I never knew this!

Michael Jackson's news in English. Your updated reference for Michael Jackson's news in English language from all around the world. Rumors, gossip and true facts. And a lot of Michael Jackson's beautiful pictures.
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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 16 agosto 2021, 10:25

I did know this but didn't realise the full extent of it. The man suffered so much more than anyone could know.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 4 settembre 2021, 9:34


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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 7 settembre 2021, 21:18


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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 8 settembre 2021, 9:48

THE UNTOLD FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN ISRAELI SINGER OFRA HAZA AND MICHAEL JACKSON
Michael was a great admirer and listener of Ofra Haza. In the late 1980s (during the Grammys), he asked her if she would meet him at an after party, she agreed.
Upon meeting, Michael at first found it hard to talk to her, talking in whispers because he felt suddenly awkward, and shy. But couldn't stop looking and smiling at her. He then told her that she had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. And asked if he could give her a hug.
She was a star, such like Michael at the time, with a reputation for clean living, as well as being highly religious.
Because he admired her music and also wanted to get to know her better, Michael invited her on the European leg of the BAD tour, as his opening act (instead of Kim Wilde). She was flattered and very tempted to accept. However, after talking all night to her record label and manager, she declined Michael's offer for religious reasons; she didn't feel she could routinely perform on Saturdays throughout the duration of the tour. The Sabbath, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week.
But this didn't distract from a friendship forming, the two communicating via long distance phone conversations, and through the most difficult period of her life. As Ofra became seriously ill. She also showed her support in the Israeli press for Michael.
Tragically, #OfraHaza had been infected with HIV, the press blamed it on her estranged husband. Her husband had said that she became infected due to a blood transfusion in a Turkish hospital following a miscarriage.
(More research outside the scope of a Michael Jackson page is required to determine the accuracy of evidence of either of these two statements.) Ofra Haza finally died in February of 2000 at just 42 years of age, due to AIDS-related pneumonia.
On 22 March 2007, on the seventh anniversary of her death, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality and the Tel Aviv Development Fund renamed part of the public park in the Hatikva Quarter Gan Ofra (Ofra's Park) in her honor. The park is placed at the end of Bo'az street where Haza's childhood home was. The park features a children's playground, symbolizing her love for children and the old quarter where she grew up and always came back to.
Here is the song that initially captured Michael's attention:
https://youtu.be/O-R-Z8DYb5s
Bat-Sheva Ofra Haza
Hebrew: בת-שבע עופרה חזה
1957 -- 2000

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 25 settembre 2021, 17:00

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 5 ottobre 2021, 10:02

Keen Zhang
@mkgenie

New book:Along with I Have This Dream – which Bottrell says sounded “grand” – two other Jackson-Abdulla co-writes were mentioned: Light the Way and He Who Makes the Sky Gray. None of the Bahrain recordings are likely to be released,because of Abdulla’s respect for the MJ’s legacy

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 9 ottobre 2021, 7:59

The funeral of James Brown
Michael would make his first public appearance on American soil since the end of his criminal trial less than a week later, though, when he flew to Georgia for the funeral of James Brown. The seventy-three-year-old Brown had died of congestive heart failure on Christmas morning after being admitted to an Atlanta hospital with pneumonia. Two days later, his body was transported to Harlem for an open-casket viewing at the Apollo Theater that would last all day and into the evening of December 28 in order to accommodate the lines, in which some people waited as long as five hours in the cold for a look at the Godfather of Soul. By nine that night, Brown’s remains were in the cargo hold of a private jet, on their way back to his hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Michael Jackson was flying toward Georgia also, and made it to Augusta’s C. A Reid Sr. Memorial Funeral Home just after midnight on December 29, less than an hour after the arrival of James Brown’s body.
The gold-plated casket was in the chapel when Mr. Jackson walked into his establishment at about 12:30 a.m., Charles Reid recalled, and he immediately asked that the funeral director raise the lid. Michael looked at James Brown’s embalmed body lying in a bed of cream-color satin, dressed in a black jacket worn over a ruffled red shirt, then leaned over to kiss the corpse on the forehead. He ran his hands through Brown’s freshly oiled pompadour and pulled a lock down onto the brow, in order to create the slightly disheveled look that he had seen so many times before, onstage and in photographs. Reid was preparing a moment later to reclose the lid of the casket. Michael Jackson, though, showed no sign of leaving. “Normally, a person comes in, views, and that’s pretty much it,” Reid explained, but Michael Jackson would remain beside James Brown’s body for four and a half hours.
Mr. Jackson spent the first hour just standing and looking, Reid remembered. Gradually, he began to talk to the funeral director about how much Mr. Brown had meant to him, telling Reid that when he was six or so years old his mother used to wake him up any time James Brown was on television, just so he could watch his idol dance. The relationship that began back on the chitlin’ circuit had fluctuated over the years but grew strong in 2003, when Brown had been among the first black celebrities to offer support after criminal charges were filed against Michael Jackson.
What took Charles Reid aback on that evening in late December 2006 was that after spending about an hour beside James Brown’s casket Mr. Jackson began to ask the funeral director a series of very specific questions about the preparation of a dead body. He wanted to know “how it was done,” Reid recalled. “What do you actually do?” Mr. Jackson made him go through the entire process in elaborate detail, Reid remembered. His famous visitor listened intently and interjected demands for the exact details as the funeral director described how one went about “setting the features” with eye caps and a needle injector. Michael Jackson didn’t want the funeral director to stop there. “What types of fluids do you use?” he asked. “And how do you put them in the body?” Reid found himself describing the various processes of embalming, the sorts of things that almost no one outside the mortuary professions wanted to know. “Most people shy away when it comes to death,” Reid would later explain to New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly. “They would be trying to head the opposite way. It was amazing to me he would talk about it the way he did. It’s just out of the ordinary.”
Mr. Jackson’s questions weren’t morbid in nature, though, Reid said, not at all. Mr. Jackson was humble in his curiosity, very respectful and genuinely kind. He just wanted to know. It was almost five in the morning when Michael finally told Reid to close the casket and then walked back out of the funeral home.
Source from Chapter 12 of Untouchable Strange Life and Death of Michael Jackson by Randall Sullivan.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 16 ottobre 2021, 13:11

Perspectives on MJ added a new photo to the album: DID YOU KNOW.

