08/29/14 – The Jacksons are performing tomorrow night at the 2014 Allstate Tom Joyner Family Reunion. They are currently on tour and recording a new album.
The famous brothers talked to the TJMS about growing up in his Indiana, their sleeping arrangements in the small home and who pee’d in the bed.
Click the link above to hear their tribute to Michael or read it below!
TOM JOYNER: We are here onstage with the Jacksons. And I wish you were here, during the break we did Acapulco Jackson Five and Jackson songs and Jermaine Jackson songs and everybody sang along. It was incredible Jackie.
JACKIE: Incredible, amazing.
JACKIE: It’s great to sing with you, Tom.
TOM JOYNER: Yeah. Turn these mics up. You know, they talk soft. (Laughter). I don’t know they do it. Jermaine.
JERMAINE: Except for Tito.
SYBIL WILKES: (Laugh)
JERMAINE: Oh, I don’t …
ANTHONY BROWN: Yeah, Tito’s got that bass.
TOM JOYNER: Yeah. Hey, Jermaine, what’s going on, man?
JERMAINE: What’s going on with you?
TOM JOYNER: Yeah, good man. I’m so glad you’re here. I saw you guys when you opened in Vegas. I came backstage and I said; would you please, please, please bring your family and your act to the Tom Joyner Family Reunion. You said; yes, I’ll do it.
JERMAINE: Here we are.
JACKIE: Yes, sir.
TOM JOYNER: And your dad and your mom were backstage and it was a beautiful thing.
JERMAINE: Thank you.
TOM JOYNER: It was a beautiful show. And I said then, I said, if anyone gets a chance to see this show, you should. And we will have it at the family reunion. Now you’ve been touring, and everywhere you go I get messages that you turned it out and that they were coming here because they saw you in Kentucky and other places. The act is incredible. You know what I like most, Tito, and Jackie, is when you do the breakdown and you talk about how you were raised, the behind the scene stories.
JERMAINE: Uh-huh?
TOM JOYNER: About Michael. And one thing that I noticed is that watching the four of you let me know where Michael really got it from. Being the younger brother, if you’re a younger sibling, you always want to be like your older sibling. And when you see these guys performing you look on that stage and you go; oh, that’s where Mike got it from.
JERMAINE: We were blessed but at the same time we had a mother and father who really wanted us to be our best, and my father and mother they really stayed behind us. And like Tito said, Jackie, myself and Tito, we were trying to be the Isley Brothers when we first started?
TOM JOYNER: Is that true?
JACKIE: Yes.
JERMAINE: That’s what we wanted to be like. And Michael and Marlon were so young; they were too young to be in the act. So once we heard Michael singing Climb Every Mountain at a PTA meeting at school we said you’re in the group, you’ve got to be in the band.
JACKIE: That’s exactly how …
JERMAINE: That’s how it happened, and Marlon, of course …
SYBIL WILKES: Now he didn’t sing around the house with you all? This was out in public at the PTA where he sang and you heard it for the first time?
JERMAINE: Yeah.
JACKIE: Yes, yes.
TITO: We didn’t want to listen to him at all. He was just a little baby, actually. He and Marlon both running around playing with their little toys, and we were serious. We were digging the Isley. We wanted to be pros. And they’re playing cars and just saying we want to be in the group. And we like, no, get out here. You know, you’re too little (laugh) you know, you’re our little itty, bitty baby brother
TOM JOYNER: So, Jackie, you’re the oldest.
JACKIE: Yes.
TOM JOYNER: And so you dogged Marlon and Michael all the time, being the older brother.
JACKIE: Yeah.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: What was his prank?
JERMAINE: Jackie used to have us fighting all the time.
SYBIL WILKES: Oh, no.
JACKIE: But I tried to make them tough.
JERMAINE: He would, no …
JACKIE: Yeah.
JERMAINE: … Jackie would give us a quarter.
JACKIE: Because once they get outside they’re going to have to fight, so I tried to teach them how to box and …
TITO: Tell them the story, Jermaine.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Tell the story.
JACKIE: Tried to make them tough, you know.
JERMAINE: Jackie would give us a quarter if Tito could be me up. So he would have us fighting.
JACKIE: That’s true, though.
TITO: Yeah.
TOM JOYNER: Real brothers.
SYBIL WILKES: And who won those quarters?
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Who won the most fights?
SYBIL WILKES: (Laugh)
TITO: The thing about it, Jackie would pop popcorn first, he’d pop corn and watch us fight.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Well, they didn’t have a TV player and they didn’t have a television.
JACKIE: That’s right.
SYBIL WILKES: This was entertainment.
JACKIE: But we had the black and white TV. And we had the colorful screen, you know.
