LA to Jackson: thank you for the music
Updated on 07 July 2009
As in life, so in death: Michael Jackson's funeral might be surrounded by confusion, but the appeal of his music endures.
As Michael Jackson is finally laid to rest today, one of the questions must surely be: why has it taken so long to happen?
It took just two days to bury Elvis and three days for Marilyn Monroe to be interred in LA's famous Westwood Cemetery; it's taken nearly two weeks for Jacko's final farewell.
There's an argument the police investigation into his sudden death delayed this send-off, and that America's 4 July celebrations got in the way of organising a fitting tribute for the king of pop.
But there's also a feeling the delay reflects the confusion the singer left in his wake. With no loving spouse to fight his corner and execute his will, it was the complicated Jackson family dynamic that took over.
And no doubt complicating the planning was the expectation that this singer's funeral should be the biggest celebrity send-off ever. Who started this? Probably the media, possibly the entertainment industry, maybe the fans who'd been cheated out of his comeback tour.
But when it comes to his farewell, it felt like Jackson had as much pressure on him in death, as he had in life.
For several days after his death, his father Joseph, the patriarch who Michael Jackson claimed had bullied him in life, appeared to speak for the family.
In interviews, he repeatedly pushed plans for a new record label, but said he "wasn't ready" to bury his son. In the absence of firm plans, journalists seized upon rumours the burial would be at Neverland, which is what Michael's older brother Jermaine said he wanted for the singer.
Meanwhile his mother Katharine, who it transpired was separated from her husband, remained out of sight but filed for, and was given, custody of her son's three children.
As journalists revisited past scandals, the music industry simply paid tribute to his talent.
"Ray" star Jamie Foxx, speaking at the Black Entertainment Awards in downtown LA, declared: "We want to celebrate this black man. He belongs to us. And we shared him with everybody else. It don't matter what he looked like. I liked his old nose, I liked his new nose."
The fans turned to his music. Online and in the shops, millions gathered as they catapulted five of his albums into the top 10. But I saw no evidence of the "collective grief" of fans, and outside his family home in Encino, there were very few tears and no more than a couple of hundred fans at any one time. Even fewer travelled to Neverland.
But his music was everywhere. In Los Angeles, he had become the soundtrack for the city. Wherever you went, hotel lobbies, shops, open-top cars cruising by, his music was playing. And strangely, the effect was a low level "feelgood" buzz.
Then the mists of confusion began to clear.
The Jackson family hired the high-profile publicist Ken Sunshine, a tough-talking New Yorker renowned for taking on the paparazzi. He issued the statement: no memorial at Neverland.
It emerged Michael Jackson had indeed left a will, and it was filed in court. Drawn up in 2002, it named two hugely influential and savvy figures in the music industry as the singers executors. John Branca, his long-time lawyer, who'd overseen Jackson's acquisition of the Beatles back catalogue, and the trusted music executive John McClain. Telling was the fact his father Joseph Jackson wasn't mentioned. Everything went to his mother and his three children.
And then the industry seemed to take back control of Michael Jackson. AEG, who were putting on the "This Is It" tour, offered the downtown Staples venue for a tribute send-off. Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake and Mariah Carey were down to appear.
But as he is finally buried, the fact remains, Jacko never had his comeback. It was always hard to truly believe that he would pull it out of the bag, and return to glorious form with 50 dates in London. That so many people wanted it to happen was reflected in the fact he sold a million tickets.
But then the enduring appeal of this singer's music was never in doubt. It was his disconcerting physical transformation, health problems and seeming inability to let go of childhood and become an adult, that did for the singer, and dominated the media coverage.
And already in LA, where so many talented icons have died in shocking, untimely deaths, his death will become part of the folklore.
The organisers of the city's "Dearly Departed" tour, which visits the death sites of the rich and famous, including John Belushi and Janis Joplin, are respectfully waiting until after his funeral before adding Michael Jackson's Holmby Hills rented mansion to their excursion.