DID YOU KNOW
Brad Sandberg said Dangerous was recorded with Corona beer. This was the main difference between the Bad and Dangerous studio teams.
Bruce Sweden and Bill Bottrell's working methods were very different. First, Bruce would not abide beer or anything else being taken by musicians and sound engineers - during BAD everything was absolutely sober. With Bill Bottrell, however, there was "such a rock-and-roll semi-underground atmosphere."
During the Dangerous sessions Bill Bottrell began to come to the studio with bottles of beer. So the whole team got hooked on a daily beer routine, except for Michael himself: "I never saw him drink beer, ever. " Emphasized Sandberg.
Brad said all that Michael allowed himself in the studio was to chew gum constantly and very loudly, which sometimes annoyed everyone terribly - the gum practically did not come out of Michael's mouth. Brad said, he frankly couldn't understand how it was possible for Michael to chew the same gum for so long.
Typically, the working day began at 12:00pm. But Brad came in at ten in the morning in order to prepare everything, make coffee, etc. Michael would come in about the same time with his vocal coach and work his voice for TWO HOURS - every day. Sometimes, during the vocal training sessions, Michael began to walk in a circle with a moonwalk or practiced other dance moves.
Michael Jackson felt he had to train all the time, constantly pushing himself to go further, and remained utterly focused on work and only work, says Sandberg.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 27 ottobre 2021, 21:18

