Born on December 11: Jermaine Jackson, Michael's older brother

At the Jackson family home in Gary, Indiana, under the thumb of an authoritarian father, things have always been done within the family. Without escaping a little friction...

Born in 1954, Jermaine has always been the middle child. A year older, only Tito could have claimed the title of Michael's runner-up, but, with the exception of his sister Janet, Jermaine is the only one to have attempted to commercially compete with Michael Jackson. Not that he's never lived up to the hype.  In 2012, it was also he, it seems, who convinced Tito, Marlon, Randy and Marion to capitalize once again on the Jacksons' past glory. Today, they still perform sporadically on stage, playing a few of their late brother's songs and, of course, a Jackson 5 medley. But, after Tito's death in September 2024, and without Jermaine for the past four years, the heart's not really in it anymore!

After the magical years of the Jackson Five (1963 to 1976) and regular participation in the Jacksons, Jermaine tried everything to write his name in music history. In fact, his first solo album in 1972 bore his first name alone. He went even further with “My Name Is Jermaine” in 1976 and, in case anyone forgot, a second “Jermaine” in 1980. The least we can say is that the boy's got a mind of his own!

Although he enjoyed immediate success with the languorous (even syrupy) “Daddy's Home” in 1972, the singer struggled to find his own style, wavering between gospel and electronic funk-pop. In the latter genre, the single “Let's Get Serious”, composed and produced by Stevie Wonder in 1980, sold two million copies. In all, he recorded some fifteen studio albums, including “Dynamite” in 1984 and “I Wish You L.OV.E.” in 2012, more for its title than for the jazzy covers it features. Frank Sinatra's immortalized “I've Got You Under My Skin” certainly comes into its own, but his covers of Louis Armstrong and especially Joseph Kozma's “Autumn Leaves” don't add much to the originals.

Although he always enjoyed duets, including one with his brother Michael, one of his most imperishable faults of taste in this field is “When The Rain Begins To Fall” with Pia Zadora, which also served as the soundtrack for the film “Voyage Of The Rock Aliens”, a serious contender for the title of cinema's biggest turnip!

(Stéphane Soupart - Transl.: MH - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)
Photo: Jermaine Jackson on the set of an RTBf TV show in Brussels (Belgium), September 1982.