuit was handled by Judge Rodney Melville.



Nuevo Energy Company

According to an article from The Lompoc Record: “Nuevo Energy Company has a launched a three-pronged legal attack on Santa Barbara County, claiming it violated state environmental law in using wrong baseline data in an environmental impact report, wasn’t the correct lead agency to prepare the report and wrongly applied mitigation measures in denying the Tranquillon Ridge project.” Judge Rodney Melville presided over the case.



Art Montandon

Santa Maria City Attorney Art Montandon recently filed a claim against the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office, alleging that they falsely accused him of bribing a defense attorney in a case that Sneddon was prosecuting. Montandon had evidence favourable to the defense and prosecutors tried to stop him from interfering by threatening to bring bribery charges against him. A judge later ruled that Sneddon’s office had no right to stop Montandon’s involvement in the case.



In a letter, Montandon denied any wrongdoing and lashed out at Sneddon and his employees, saying: “Unlike (Assistant District Attorney Christie) Stanley and current and former members of her office, I have never had my license to practice law suspended by the State Bar, have never been convicted of a crime, and have never been terminated from any attorney job.”



At the end of his letter, Montandon said he would reveal in court: “the full and complete story of not only the District Attorney’s unprofessional conduct, but the inappropriate conduct and motives of others working behind the scenes to cause community conflict.”



Recently, Montandon requested that the State Bar investigate Sneddon and his office for obstruction of justice.



William Wagener

William Wagener ran for 5th District County Supervisor in 2002 and was arrested shortly before the election. Because he was a convicted felon, Wisconsin authorities claimed that he had no right to run for political office. As a result, Wagener was arrested by Santa Barbara authorities.



In response, Wagener’s attorney John Holland said that his client’s prior conviction should have had no effect on his right to be a political candidate. He also said that because the terms of Wagener’s probation had been given to the SBPD in 1998, authorities were already aware of his record when they allowed him to run for office.



The charges against Wagener were dropped and he was released from jail. Still, his attorney accused Sneddon’s office of making sure Wagener was: “defamed and ridiculed in the local media in order to destroy his campaign for public office.” Wagener filed a lawsuit against the city of Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County and former Police Chief John Sterling, accusing them of violating his civil rights.



The lawsuit alleges that Police Chief John Sterling “had actual, advance knowledge of the plan by other defendants to falsely arrest, inaccurate and violate (Wagener’s) California and Federal civil rights.” Wagener claimed that authorities conspired against him because they wanted his opponent Joe Centeno to win the election.



Diana Hall

According to Gary Dunlap, when a local judge refused to change her ruling in Sneddon’s favour, Sneddon brought bogus charges against her, ruined her career and publicly humiliated her by exposing that she was a lesbian. When it became apparent to Sneddon that this judge would be a witness in the Gary Dunlap case, he threatened to bring more charges against her. The judge in question is Diana Hall.



On September 29, 2003, Hall was acquitted on charges of battery but eight months later found herself accused of violating campaign laws. On January 16th, 2004, she showed up at Michael Jackson’s arraignment because she wanted to see how Judge Rodney S. Melville handled motions. Hall told reporters: “I’m not being treated well. This has ruined my reputation, and I’m just not going to take it any longer.”



Members of the SBPD

In 2002, Santa Barbara County law enforcement groups filed a lawsuit against Tom Sneddon for threatening the police officers’ right to privacy. The lawsuit stems from a policy which allows the District Attorney’s office to give information about police misconduct to defense attorneys at its own discretion. According to Sgt. Mike McGrew, “It’s confusing. He’s an aggressive DA. There are actually no files right now on any officers in Santa Barbara. We really don’t know why he did this.” Future blackmail material perhaps?



David Allen Richardson, Carina Richardson and George Beeghly

In a civil lawsuit that was settled out of court, David Allen Richardson, Carina Richardson George Beeghly sued Sheriff Jim Thomas and several Santa Barbara police officers for unreasonable search and seizure, false arrest/false imprisonment, excessive force, retaliation for exercise of speech and petition rights, conspiracy to violate civil rights, violation of First Amendment right of association, malicious prosecution, negligence, battery and conspiracy and other charges.