Mourad Mesellaty

#StoryOfTheDay...During the early Invincible sessions, producer Rony Rooney wrote a song for #MichaelJackson called 'She Was Loving Me'.
Michael Jackson recorded the song between late March and mid-April of 1999, at the Hit Factory in New York City. Here is the story of the song ( Below is an extract from the chapter of Damien Shields book 'Michael Jackson: Songs & Stories From The Vault' from revised for this article. The full book is available via Amazon and iBooks.
"Fifteen years later, the Shrine Auditorium yet again played host to the star-studded event, with the biggest names in the business flocking to L.A. to attend the 41st Annual Grammy Awards on February 24, 1999.
But as the industry toasted the impending end of the 20th century, its brightest talent was not present.
Rather, he was holed up in a recording studio called Marvin’s Room, with his sights set squarely on the new millennium.
Marvin’s Room is an iconic studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, founded in 1975 by R&B legend Marvin Gaye.
Two decades later, in 1997, the studio was acquired by record executive and artist manager John McClain, who restored the facilities and rebranded the studio as Marvin’s Room.
At the time of the ’99 Grammys, Jackson was working at Marvin’s Room with a songwriter and producer called Dr. Freeze on new songs for a new album. McClain, who was managing both Jackson and Freeze at the time, was responsible for orchestrating the collaboration.
Jackson’s record label at the time, Epic Records, was hoping to release the new album sometime before the new millennium, and a tentative release date of November 1999 was set by the label’s parent company, Sony Music.
However, after several postponements, it became apparent that Jackson was not interested in meeting their desired deadline, and as of early 1999, the label had not heard any of the new material he’d recorded in the preceding months.
But that was about to change.
The Senior Vice President of Sony Music at the time, Cory Rooney, remembers being invited to the studio by Jackson for a rare listening session with some of his fellow executives from the company.
“Michael invited us to the studio to listen to some music because we were all out there in Los Angeles for the Grammys,” recalls Rooney.
The prospect of hearing what Jackson was working on was mouth-watering for the executives at the label.
“For Michael to want to unveil some music, that was a big treat for us because he never did anything like that,” Rooney explains.
“You would rarely get the chance to hear what he was working on.”
The Sony team, including Rooney, took Jackson up on his extraordinary offer and headed to Marvin’s Room, where Jackson was set to debut the music for them.
“It was myself, Tommy Mottola, John Doelp, Polly Anthony, and David Glew – all the top Sony Music and Epic Records people,” recalls Rooney of the listening session.
“So we walked in the studio, and he played one record. Just one record.”
The song Jackson played during the listening session was “Break Of Dawn” – a track written and produced by Dr. Freeze which would ultimately be released on the Invincible album two-and-a-half years later.
Although they went in expecting to be shown more than just one song, the executives were thrilled with what they heard.
Tommy Mottola, Chairman CEO of Sony Music at the time, commented that if the rest of the record was as good as “Break of Dawn,” they had a guaranteed smash hit album on their hands.
Mottola’s appetite had been whet and he wanted to hear more.
Jackson indicated that he would oblige Mottola before long, with Rooney recalling that “Michael promised us that he would send another record a few weeks later.”
During their flight home from Los Angeles to New York, Mottola proposed that Rooney, who had been producing hits for a host of other artists, should write and produce a song for Jackson to record.
Rooney jumped at the chance and got straight to work the moment he arrived home from L.A.
“I got home, went in my house, and I wrote this song,” recalls Rooney. “I did the music at my house, then I brought the musical track to the Sony studios to write the lyrics and record the demo.”
When working on the lyrics for the track, Rooney took inspiration from a conversation he’d recently had with one of Jackson’s collaborative partners, prolific songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, who urged him to write a song that ‘tells a story.’
“Michael loves to tell a tale,” Bayer Sager told Rooney.
“I’ve always wanted to be able to tell stories, you know, stories that came from my soul,” explains Jackson.
“Make people see pictures, make them cry and laugh, take them anywhere emotionally with something as deceptively simple as words… to tell tales to move their souls and transform them. Songwriting uses those skills and creates the emotional highs and lows…”
And so, putting Bayer Sager’s advice into practice, Rooney went about writing a story for Jackson. That story became a tale of passion, lust, betrayal and shame called “She Was Loving Me.”
Rooney had barely finished piecing the track together at Sony Studios when Tommy Mottola heard it for the first time.
“Tommy came in the studio with Danny DeVito,” recalls Rooney. “It’s funny, Danny was intrigued. He loved the track so much he was like, ‘Play that again, play that again. Oh my god, this is amazing!’”
Mottola was impressed as well, and insisted that Jackson hear the track as soon as possible.
“Tommy took a very, very nasty, rough, scratch demo,” recalls Rooney, “and he said, ‘Man this is a great song. I’m sending it to Michael right now.’ And he sent it to him, just in its rough stage.”
Initially, Rooney was apprehensive, concerned that sending Jackson his incomplete demo may deter him from wanting to record the track.
“I was actually like, I don’t know if that was a good idea,” recalls Rooney, “because, you know, if he’s gonna hear it in its rough stage, then I might have blown my opportunity.”
Mottola sent Rooney’s rough demo to Jackson that night, a Thursday. Jackson, who was still in Los Angeles at the time, got it the next morning.
“Tommy sent it on the Thursday; Michael heard it on the Friday; and I promise you, by that Monday, [Jackson] was in New York,” recalls Rooney.
“He called my house and he said, ‘I’m ready. I’m prepared. I’m ready to sing the song.’ And he was ready. I was blown away.”
Despite already being an accomplished songwriter, producer, and record executive, the opportunity to work with the King of Pop was a humbling honor for Rooney.
“I’d already had so much success in my career with Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Mary J. Blige, and Destiny’s Child,” says Rooney.
“Then all of a sudden you’ve got Michael Jackson calling you and saying, ‘I love your song.’ I couldn’t believe it!”
The Hit Factory, a sprawling building boasting seven luxurious recording studios and five rehearsal suites, would become Jackson and Rooney’s home for nearly a month between late March and mid-April 1999, during which time they recorded Jackson’s vocals and worked further on the track.
Located at 421 West 54th Street in New York City, The Hit Factory has hosted the recording sessions for some of music’s most important albums, including Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder (which was the first album ever recorded there), Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen, Graceland by Paul Simon, and a sizeable portion of Michael Jackson’s own HIStory album.
Prior to his arrival at The Hit Factory for their first session together Rooney was anxious about what the studio experience might be like with Jackson, and what the King of Pop’s creative process was when recording other people’s songs.
“Sometimes [artists] will say they love the song but they wanna change this verse, and they wanna change this melody,” explains Rooney.
But to his surprise, Jackson came in the studio and expressed that he loved the demo exactly as it was, and did not want to make any changes at all.
“Rewind it. Rewind it. I like the way you phrase that. Hold on. Let me do that again. I wanna make sure I get the timing like you got it,” Rooney remembers Jackson insisting.
“I was blown away. I’m like, This is amazing! For this guy to accept and love every inch of my song, every part of it, you know, it was so surreal. It makes you emotional.”
