Posts Tagged ‘New Media Creative’

By Joe Klein

Three weeks ago, New Media Creative associate BRETT BUMETER and I broke an exclusive story online about the upcoming release of a collection of never-before-heard recordings of MICHAEL JACKSON and THE JACKSON 5 that were being mixed down by my close friend, RUSS TERRANA. Early this morning, Universal Music Enterprises put out the “official” press release about the tracks and the mainstream media stories about the release of the new Jackson 5 album hit the wires almost immediately. “I WANT YOU BACK! UNRELASED MASTERS” is set for release on November 10 and the first single from the album, “THAT’S HOW LOVE IS” was released for download today on iTunes.

I received an email from Russ just as the “official” story was about to break worldwide. The email simply said, “It’s done!!” I wasn’t the least bit surprised that Russ was very excited with the release of the first new MOTOWN tracks he’s mixed in decades!

In fact, these Jackson family tracks are the first major releases that Russ has mixed since working his magic on WHITNEY HOUSTON’S 1990 album, “I’M YOUR BABY TONIGHT.” (Russ also recorded vocals for and mixed several earlier Whitney Houston hits, including the smash “DIDN’T WE ALMOST HAVE IT ALL.”)

Upon reading the email (a couple hours after he sent it), I grabbed the phone and immediately punched in Russ’ cell number. As soon as he answered I could hear the happiness in his voice. After congratulating him on completing this monumental project, I instinctively switched to my blogger/reporter mode to get a cool “behind the scenes” story about the mixing of these historic Jackson family tracks and, hopefully, a few exclusive quotes from my friend, the legendary Motown engineer!

Russ was recruited to mix the long lost Motown gems by Universal Music Enterprises director of A&R, HARRY WEINGER, who has known Russ for years and consulted with him on previous compilations of Motown catalog material. Russ started mixing the first of eleven multi-track masters he was sent by Weinger about a week before Labor Day. The 16-track analog tapes, discovered in the Motown Records vaults shortly after Michael’s sudden passing, had been converted by UME engineers to digital audio for the mixing process.

(***UPDATED ON OCTOBER 26, 2009*** UME’s Harry Weinger contacted me with a clarification of facts in this post. it was actually early this year that the additional masters were first found, as UME, already in the midst of the year-long 50th anniversary celebration of Motown Records, was preparing for the 40th anniversary of the Jackson 5 this fall. Of course, the untimely passing of Michael put the newly-discovered J5 tracks into a “bigger spotlight,” according to Weinger. We appreciate this updated information!)

I started our little impromptu interview by asking Russ how long it took to complete all the mixes. “Well, the final mixes were approved ten days ago,” he said. “So, I guess the whole process of preparing the tracks and doing all the mixing took about four weeks to get done. But we did a lot of stopping and starting, waiting for approvals of the mixes or comments from Harry about changes he wanted made.” This lead to my next question. I asked Russ how many mixes he did on each of the eleven tracks. “Wow, I can’t remember exactly,” he said. “Some of them we mixed twice or three times, others four. We mixed one of the tracks eight times, trying to get it right for Harry, but he ended up using the fourth mix. This kind of thing used to happen all the time with Berry (Gordy) and the different producers back at Motown.”

I had noticed that the new Jackson 5 album listed twelve tracks, but Russ had only told me about mixing eleven songs over the last month. So I asked him about that. Russ said that the twelfth song, called “Buttercup,”was a collaboration with Stevie Wonder, who wrote the song. This track was recorded and mixed back in 1974, but never released until now. “But I’m pretty sure I mixed that one too, back then!” Russ quipped with a laugh.

