LIKE MANY teenage girls throughout the world in 1975, Fay Findley was a fan of the Jackson Five, especially its pin-up poster vocalist, Michael.

There was no way the Queen's School student could miss the group's concert at the National Stadium in Kingston in March that year.

"I can't remember details (of the show) but I know there was a lot of screaming from the girls," Findley, now a mother of three children, told The Sunday Gleaner.

The Jacksons, which also included brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Tito and Marlon, were on a high with Motown Records at the time. Bob Marley was on the verge of an international breakthrough and also performed on the show, which was promoted by Jamaican Chester McCullough.

The Jacksons were accompanied by their mother Katherine. They visited several spots in Kingston, including Marley's Hope Road home where they posed for photographs with the Rastafarian singer and his entourage.

Michael Jackson died Thursday in Los Angeles after suffering cardiac arrest. The superstar was 50 years old.

Caribbean distributors

Tommy Cowan worked at the Dynamic Sounds distribution company in the early 1970s when the Jacksons were hot. Dynamic were Motown's Caribbean distributors and Cowan says he met the family at the Sheraton Hotel in New Kingston where they were staying.

He also attended the show at the stadium.

"The show was good, not a big audience, but they (Jacksons) did a really entertaining set," Cowan said.

There is no record of Michael Jackson ever returning to Jamaica, but the music he and his siblings made have always had an impression on reggae performers. One of the first Jamaicans to popularise Jackson's songs was Junior Tucker, a child artiste during the mid-1970s.

Tucker incorporated Jackson songs like Ben, ABC and I'll Be There into his live set. The former, from a movie about a mouse of the same name, was first done by Jackson in 1972.

In 1981, roots singer Sugar Minott put a reggae spin on Good Thing Going, another Jackson hit from 1972. Minott's version entered the British pop charts.

The reggae act who is perhaps the biggest fan of Michael Jackson's music is roots singer Junior Reid, who has covered Jackson hits like Dirty Diana (which Reid did as Groupie Diana), Human Nature and Liberian Girl.

Reid is on record as saying Jackson is one of his biggest influences.

In 2000, deejay Shaggy indirectly called on the Gloved Wonder for his album Hot Shot.

Hot Shot's lead song, Dance and Shout, heavily sampled Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground, one of the hit songs from the Jacksons' 1978 Destiny album). Dance And Shout was not the big hit Shaggy intended but the album sold over six million units.

howard. campbell@gleanerjm.com