When it came time to lay the vocals for the track, Jackson had just one request. Under the advice of his longtime singing coach, Seth Riggs, Jackson proposed that he should record the vocals for the track over two separate days.
“The song ‘She Was Loving Me’ goes from [Jackson] singing really low in the verses, to singing really high in the choruses,” explains Rooney.
“So it was two different types of vocal. It was like Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ voice and his ‘Dirty Diana’ voice in one record.”
“He was very polite,” recalls Rooney of Jackson’s temperament.
“He asked me, he said: ‘Um, if it’s okay with you I’d like to sing the verses today because I’ve warmed my voice up for the low part. And then I’d like to sing the high chorus parts tomorrow, because when I’m doing songs and I’m screaming up, like a ‘Dirty Diana’ type of thing, I like to warm my voice up for that in particular.’ I thought it was amazing that he was asking me if it was okay. And asking for my permission to do it that way when, you know, he’s Michael Jackson.”
“Michael is polite and kind,” agrees Bruce Swedien, who recorded and engineered on all of Jackson’s solo albums from Off The Wall through Invincible.
“He’ll say, ‘Can I hear a little more piano in the earphones, please?’ I turn up the piano in his cue mix, and then he’ll say, ‘Thank you.’ This is an industry where you don’t hear those words a whole lot. So for that reason I totally respect Michael. His musical integrity is so astounding.”
“I was expecting him to tell me how he works, what he does and what he doesn’t do, because so many artists are like that,” adds Rooney.
“If this was Jennifer Lopez, or even Lindsay Lohan, they’d be giving me orders. But not Michael.”
After warming his voice up for around 25 minutes, Jackson stepped into the booth.
“He was in the vocal booth at The Hit Factory and we dimmed the lights for him just enough for him to be able to read his lyric sheet,” recalls Rooney.
“I met her on the way to Chicago, where she was all alone,” sang Jackson in a low, sultry tone to the sound of his own finger snaps, “and so was I, so I asked her for her name/ She smiled and looked at me/ I was surprised to see that a woman like that was really in to me.”
“His vocals were so smooth and so perfect,” recalls Rooney.
“But the most amazing part about him being in the booth was his dancing. He danced between the takes. He danced through the takes. He snapped his fingers. He stomped his feet. You could barely hear a take without him snapping his finger or stomping his feet to the rhythm.”
“When Bruce Swedien recorded Michael he would create a whole stage, like a platform, for him to stand on,” explains Rooney.
“When you strip down the music, you hear him singing but you also hear him snapping his fingers, shuffling paper; you hear him stomping his feet, and the rhythm just takes over him at that point.”
Rooney recalls that Jackson remained in the vocal booth until he was happy with his performance.
“Some singers are in and out of the vocal booth. In and out. In and out. But Michael stayed in the vocal booth until he got the job done.”
Once they had completed the first session—the lower parts of the track and the background vocals—Jackson asked Rooney what time he should return the following day to record the choruses.
“I said: ‘Michael, what time would you prefer to work?’ And he said: ‘Cory, it doesn’t matter to me. You’re the producer. I’m here to work with you. You’re the boss. So you tell me what time you want me to be here. If you want me to be here at seven in the morning I’ll go home and get some rest and I’ll be here for seven.’ It was mind-blowing.”
The next morning, Jackson didn’t show up. He’d fallen ill and wasn’t feeling well enough to attend the planned session.
“I didn’t have children before [when recording] the other albums, so I caught a lot of colds [this time],” explains Jackson.
“I was sick a lot because my children would catch colds and I would catch colds. So we had to stop and start again and stop and start.”
Rooney explains that working with major stars can often lead to a lot of wasted time.
“Normally, if you’re working with someone like J-Lo or Mariah Carey, you can be in the studio for days just waiting for them to show up,” says Rooney.
“And they won’t so much as call to let you know they’re on their way, or running late, or not coming at all.”
The King of Pop, on the other hand, was not only courteous enough to call when he couldn’t make it, but also sent a gift package to express his sincere apologies for missing the session.
“He sent me a basket so big that I had to call a truck service just to come take it home,” recalls Rooney.
“It was full of DVDs, a DVD player, a little popcorn maker, all of these cool little books on the movies, almost like comic books, like little vintage magazines about vintage movies and stuff. So that was really, really cool.”
Accompanying the basket was a handwritten note from Jackson.
“The note on it, which I still have, it was just something he sent me to say, ‘Forgive me for not being able to come,’ because of his illness.”
Rooney called Jackson to thank him for the package, and the two ended up talking on the phone for quite some time.
Then, after a couple of days’ rest, Jackson returned to the studio, again with singing coach Seth Riggs in tow.
Jackson would invite Riggs to every session, and he would warm the singer’s voice up based on what type of sound he was aiming to achieve during that particular session.
In this case, it was the gritty “rock” style for the chorus parts.
“She said she didn’t have no man,” erupted Jackson powerfully from within the booth. “She lied to you, lied to me/ Because she was loving me, loving me, yeah!”
Jackson, a true professional, knocked out the vocals flawlessly.
“You could feel the magic in the room,” recalls Rooney. “Everyone was excited about it. It was crazy!”
Once all the vocals had been recorded the only thing left to do was to review them, select the best takes, and create a composite for editing.
“Michael comped the final vocal himself,” reveals Rooney.
“He comped all his own stuff. He sat there with a pen and paper and went through all his takes and picked out all his favourites. He pieced it all together. It took him about half an hour, because he did multiple performances of it.”
“If you go back and listen to the takes you can hear him say little things, and imitate the instruments and sounds,” says Rooney.
“We even used some of the vocals I recorded from his warm-up with Seth Riggs. We used them as ad-libs in the middle of the song because they sounded so amazing. He was very pleased with it.”
Once he was satisfied with the vocal composite, Jackson referred Rooney to his trusted arranger, Brad Buxer, to polish the transitions.
“Michael sent me to meet with Brad [Buxer],” says Rooney, “who helped me do a few little edits here and there to clean up what we had comped as his vocal.”
Although the recording process did not take long at all, Jackson and Rooney spent nearly a month in the studio, working on the track.
“We spent so much time—I would say we worked for a good two weeks—on tweaking alone,” recalls Rooney.
“It took two weeks because we spent [a lot of] time laughing, joking, talking, and having such a good time in the studio. We stretched it out just to have fun. In the end, we spent most of April in the studio kind of plotting and planning. We used that as our kind of headquarters to really get the record in line.”
At one point during their sessions at the Hit Factory, Jackson and Rooney left the studio to watch renowned magician David Blaine perform a stunt in which he buried himself alive.
Blaine was laid to rest about six feet into the ground at a Donald Trump development, facing New York’s elevated West Side Highway by the Hudson River.
“It was a big display and everyone was going to see him,” recalls Rooney.
“You could look down at the ground and see him through the Plexiglas. Michael was like, ‘Wow!’ because he absolutely loved magic, so we went down there to check it out.”
Although it was Rooney’s job to produce hit songs for Sony Music artists, he felt that Jackson needed more than just his name at the top of the charts. He felt Jackson needed both an ally at the record label, and a friend.
“I could have taken advantage of the situation, tried to produce six songs, and get Michael to record them, but I didn’t care for that. I just wanted to give him anything at that time that he needed. And I felt like he needed to have fun, and to have a friend more so than some guy trying to push songs on him. That was genuinely what I truly felt in my heart. We had a great time.”