As a producer and sound engineer myself, I wanted to know how difficult the mixing process was, and how it compared to mixing the original tracks. “Of course there were challenges, and some of the tracks were definitely more difficult than others.” Russ told me. “Probably the biggest issue was that these tracks are forty years old and the sound quality wasn’t anywhere near as clean and pristine as the digital tracks recorded today. But, now, we have all sorts of digital tools to clean up the sound, so we used lots of them to enhance the audio." I asked Russ which particular track, if any, was the most difficult to mix and get to sound right. He answered that the song “Man’s Temptation,” the track that he mixed eight times, was the biggest challenge, because of the sound and other complexities of that particular multi-track recording. Interestingly, the first published track listings of the new Jackson 5 album list the song as the first cut on the CD.

I wanted to talk with Russ more about some of the technical details of the processes he used to mix these vintage old tracks, but he was already into his work-day at his current “day job” (he now directs and produces advertising for an online job site based in Santa Cruz, CA). I knew his time was limited and he may want to end the conversation at any time, so I decided to hold off on the technical questions and move on to a few more questions about the overall experience of mixing the resurrected recordings. Russ had mixed all the original Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson solo hits and recorded the vocal and instrumental tracks for many of them as well. Knowing that my friend had spent, literally, hundreds of hours in the Motown Hollywood Studios with Michael and his brothers recording and mixing the songs, I just had to know what he must have been thinking when he went back into a digital studio forty years later with some of the same tracks he may have actually recorded way back when.

I posed the question to Russ, “What went through your mind when you hit the “play” button on the software and heard these old tracks for the first time in decades?”

“Joe, it was like stepping back in a time machine,” he told me. “All I could think was, ‘OH MY GOD! This is Michael and his brothers. These guys were SO talented. How did this kid Michael have so much talent to be able to do all this?’ Hearing the tracks was like being in the control room with them again, sitting around me goofing off while I did my thing. Except this time they weren’t here. It was just their voices coming out of the monitors, kind of like they were coming from heaven.”

All I could say was, “Wow.” Russ went on. “It was a very emotional experience for me, but, at the same time, very rewarding to be working with these tracks, because of my past relationship with Michael and his brothers. We spent a lot of time in the studio together for all those years and became very close.” I detected a few cracks in my old friend’s voice as he uttered his words.

I have to admit that I never really heard Russ get emotional about anything before. In all the years we hung out at the Hollywood Motown studios and my (two different) studios, it was all good times, recording hit records, partying and loving life back in the seventies and eighties. So, hearing Russ speak, almost reverently and with such respect and even gratitude about his involvement in this project, was making me a little misty-eyed myself.

I asked Russ what was the best thing about working on this latest piece of pop music history and, just as he has been so many times before, being such an integral part of the finished project. Always the modest and humble master, Russ replied, “What can I say? It really was a labor of love…..I did this for Michael. Anyone who worked with him knew he was more than just a recording artist. He was one of a kind, truly special and a very special friend to me.”

I wanted to know if anyone in the Jackson family had contacted Russ recently. Russ said that he couldn’t even remember the last time he spoke with any Jackson family member, but then said that JERMAINE JACKSON recently requested that Russ confirm him as a friend on Facebook!

Knowing it was about time to end our call, I still had one last question for my old friend who is, himself, a living legend in the world of recorded popular music. (Lest we not forget that this is a man who has mixed at least 89 number one records and hundreds of other hit singles and albums!) I asked Russ to tell me what, personally, was his own “take-away” from getting this awesome gig and working on this historic project. Russ paused for a moment and then replied, “I’ve worked on SO many albums and with SO many artists. But this project was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and, you know, I’d like to be doing more.”

Something tells me that there will be much more for Russ Terrana.

But wait, there IS more! A new collection of Jackson 5 Christmas songs, called THE JACKSON 5 ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS ALBUM will be released next week, on October 13. Of course, most, if not all, of the tracks on this new album were recorded and mixed by Russ. This new compilation features 18 holiday songs performed by the group, including a great song called LITTLE CHRISTMAS TREE, written by our good friend ARTIE WAYNE and George Clinton, Jr. The track features a twelve year-old Michael and was supposed to be the follow-up single to the smash hit “BEN.” You can read Artie’s story about the song here.

