CoronaVinyl Day 66 (Family Members or Relatives): ABC by Jackson 5

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is family members or relatives -- by which, if you're dense, I mean bands or groups that include siblings, cousins, parents/children, or other relatives.  I have a lot of good choices in my vinyl collection (some of which I've already featured in CoronaVinyl), like The Beach Boys (featuring brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, and their cousin Mike Love), Heart (featuring the Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy), the Allman Brothers Band (featuring brothers Duane and Gregg Allman), The Isley Brothers (self-explanatory), CCR (featuring the Fogerty brothers, John and Tom), The Carpenters (siblings Karen and Richard), Sister Sledge (the Sledge sisters), The Replacements (featuring brothers Bob and Tommy Stinson), The Darkness (featuring brothers Dan and Justin Hawkins), The Gap Band (the Wilson brothers), and Tavares (the Tavares brothers).  

But few have been as successful as Gary, Indiana's own Jackson 5 -- brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael, and Tito.  If you haven't seen the group's 1968 Motown audition, check it out on YouTube.  The quality of the video isn't great, but you can still see that Michael -- not yet ten years old -- was something special.  Clearly Motown founder and head Berry Gordy thought they were special because he formed a team of songwriters and producers -- called The Corporation, and comprised of Gordy himself, Alphonso Mizell, Freddie Perren and Deke Richards -- to create songs and records for the Jackson 5.

Produced by The Corporation and Hal Davis, 1970's ABC was the group's second studio album was a lesson in pop music.  The Corporation wrote four of the twelve songs on the album -- "ABC," "The Love You Save," "One More Chance," and "I Found That Girl" (the latter sung by Jermaine).  There are a couple songs written by some other of Motown's crack songwriters -- "2-4-6-8," written by Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer, "True Love Can Be Beautiful," written by Leonard Caston, Jr., Jeana Jackson, Bobby Taylor (the latter of which discovered the Jackson 5).  The remaining songs are covers, some originally recorded by other Motown artists -- The Supremes' "(Come 'Round Here) I'm the One You Need" and "The Young Folks" and Stevie Wonder's "Don't Know Why I Love You" and "Never Had a Dream Come True" -- as well as two songs by non-Motown artists, Funkadelic's "I'll Bet You" and The Delfonics' "La-La (Means I Love You)."

The album reached #4 on the Billboard album chart and #1 on the Billboard R&B album chart, and it spawned two #1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 -- the title track and "The Love You Save," both of which were written by The Corporation, and which were the second and third songs in a string of four consecutive #1 singles for the group, six consecutive Top 5 singles, eleven consecutive Top 20 singles, and sixteen consecutive Top 40 singles.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "The Love You Save"
Behind "I Want You Back," this is probably my favorite Jackson 5 song.  It's just so damn catchy, which hides the fact that it's a warning to a preteen floozy to stop being so flirtatious or else risk getting a reputation.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "I'll Bet You"
I had to go with this one because it was a bold and strange choice for a group comprised of kids between the ages of 12 and 19 to cover a Funkadelic song, but they do a really good job.