Rooney recalls that one of the most special musical moments he shared with Jackson in the studio came about by chance, and had nothing to do with the song they were working on.
“One day I was sitting at the keyboard, and I’m playing the chords to ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ by The Jackson 5,” tells Rooney.
“So I sing the first two lines: ‘Never can say goodbye, no, no, no, no I, never can say goodbye.’ Then all of a sudden I hear this voice start singing: ‘Even though the pain and heartache seems to follow me where ever I go.’ But really, like, singing it. Not just humming it or playing around, like, singing it. For real! And I just kept on playing, and he kept on singing. And that was the way he came in the studio one day.”
“If only I had a camera, because that was a magic moment. I’m gonna be telling that story to my children’s children, and I hope they continue to tell the story as well. I went from singing the two lines, to feeling someone put their hand on my shoulder as if to say ‘keep it going. Keep it going.’ So I do, and I hear this guy really killing it. Singing it with conviction. Not just humming it—killing it! I couldn’t believe it.”
“‘She Was Loving Me’ was a great song, but it wasn’t going to be the first single,” explains Rooney.
“It wasn’t what the record label was looking for. Michael wanted it to be a single at some point, but he wanted that big rhythmic thing for the lead single, and we hadn’t got that yet for the record.”
After concluding the “She Was Loving Me” recording sessions with Rooney, the collaborative relationship between Jackson, Rodney Jerkins, and his ‘Darkchild’ production team almost completely took over.
Rooney strongly believed that Jerkins was the man who could deliver the type of track that Jackson was striving for. However, following their first meeting regarding a possible collaboration, Jackson was not convinced.
“It’s not that he isn’t talented—he is very talented,” Jackson said of Jerkins, tells Rooney, “but his work sounds like everything else that’s out right now. I need a new ‘Michael Jackson’ sound… I want to take people somewhere they’ve never been sonically.”
So instead of polishing the music for “She Was Loving Me,” Rooney spent a good part of the next year nurturing the relationship between Jerkins and Jackson.
To point him in the right direction, Rooney reminded Jerkins of the valuable advice previously given to him by songwriter Carole Bayer Sager: tell a story.
And so Jerkins and his team put that advice into practice, writing stories in the form of rhythm-driven tracks for Jackson, including songs like “You Rock My World,” “Unbreakable,” “Threatened,” and several others.
Meanwhile, Jackson had been writing songs of his own.
Back at Marvin’s Room, during the February 1999 listening session for “Break of Dawn,” Jackson had promised Sony boss Tommy Mottola that he would send more of his newly crafted material.
And true to his word, although much later than promised, Jackson delivered.
“I was in Mottola’s office, talking to him about something,” recalls Rooney.
“Tommy was eating lunch, and he said, ‘Oh, while you’re here, Michael sent another record. Let’s listen to it.’ So he puts in the CD, and all you hear is, ‘Your love is magical. That’s how I feel.’ It’s, you know, the song ‘Speechless.’ It was just amazing.”
Rooney recalls that Mottola was blown away by Jackson’s vocals on the track.
“Tommy was like, ‘Oh, my god! Did you hear that voice? Now that’s the Michael I’m talking about!’ I mean, that intro alone, with just his voice, blew Tommy away. And then it just drops in, ‘Speechless, speechless, that’s how you make me feel.’ It just really blew his mind.”
According to Rooney, by the end of the year 2000, “Speechless” was just the second track being considered for Jackson’s new album that Mottola had heard. At this point, he hadn’t even heard the version of “She Was Loving Me” with Jackson’s voice.
In fact, Rooney recalls that he hadn’t even completed the music for the track, let alone done the final mix.
“It was up to me to finish the music for ‘She Was Loving Me’ – to make the music track better and stronger,” explains Rooney.
But in the end, he never got around to doing it.
“I completely lost the opportunity to do that because I got so caught up in trying to help Rodney Jerkins deliver for Michael. And before you knew it, the Invincible record was done.”
“Then Michael and Tommy started to fall out. And because everyone in the world knows that I worked so closely with Tommy, people started to try and put things between us.”
“Tommy kind of like played a little game,” adds Rooney.
“He pulled me off the MJ project and started a Jennifer Lopez album, a Marc Anthony album, and a Jessica Simpson album, all at the same time. I was so caught up in [those projects] that the Invincible ship started to sail, and I couldn’t double back to finish ‘She Was Loving Me’ for Michael.”
By the time the Invincible album was released in late October 2001, things had turned completely sour between Jackson and Sony.
Later, Jackson accused Mottola of sabotaging his album’s sales, of conspiring against the label’s artists, and of being racist.
And because of Rooney’s close working relationship with Mottola, all kinds of rumours began to swirl, including an allegation that Rooney was acting as Mottola’s personal ‘spy.’
Such rumours were completely untrue, according to Rooney, who says that Jackson pleaded with him to not let the media or agenda-driven record executives ruin their friendship.
“Michael reached out to me personally and said, ‘Cory, do not let these people do to us and our friendship what they do to everyone else,’” recalls Rooney, maintaining that he saw himself as Jackson’s only true ally at Sony.
Following the release of Invincible, Rooney began to wonder what the fate of the unreleased “She Was Loving Me” would be.
“The last time I spoke to Michael was in late 2008, around eight months before he passed away,” says Rooney.
“We talked about the track and laughed and joked about a couple of things. He told me that he was in Las Vegas and that he was going back and forth between there and L.A. I told him I was going to be in Vegas at a certain time and I was hoping we could meet when I got there. But I actually never made it out to Vegas.”
“In that final conversation we talked about using ‘She Was Loving Me’ for his next project,” Rooney reveals. “He was talking about getting in a position where he was going to start lining up new songs and things like that. He said, ‘This record is so good, we gotta figure out something good to do with it.’”
Unfortunately, Jackson never had the chance to hear “She Was Loving Me” in its final state.
After Michael’s death Rooney, with the help of the King of Pop’s nephew, Taryll Jackson, completely transformed “She Was Loving Me” from a tranquil R&B track somewhat reminiscent of “Liberian Girl,” into a hard-hitting rock anthem.
“The version that Taryll and I reworked is better, in my opinion,” says Rooney.
“It’s stronger. I did the original, original version fifteen years ago. It was a different feel, and there was a different thing going on then. But Michael and I had always planned on kind of reworking it and turning it into what the Taryll Jackson version became.”
The Taryll Jackson version of “She Was Loving Me” was produced in 2010 for the Michael album – the first full compilation of unheard material to be released since Jackson’s death.
But a final mixdown was never done and Taryll’s version was not submitted to Sony.
When questions were raised about the authenticity of the vocals on some of the tracks on Michael, Rooney stated that he would not want his song to be included on the project.
Four years later, the track received yet another remix – this time by produced by Timbaland, for Sony’s second posthumous Jackson album called Xscape.
“She Was Loving Me” was released on Xscape under the title “Chicago,” which initially caused confusion among Jackson’s fans.
Epic Records, who released the track, took the liberty of renaming it “Chicago” for the album – a title that neither Jackson, nor Rooney, had ever used when referring to the song.
When Rooney handed the song over to Sony, the track sheets and associated paperwork all noted the song’s title as “She Was Loving Me.”
In fact, Rooney had even registered the song’s legal title as “She Was Loving Me” with BMI.
Source : https://www.damienshields.com/she-was-loving-me/