I didn’t even listen to “That’s How Love Is,” the first of the new mixes, just released today as a single, until after speaking with Russ on the phone. The track sounded so strikingly similar to the original Jackson 5 hits we all remember so well, that I just had to smile. Russ still has the magic touch and those solid gold ears!

All of us here at New Media Creative consider Russ to be a good and valued friend and we’re happy to have broken the story about this project and his involvement in it. Stand by. There will be much more in the weeks to come! You can listen to the first single from the new Jackson 5 album, mixed by Russ, in its entirety here.

RUSS TERRANA IN ROCKER STUDIOS MIXING THE NEW JACKSON 5 TRACKS

Copyright 2009 New Media Creative

All of us at New Media Creative are happy—and quite excited—to announce that the company’s founder, writer, producer, voice-over guy and blogger “NEW MEDIA JOE” KLEIN has been asked by the organizers of the BLOGWORLD AND NEW MEDIA EXPO in Las Vegas to take on the duties as the “Voice of Blogworld” and act as the live announcer for several of the conference’s more notable events.

Joe was recently contacted by the event’s co-founder and CEO, RICK CALVERT, to sign on and be the “voice guy” to introduce speakers at the keynote addresses and other functions at the Expo. Joe and Rick first met at the inaugural Blogworld in 2007 and have been friends ever since.

Joe is certainly no stranger to handling announcer duties. In November of 2006, he was the voice of THE VLOGGIES, the first-ever video blogging awards presented by Silicon Valley upstart, the PODTECH Network. Besides from acting as the show’s announcer, Joe wrote and co-produced the live ceremony with host and new media personality IRINA SLUTSKY of GEEK ENTERTAINMENT TV. The show, which took place at the legendary Swedish American Hall in San Francisco (which has been home to several new media related events), was a huge and unexpected success that created a buzz that lasted for months and, in many ways, put the PODTECH NETWORK on the map.

In his decades-long career as a commercial and music producer, writer and voice-over artist, Joe has voiced hundreds of local and national radio and television commercials, promos and major network television specials for NBC. He’s also performed as a voice-actor, providing looping and off-screen voices for major motion pictures and network television shows, including TURNER AND HOOCH and MURPHY BROWN among others. Joe joined the American Federation of Television and Radio Performers Union (AFTRA) in the seventies and became a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in the early eighties. He is also a writer and publisher member to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) since he wrote the music and lyrics to the hit novelty holiday classic CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU in 1988.

Joe took a hiatus from “the business” in the mid-nineties to pursue other interests, but re-emerged as a producer and voice-over artist in 2005, this time choosing to pursue a “new career” in “new media.” That same year, he founded The Podcast Voice Guys, a new media services company offering professional quality voice-overs to podcasters, new media producers and emerging networks. In 2008, the company expanded its service offerings, added new associates and was renamed NEW MEDIA CREATIVE. Under the banners of both companies, Joe has voiced, written and produced hundreds of promos, commercials and media elements for podcasts, videos, new media networks and other enterprises in the last four years. He’s attended and been a session presenter at dozens of new media related conferences in the last few years as well. In the summer of 2008, joined a host of other leading voice-over artists and “celebrities” at VOICE 2008, a prestigious exclusive conference in Los Angeles, where he presented a unique and informative session titled “Old Skool Meets Meets New Media.”

Joe has also kept busy applying his writing skills to social media endeavors, by posting numerous articles here on the company’s blog and tweeting on the company’s Twitter page.

Joe has become a recognized personality in the new media world over the last few years, well-known for bringing his wit and “Old Skool “ style to new media and social media projects and ventures.

Be sure to say a big “whassup” and hello to Joe if you’re attending the conference in Las Vegas. Joe loves to meet and greet!

The Blogworld and New Media Expo promises to be quite all the rave this year. With the acquisition of The New Media Expo last December, Blogworld became two, two, two shows in one! At least 4,000 are expected to attend the event at the Las Vegas Convention center and Twitter is already abuzz with tweets about the show and related events.

