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.