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 22 novembre 2021, 7:53

Recorded several years earlier with producer
Bill Bottrell (It first appeared in the 1989 #MichaelJackson movie Moonwalker ), "Come Together" was originally created for the Days of Thunder soundtrack , starring Tom Cruise. The highly energized cover of the Beatles would have probably been a big hit if it had been launched with the film. When its left, however, stayed in the vault for approximately more than six years, before its inclusion in HIStory in 1995. The song had never been released as a single.
Michael Jackson had long admired The Beatles' music, having famously acquired the Beatles/ATV Catalog in 1985. Since the acquisition, MJ and attorney John Branca had discussed recording some of the songs he now owned (he recorded, too, a cover of the Sly and the Family Stone classic “Hot Fun in the Summertime”).
In the late eighties, Bill Bottrell remembers driving around Los Angeles, listening to Beatles songs with Jackson, trying to determine a good song to re-record. They ended up choosing “Come Together” (the second option was the more obscure one by Paul McCartney, “You Know My Name”)
John Lennon was, in many ways, Jackson felt, a kindred soul: someone who couldn't quite fit into a conventional society, but whose genius remains utterly unorthodox. It's only fitting that Jackson chose “Come Together,” a song that famously defies all conventions and openly embraces the freedom of language structures, institutional authority and ideology. "It launches a stream of self-confessed 'jargon' into the violent antagonism of an unenlightened world," wrote Beatles critic Ian MacDonald, "implying that the language implanted in such confrontations is a trap and a potential prison."
Like Lennon, Jackson loved to play with words; he liked to form them into unusual, surprising sequences (see “Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'”) and he especially liked to mix and distort them vocally. Of course, since Off The Wall , one of the biggest themes in his music has been his ability to free and unite her. The famous “Come Together” verse — “One thing I can tell you is that you have to be free” — this was what both Lennon and Jackson believed in their hearts. This is, as Ian MacDonald shrewdly observes, "a call to unchain the imagination, and to define free language, the rigidities of politics and emotional rooting lost."
Sonically, while the Beatles chose to adopt a “laid back” or “dreamy” style to capture the feeling of being uplifted, Jackson opted for a high-octane reinterpretation that synthesizes the famous guitar solo, highlights the music's inherent funk and merges the wild letter with charged energy and excitement. That visceral energy is all on display in the live version, at the end of Moonwalker, in which Jackson improvises vocals and taps his foot with abandon as the song puts him (and his audience) in a state of ecstasy.
“I think his cover is the best cover of a Beatles song I've ever heard,” says engineer Matt Forger. “Because of this energy. He has the energy you feel when you hear the Beatles recording for the first time. Michael played within an emotional place. And you can feel it.” Although it has been delayed for years, "Come Together" is certainly one of the most notable covers of the Beatles, as well as a symbolic link between two eccentric but brilliant, musical icons.
Source : Joseph Vogel ,
Music writer and instructor at the University of Rochester, excerpted from Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 26 novembre 2021, 7:24

