Today, for Day 5, let’s dig the Jackson 5.
If there’s one song that demonstrates how that radio changed my life, it’s the Jackson 5’s — and especially an 11- or 12-year-old Michael Jackson’s — take on “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.”
It blew my 13-year-old mind when I heard it for the first time on WOKY — the Mighty 92, a Top 40 AM station from Milwaukee — at Christmas time in 1970.
I had no idea there were pop, rock, R&B and soul versions of Christmas songs, all played only at a certain time of year. What a magical thing.
“Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” the Jackson 5. I have it on “A Motown Christmas,” 1973. That compilation LP is one of the first holiday records I ever bought in the late ’70s, and one of the best holiday records ever.
Originally released on “Jackson 5 Christmas Album,” 1970.
Perhaps more remarkable when you consider the Jackson family didn’t celebrate Christmas (or any holidays or birthdays) because they were observant Jehovah’s Witnesses.