The Case Sneddon Ignored

Is Tom Sneddon a concerned government official seeking justice for an allegedly abused child or is he merely a prosecutor with a grudge trying to get a conviction? Sneddon’s handling of a past child molestation case would indicate the latter.



In 2002, David Bruce Danielson, a forensic investigator for the Santa Barbara Police Department, was accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl. After returning home intoxicated, Danielson climbed into his bed where the girl, who was a guest at his home, was sleeping. Danielson admitted to “accidentally” molesting her, claiming he had mistaken her for his wife. Sneddon closed the case stating that there was no evidence to corroborate the girl’s claims.



The girl involved in the case wrote her feelings down in a letter that was published in the Santa Maria Times. “I am astounded at the stupidity the DA showed by allowing this man to be released of all charges. David Danielson may be free, but I am still emotionally trapped. There is not one day that I don’t wish I wouldn’t have come clean.” About Sneddon’s handling of the Michael Jackson case, the girl’s father said, “Maybe it’s because it is high profile… but still, in her mind it’s the same situation. She’s still angry.”



While it seems that child abuse might not be Tom Sneddon’s first priority, the question still remains whether or not he would really pursue seemingly false allegations in order to carry out his own personal agenda. After learning the facts about the Michael Jackson case and reading through the numerous accusations that have been made against Tom Sneddon, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that…

The 2003 Allegations....

People vs. Jackson (full case name: 1133603: The People of the State of California v. Michael Joseph Jackson) 2005 trial involving recording artist Michael Jackson. The accuser was a boy, Gavin Arvizo, who was 13 years old at the time of the alleged crimes.

—



Click on the link below to read the rest of the story:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Jackson

My Letter to Jordan

mekolovesmj (aka - techlilinu) says:


February 15, 2010 at 6:37 pm

Dear Jordan:



This request may seem old to you by now but, I still want to make it so that you can see how important it is to clear Michael’s name.



First, my condolences to you on your father’s death. Even though he committed a violent crime against Michael, he is still your father and I am sure his passing is a great loss to you. For that I am sorry.



I also want you to know that I bear no ill will against you for the evil plot that your father concocted to hurt Michael. You were just a child who was unaware of your father’s true motives.



But, you are a adult now Jordan. And, as an adult, you are now capable of correcting the wrong that your father did against Michael. You have the power to make this right because, even though it was not your idea to extort money from Michael, you were old enough to know what the true nature of your relationship with Michael was.



From what I have read, you officially met Michael when you were 12 years old. At 12, you would have been old enough to know if Michael was behaving inappropriately towards you. You would have also noticed how kind he was to you, your mother and your sister. He was kind to all of you , without wanting anything in return. You were old enough to know that if you felt uncomfortable around Michael for any reason, all you would have had to do was tell your mother and she would have put a stop to the relationship. No matter how big a star Michael was, a mother would do that to protect her child.



Knowing all of this, how could you not want to stand up for Michael. When you look at the pictures from your 1993 trip with Michael to the World Music Awards in Monaco, what do you think about? What do you remember? If it is nothing less than, happiness, joy and fun, then how could you not want to do what you can to stop the ugly rumors that have been circling Michael since your father decided that he should be labeled a pedophile.



Accusing Michael of molesting you was the act of violence that your father committed against Michael. Pedophilia is the most heinous of crimes and accusing Michael of that when it was not true, not only hurt his life but, it also hurt his soul. It set in motion a series of negative events that would occur over the next 17 years and that would eventually lead to his death on June 25, 2009.



Jordan, you now have the power to make this right. Clearing Michael’s name in the public’s eye will not bring him back but, it will help to remove that ugly pedophilia label that has been hanging over his head since your father put it out there.



The public will know that, at age 12, you were old enough to know if Michael was being sexually inappropriate with you. If you, the “alleged victim” finally say it didn‘t happen, how could anyone else say otherwise.



Also by, clearing Michael‘s name, not only will you be making things right for Michael but, you will also be making things right for his children. They deserve to enter the adult world knowing that the world is aware that their father was a good and decent man. You are the one that can make that happen.



It is also crucial that you clear Michael’s name before Prince Michael Jackson I turns 18. At that point the media will no longer treat him with kid gloves. Since he carries Michael’s name, he will more than likely be subjected to the same mistreatment by the media that his father received, simply because of who he is.