SYBIL WILKES: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JACKIE: And you put it on top of the TV you got color, right?
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Oh, they don’t know about that.
JACKIE: That’s how we did it back then.
JERMAINE: They don’t know about that.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: They young ones don’t know – raise your hands if you know about that. That plastic over the television?
JACKIE: Yeah.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: That’s right.
SYBIL WILKES: Now you guys, at our Family Reunion, at the Tom Joyner Family Reunion, what about your family reunion? Do you all get together?
JACKIE: Oh, yeah.
SYBIL WILKES: And so what are those like?
JACKIE: They were …
JERMAINE: Well, we just had game day at my mother’s house because she loves Pictionary. So it was all the guys against the girls and the girls won for the first time ever.
SYBIL WILKES: (Laugh)
TOM JOYNER: Wow.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Wow.
JERMAINE: The guys always beat. And so my mother was there, and she’s happy and guessing, and the girls are cheating, of course.
SYBIL WILKES: Hey, hey.
JERMAINE: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry ladies.
JERMAINE: But this time they won. But usually we win.
JERMAINE: Yeah.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: How many people would it be when you all would get together.
JERMAINE: Everybody.
TITO: It’s about the same capacity here.
JERMAINE: My mother, our father.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Wow.
JACKIE: Janet.
JACKIE: Yeah.
JACKIE: Randy.
SYBIL WILKES: I was just asking Jackie, you are the proud papa of seven month old twins?
JACKIE: Yes.
SYBIL WILKES: Isn’t that incredible?
JACKIE: Yes.
TOM JOYNER: Seven month old twins?
JACKIE: Yes.
SYBIL WILKES: Seven month old twins.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Still got it.
SYBIL WILKES: (Laugh)
JACKIE: Still got it.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Jackie, Jackie, right here, still got it, man. Still got it.
JACKIE: Yeah. We’re set.
Jackie: Jayden and River. (Laughter)
JACKIE: Seven month old twins. They’re crawling around everywhere. They keep me up all night. But they’re a lot of fun, though. I love them. They’re great.
SYBIL WILKES: And so all of your kids, do they exemplify some sort of talent or another?
JERMAINE: Oh, yeah. They’re into sports, golf, singing. You’re going to hear a lot from Tito’s sons.
TITO: No, your sons, Jermaine.
JERMAINE: Jafar, and Jamagesty, which are coming out very soon and I’m very exciting. And it’s all coming. It’s coming at you very soon.
TOM JOYNER: Today is your brother’s birthday.
JERMAINE: Yes.
TITO: Yes, it is. Yes it is.
TOM JOYNER: He’s the youngest of all the kids?
TITO: No.
SYBIL WILKES: No, Randy.
TITO: Janet.
JERMAINE: Randy then Janet.
TOM JOYNER: Randy then Janet. And I’ve seen the house at 2300 Jackson Street. Tell me about the sleeping arrangements?
JERMAINE: Well …
TOM JOYNER: How many square feet?
JERMAINE: Our bed is probably the size of a closet, but Tito and I slept at the top, and Mike and Marlon slept in the middle and Jackie slept at the bottom, but you always say he got all the showers. (Laughter)
TITO: Yeah.
JERMAINE: We were peeing in the bed.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: Which Jackson pee’d the bed the most? (Laughter)
JERMAINE: Tito.
TITO: I did.
JERMAINE: Tito did. Tito wet the bed every day. (Laughter)
TITO: Yeah, every day, I couldn’t help it.
TOM JOYNER: But really …
SYBIL WILKES: You did grow out of that though, didn’t you?
TITO: Sometimes I was afraid to go to sleep, Tom. (Laughter)
J. ANTHONY BROWN: This explain why they kept Tito on the end. (Laughter)
TITO: And my grandma used to get so mad at me. Oh, my gosh, I was scared. You know, I wouldn’t even sleep because I was scared to wet the bed.
TOM JOYNER: Scared to wet the bed, huh?
TITO: That’s right. That’s right.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: I know your pain, I know what it’s like. I understand.
TITO: I couldn’t help it.
J. ANTHONY BROWN: I understand, Tito, I understand your pain. Till I was 19. (Laughter) Hey, you don’t know my pain. You don’t know my pain.
SYBIL WILKES: And his wife said he had to do something about that.
TOM JOYNER: I think there might be a few tickets left for tomorrow night’s concert when the Jacksons, Dennis Edwards and the Temptations Review and the Bar Kays perform.
ANTHONY BROWN: Oh, my goodness.
JERMAINE: Oh!
JERMAINE: I love it.
TOM JOYNER: Yes, yes. Tomorrow night, here at the All State Tom Joyner Family Reunion. Let’s hear it for the Jacksons!
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(Photo Credit: Tony Leavell)