.Carole Bayer Sager, talks about why Invincible didn't work out and other details about his friendship with #MichaelJackson in a revealing interview with Elizabeth Taylor. Below are the excerpts in which she quotes Michael.
" There were two blessed people (About Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson) and I am still shocked and saddened and still in disbelief about the death of Michael Jackson. He was one of, if not the greatest artist of all time and was without a doubt the greatest musician I have ever witnessed in the studio. He was my friend. He recorded a song of mine on his wonderful album Off The Wall and we did some songs during that time together.
In 1980 he gave me a song of his and produced it for me on my album and even sang this song almost like a duet with me, the song is called "Just Friends", it is a beautiful song of friendship and affection. We spent a lot of time together between 1999 and 2004 working on some songs. The time we spent the most time together was in 2002, when he stayed for almost two months with me at my home and I saw him in a totally different light - like a consolidation of a loving father. I was very honored by the dedication of the album Invincible to me. We work hard to do the best job possible on Invincible. There is a song that I helped you compose called "You Are My Life" that is on the album and it was one of the best things that I have helped to conceive in my entire life. "You Are My Life" is one of the most preferred things my.
But there are other beautiful memories of other songs that we compose and have never been released as a song called "You Are The One" and another song called "I Have This Dream" that David Foster helped us write and produce. I think everything he put his hand on was much better and more dignified, he had a spectacular view of things. I remember when we wrote a song that was released a few years ago called "We've Had Enough" that Michael said he didn't want to talk about beautiful and beautiful things, in which case he said he didn't want to be fanciful in this particular song. He wanted to shock, he wanted that when people listened, they felt like they were being psychologically slaughtered. The song is actually a contestation for everything that happens to us badly now and then. In fact, we always question the fact that this is happening to us and put the name of God on everything, of course everything is possible if God allows it, but does everything have to do with God or with ourselves? I really hope that one day "We've Had Enough" will be released to the general public, that it will not be lost like other precious songs that were never released. I also hope that the other songs we did between 1999 and 2000 are also released, they are "I Have This Dream" and "You Are The One". I can say that working with Michael never felt like an obligation in terms of work, but it was always something very pleasurable. The way of making music with Michael was so special, because he always listened to his suggestions and opinions and accepted them.
In Invincible Michael totally changed the way he worked, he was really determined to make his album with the greatest number of singles. In songs from the Invincible era, he was usually taking two composers to create the music. In my case I worked with Michael, Rodney Jerkins, BabyFace and David Foster. For example, in the song "You Are My Life" my role was to help Michael write and create the melody, while BabyFace's role was to help more in the melody and the music itself, in this case the instrumentation. So the same thing was working with Rodney Jerkins - Michael and Rodney did the musical part (instrumentation) and Michael and I created the melody and wrote the lyrics. When I said that in Invincible he thought of being his album with the most singles, it was because he invited me to work with him. Then he told me how he would like the album to look like a large collection of successful singles. When he asked me to collaborate on his album in early 1999 with him and David Foster it would be just 1 song that we would make. However, the album was postponed and Michael gave up releasing the songs that had been created before and in the year 1999. So we started to work on other things after all this. I worked hard on creation alongside him and Rodney Jerkins and BabyFace. Michael used a formula similar to the one he had learned at the time of Motown for the first time, which was the combination of several great composers and music writers, using the best that each one had. As I had said before. We were a kind of The Corporation by Motown in order to create the biggest hits on the planet. The combination was perfect because Rodney at the time was, I think 18-19 years old, he was very young and knew what the audience wanted to hear at that moment, I had the vision of the best possible music and Michael of the genius and timeless touch and the perfect melody. It was a great combination of the current (Rodney), the old guard (Me) and the timeless and brilliant (Michael Jackson). It is a great pity that Michael did not use the first songs we made, it had a bold and different flavor. When asked what happened to the album Invincible I always bow. However, as I am not one to give interviews, I would say that it was an album marked by several and several backstage disputes between Michael with his team against Sony and his team and vice versa. Few know that Michael owns half of Sony’s music catalog, and it is this fact that was the direct contributor to all the problems of Invincible, the other related problems are only mere facts that were caused by this. Michael didn't usually talk about these matters to anyone, but when he spent time at my house, one day we were in my studio working on a song - it was the year 2002 and he revealed to me very disappointed that he had abandoned the album Invincible and that I would never make an album of unpublished ones for the Sony label again - And then I started to get into the subject slowly and then he started to release certain things that made me very sad and worried about Michael's well being and life. He revealed to me that since 1995 Sony has been trying in every way to get his catalog back from his hands and that they were really playing dirty and getting tough against him. He told me that all of this got even worse because he had stopped authorizing some projects that Sony had between 1998 and 1999 and that could only be done with his authorization. I remember that Michael had a lot of problems with releasing this album, which was to be released in 1999 and ended up being released in 2001. Before Michael came to my house he told me he was going to work for a video for the song “Unbreakable”, it was January 2002, he called me so excited, a month later he told me that Sony had given a paltry budget for the video for this song. "Unbreakable" would be directed by Michael with the help of Mel Gibson, but the budget of video was somewhere around 10 million, it would be a mini-film, Sony only offered about $ 300,000. So Michael after this incident with the video for " was put in place of one of the rocks on the disc. Michael intended to release "Whatever Happens" as a single shortly after "Unbreakable" was signed, but nothing went ahead. He even took pictures for the single for "Unbreakable" and "Whatever Happens". When he thought about releasing "Unbreakable" and "Whatever Happens" in early 2002, he had already turned the page on his conflicts with the label, but not Sony, Sony would make things worse.
So much they did backstage against Michael that he decided to go out in public against Sony, Michael had so many wonderful things that he would have liked to do at that time and nobody supported him, when I speak nobody is nobody at all, the whole music industry has turned its back for Michael Jackson and no one has any idea what this manipulation is like. Nobody has any idea when nobody wants to put something in their work. People think it is easy to launch projects, even more difficult to continue with no one to support. So even when they put two singles that were not intended to work, even when they refused to release a benefit single, even with all of this Michael turned the page and wanted Invincible to work his way. He would work on "Unbreakable" and "Whatever Happens" and he told me that right after these two singles he was going to release a ballad, and he was between "You Are My Life" and "Speechless". And it would be a great dispute because they are two things in my view that are wonderful and above anything musical or on the same level as so many beautiful things that we have heard since listening to music." #CaroleBayerSager

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 28 novembre 2021, 10:05

Today, Mark Ryden made me realize that when you think you've discovered every detail of the Dangerous cover art, you, in fact, haven't.
#Dangerous30

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 18 marzo 2022, 13:15

Nati Cañada is the only portraitist for whom
#MichaelJackson posed in 1993, this Aragonese painter met
Michael in 1992 during his concert in Madrid and a year later in
Los Angeles Michael posed for her. Michael loved the portrait and
invited her to visit him at Neverland years later Nati went to see it.
During the 2005 trial Nati showed her unconditional support for
Michael by writing a letter where she said I have met the artist and
the man. ( via @RodriguezNalena on Twitter )

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 20 marzo 2022, 12:36


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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 7 aprile 2022, 8:49

There is a moon crater and a rare species of crab named after Michael Jackson. This man's name is in outer space to under the ocean.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 10 aprile 2022, 8:20

Ron Pia
14amtc2l0tn0hsm7rh1030 ·
ON THIS DAY IN MICHAEL JACKSON HISTORY APRIL 10 2009.. MICHAEL had reportedly laid down a $1.45 million (£1 million) deposit on a 28-bedroom stately home in England to
accommodate him during his planned eight-month stay in the country.
Michael was set to begin a massive 50-date residency at London's O2 Arena in the summer of 2009 and he is said to have sent a team over to Britain from Los Angeles to find him somewhere suitable to stay during the tour.
Michael settled on luxurious £21 million (£15 million) residence Foxbury Manor in south east London which boasts nearly 30 bedrooms, an underground cinema, swimming pool and a private lake and wood, according to Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
A source said , "The manor is just a private home, it's not normally available to rent. But Michael Jackson's aides spotted it and realised how suitable it was and approached the owner. The place is huge and really close to the O2 Arena - it's perfect."
And the singer is reportedly hiring an interior decorator to make sure the property is to his taste when he moves in.
The insider adds, "He's asked for brightly coloured wallpaper. And he's picking out artwork, statues and ornaments that he likes and bringing them in specially....