Is that something you can live with? Do those kids deserve that kind of treatment. Michael cared a lot about you and treated you with a lot of love and kindness. His children deserve nothing less. For whatever reason, you were not able to stand up for him while he was alive. You can make that up to him now by clearing his name and thereby protecting his children.



That act of decency would make Michael very happy because he will know that his children will not have to deal with the stigma of his ordeal. It would also make him very proud of you because he will see that you are the good person that he always thought you were.



Please Jordan, stand up for Michael.

Do the right thing, do it the right way and do it soon before it really is too late.



It will be one of the most important things that you will ever do in your life.



techlilinu

A believer in the truth about MJ
----


http://dearjordanchandler.com/?pagename=login

Geraldine Hughes – Redemption

While reading Mary’s article, you may have noticed that she mentions a “diary kept by Rothman’s former colleague”. Rothman is the attorney that represented the father who brought the ‘93 molestation charge against MJ.




For whatever reason, Mary never names the former colleague. That former colleague has remained anonymous until recently. She has now come out with her own book that clearly shows that the molestation charges made against MJ were created as part of a plan to extort money from him.



Geraldine Hughes is the name of that former colleague of Rothman, and she has written a book called “Redemption”, that she insists proves Michael Jackson’s innocence. Click on the links listed below, to learn more about her and her book.



http://www.blackgospelpromo.com/mj/




http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/11/prweb90995.htm




I have read the book myself, and it is well worth reading. It further clarifies the attrocities that MJ had to endure as a result of these false accusations.

Former Protege defends Michael Jackson

Robert Newt and his twin brother spent time with Michael back in 1985 when they were 11 years old.




Click on the link below to read the article where he discusses what happened when the National Enquirer approached him to talk about his time with Michael.

—-



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152708,00.html

More on the 1993 allegations….

In 1993, Michael Jackson was accused of abuse by Evan Chandler, on behalf of his then-13-year-old child, Jordan Chandler. Jackson and Jordan had become friends in May 1992, to the father’s disapproval and concern. The friendship became well known, as the tabloid media reported that Jackson became a member of the Chandler family unit. Under the influence of a controversial sedative administered by Evan Chandler, his son said that Jackson had touched his penis.[1] Evan Chandler was tape-recorded threatening to damage the singer’s music career,[2] and engaged Jackson in unsuccessful negotiations to resolve the issue with a financial settlement.[3] Jordan Chandler then told a psychiatrist and later police that he and Jackson had engaged in acts of kissing, masturbation, and oral sex, as well as giving a description of what he alleges were the singer’s genitals.[3][4]


—-



Click on the link below to read the rest of the story.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Chandler

Let's start with the 1993 accusations.

Click on the following link


http://www.buttonmonkey.com/misc/maryfischer.html  to learn about what happened to MJ in 1993.



If you heard about the 1993 accusations but, never really heard the whole story, then this is the article to read.



Mary Fischer does an excellent job of explaining how MJ ended up in that situation, how it developed and why MJ settled.



Ms Fischer should be commended for the outstanding job she did on this article. She displays honesty, integrity and objectivity in her work. Those are the hallmarks, I feel, of responsible journalism.



To get a clear picture of what happened, this is the place to start. It is worth taking the time to read.

More about Michael and the importance of vindication

Please click on the links listed below to see other sites dedicated to explaining what happened to Michael n the last 20 years of his life and why it is important to vindicate him.



http://www.charles-thomson.net/



http://michaeljacksonconspiracy.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=10



http://www.mjtruthnow.com/


http://www.michaeljacksonjustice.com/


http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Vindication_Better_Than_Tributes/

What to expect.

My updates to this blog may come in many forms. They may come in the form of a commentaries, links pointing to other sites dedicated to explaining what happened to Michael or, links pointing to other articles or books providing an honest and objective report on the accusations and the trials.


Whatever the case may be, what you will find here is content that I feel is credible and worth your time to read and to motivate you to start your on research on your path to the truth about Mr. Michael Joseph Jackson.



The truth is out there about MJJ. You just have to be ready and willing to look for it.



Love you always MJJ,

RIP