Just one photo

I thought about it and decided to post just one photo of me and Michael. I'm doing this because of the story behind the photo. It was March or April, 1983. Suzanne de Passe had hired me to write on an as yet untitled Motown tv special. Since the show became such a triumph, everybody likes to tell their own version of how it came to be so brilliant. Lies, mostly. Especially the part about how everybody wanted to do the show. That was a real struggle. de Passe can sell anything, but she had a full tilt boogie ahead of her. Nobody much thought the anniversary of Motown was so important. There was no giant buzz goin' on. Anyway, the talent exec making the initial reach out was not getting anywhere with Michael's management who failed to see why he should do anything for his FORMER record label. Suzanne wondered if anybody had even told Michael about the show. So when I got a call to come to Walter Yetnikoff's, then president of CBS Records, I asked the girl on the other end of the phone who was coming and she rattled off a list of the label's artists. Among them, Michael. There were half a dozen mock-ups around with various versions of Motown 25, not even the rest of the title had been decided. I told Suzanne where I was going and that I was going to take a mock-up and paste it to the back of a binder and take it with me. If you look in the bag that I'm holding, you can see the folder. What I did was take it out, hold it in my arms like a schoolbook and go stand next to Michael. I never said a word to him. He looked at the folder a couple of times and finally said, "That's my old record label." I seized the moment. "No, it's not, it's a television special that Suzanne is producing and she is wondering why your people haven't called back. You know, she doesn't want to just use that audition tape." He laughed that great laugh of his and said "Ok, I get it." He knew de Passe and what she could pull off, so he did get it even if he didn't know what the 'it' was going to be. She, and the team she put together, pulled off a show that stands up, 26 years later. The civilized world has seen a tiny excerpt of it a million times over the last few days, because Michael tossed that hat, pulled up his trousers and slid backwards into history. Now, I cannot tell you how he actually was convinced to do the show, multiple versions exist, but I do like to take credit for opening up the door a little and letting some light shine in. That's my story of me telling MJ about a show that would change his life and the life of Ruth Adkins Robinson