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 12 aprile 2022, 8:53


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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 4 maggio 2022, 8:30

May 3rd, 1997. #MichaelJackson went to Munich's Stadelheim prison to visit Marcel Avram, head of Mama Concerts, one of world's biggest concert promotion agencies. Avram is being held on suspicion of tax evasion.
Though Michael Jackson arrived with police cars escorting him through the prison's back gate, he had to show ID. "You can't come into the prison just because you claim to be Michael Jackson," Bavarian Justice Ministry spokesman Gerhard Zierl said Sunday.
A day earlier, a Michael Jackson look-alike showed up at the prison asking to speak with Avram. The imposter left when guards asked for identification.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 28 maggio 2022, 10:02

May 24, 2008. #MichaelJackson was evidently a fan of
The Ultimate Fighting Championship as evidenced by his appearance at UFC 84. Attendees report seeing the King of Pop wheeled into the arena in a wheelchair just in time for the Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida match with his face covered with a hood and sporting sunglasses. It’s been rumored that Michael Jackson has some financial dealings with a company that UFC owners, the Fertitta brothers, have an interest in. “He was a fan and he watched the UFC pay-per-views and he was into it,” said Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the UFC.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 15 luglio 2022, 8:57

June 13, 1992."Who Is It" world premiere was aired on BBC2's "Def II" during the Michael Jackson Special. In the UK, the video was released on BBC2, but #MichaelJackson pulled it the next day.
The short film directed by David Fincher for "Who Is It" was released in 1993. The music video was filmed in Los Angeles, California, and the helicopter scene in the video was filmed at the Neverland Ranch.
The video was later re-released in a re-edited version. This version did not initially air in the USA but was included on the video albums: Dangerous: The Short Films and Michael Jackson's Vision. Another version of the video features footage from past music videos and live performances. This is the version that first aired in the USA. Video scenes photographed by Sam Emerson.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 28 luglio 2022, 10:03

Ryan Smith
@Smitherhands

“But make the baby in the blanket me — a little Black child.”

Michael Jackson was always Black.
That’s how he identified himself and reminded others to remember that.
Surgery to free himself of bullying and uncontrollable genetics (vitiligo) did nothing to change that.

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 3 gennaio 2023, 7:05

The man who taught Michael Jackson to 'dance the Cha Cha Cha'…
Gary Edwards, has more than 30 international dance titles to his credit. For five years he was the personal dance instructor for the Brunei royal family. That meant being available to give dance lessons to the family and also to guests - including Michael Jackson. Gary Edwards taught Michael Jackson to dance the 'Cha Cha Cha'
He recalls:
“I didn't know who was going to enter, because I couldn't talk about it with anyone. The door opened and Michael Jackson entered.. With Michael it was the only time I was nervous, this man was a god to me. What many people learn in weeks to learn, he did in minutes! In half an hour we learned a little and he added some funky steps, it was incredible. One of the greatest achievements of my life was teaching the King of Pop to dance Cha Cha Cha. ''
Source : MJ Beats

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 17 aprile 2023, 21:07

"I was having lunch and Michael came and sat at the head of our table to talk to somebody else. It was just a crew table, and usually he was pretty separated – in fact, they told us at the start of the shoot, if anybody talks to Michael, you’re fired. So he sat down and we’re like, ‘Oh, God,’ and he started talking with us, and he had with him a mayonnaise and beansprout sandwich, and he said, ‘Anyone wanna finish this?’ and I said, ‘I’ll finish it!’ So he gave me half of his mayonnaise and beansprout sandwich.
I ate a few bites and after he left I didn’t finish it, and one of the guys said, ‘Why’d you take that?’ I said, ‘Actually, I just want to be able to say when I’m 80, I just want to say, I ate half of Michael Jackson’s sandwich.’ Like, mayonnaise is supposed to be so bad for you now – he won’t eat meat, but he’ll eat all that lard.
- Marty Thomas (props assistant on Thriller)

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Re: I never knew this!

Messaggio da soulmum » 24 aprile 2023, 8:34

Building Neverland Ranch: installing the C.P. Huntington locomotive
The first toy delivered for Michael Jackson's amusement park
Rob Swinson, Michael Jackson's personal consultant for the construction of the amusement park at Neverland Ranch reveals details of the installation of the C.P. Huntington locomotive.
Follow along:
"Michael, would you like to take a train ride," I asked. He immediately replied very excitedly:
"Do you think it's possible?
''Of course Michael!'', I replied
The C.P. Huntington locomotive arrived at Neverland Valley Ranch in October 1990; October 30 precisely was when Michael Jackson debuted his train.
There were three cars and this was the first toy delivered for Michael's future amusement park.
Workers and curious onlookers gathered to watch as the cars were carefully unloaded.
After installing the C.P. Huntington, Michael and I went for a walk around the ranch. We sat on the train and I remember being a little disappointed when I saw that Michael had chosen a seat in the second car behind the locomotive. I didn't know what to think at the time and turned to ask if he was ready.
He smiled and said yes.
After blowing the whistle, I stepped on the gas and we drove into the night, through the valley. Our way along the tracks was lit only by the train lights.
After a while, I stopped and asked him if he would like to drive the locomotive with me. I will never forget his cautious reply:
"Do you think it's possible?"
I laughed and said, "Of course it's possible! Michael, this is your train!".
I stopped the train to give him the basic recommendations.
"Just release the brake and lift the lever. That's all."
He followed my instructions and looked like an 8-year-old boy.
Without warning, Michael started screaming and I did the same and started yelling at him. We were two adults, a miniature train howling under a full moon. It was an incredible, magical experience.
I will never forget his words:
'Rescue the child that lives in all of us! Live those moments!'
http://makerofdreams.com/

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