The Blogworld and New Media Expo is October 15-17. If you haven’t registered to attend yet, there’s still time! Click on the badge on the sidebar to the left!

Several months ago, Joe created the new moniker “New Media Joe” and a new Twitter account to match. Coinciding with his appearance at the Blogworld Expo, he’ll be starting to tweet to his observations, comments and opinions in the worlds of new media and social networking. He’ll also be posting blogs and tweeting from our existing company blogs and Twitter pages.

Look out Blogworld, here comes NEW MEDIA JOE! 

By Joe Klein

To the best of my recollection (without going back and checking the NMC Blog Archives) this is one of the first, or, perhaps the first time we have posted a blog article about a new media-related service. And we don’t make a habit of writing articles that are very technically-oriented. After all, there are hundreds, if not tens of thousands of tech blogs out there for the taking.

But, having just implemented GOOGLE VOICE as a solution for the telecommunications needs of New Media Creative, I was almost immediately impressed enough with the service to, well…..BLOG about it!

Looks like my timing to post this story was pretty right on, because a search for Google Voice on Google itself just before witing this post returned a host of Google News results about this great new service that have broken over the last month or two. But more on that later on in this post.

For the last few years, since starting our original new media services company THE PODCAST VOICE GUYS, we’ve been employing the SKYPE service as a telecommunications and VO/IP solution for the company. Not only was it a relatively inexpensive method for making business calls, especially to point overseas, but the ability of SKYPE to allow us to place calls from our computers and feed the recording chain of our digital software directly into the SKYPE network was a great boon to the company. Particularly useful was to be able to call clients and let them “listen in live” as we recorded voice tracks for them, in a way very similar to (but infinitely less expensive) than the method used by big ad agencies and media networks to connect announcers to remote studios for over two decades. (This method incorporated the use of expensive, dedicated digital telephone lines, called ISDN lines.) Our clients loved being able to, in effect, “direct” the announcer recording the voice tracks for their project from virtually anywhere in the world! Even better, if the client had a computer with SKYPE software installed and a decent set of speakers, he, she, or they could hear their voice tracks in pretty decent fidelity.

Depending on the speed and integrity of the internet connection (and a few other technical factors I won’t bother to explain here), our clients have been able to hear the announcer in “near studio” quality. Even at its worst, it’s still much better audio quality than listening to a recording session over a plain old telephone line. So worthwhile was this SKYPE feature that we even gave it a name back in 2005. We dubbed the added service “Skype-Session-Recording” or “SSR” for short.

Free “Skype-To-Skype” calling, low rates for calling domestic and international land line and cell phones, plus the ability to offer our “SSR” feature at no additional charge to the client truly did make SKYPE a “great call” for us. And we still use it to this day for recording sessions and international calls.

But things at SKYPE have changed over the last couple of years, and, regrettably, not for the better. Late in 2005 (not too long after we started using SKYPE), the service was purchased by Ebay for a reported sum of around $3 BILLION! (Here is the official press release from October of 2005 of the acquisition.) It was the hope of the hugely successful online auction behemoth that the SKYPE service would complement and integrate well with the Ebay site and offer a new method of instant live communication between sellers and buyers. Plans were to have some sort of “Call The Seller” button an auction listings. But, obviously, the plan just didn’t unfold. For whatever reason, voice interactivity was never implemented on the Ebay site. Perhaps Ebay realized that sellers probably did not desire the added ability to be contacted directly by auction buyers with live questions day and night.

It’s been widely reported that SKYPE was, for the most part, a big financial disappointment for Ebay, practically from the start. The decision not to integrate the SKYPE service into Ebay happened early on after the acquisition. In an effort to bolster the bottom line, the company began to implement other means to generate revenue and achieve a return on their investment. The cost to consumers for using the “almost free” service began to change. While basic SKype-to-Skype calling has remained free, new pricing structures, subscription plans, repackaging of existing services and a few new “premium” level services have been introduced over the last few years in a pretty confusing parade of changes, but the net result of it all, as has been the case with so many other internet-based services that launched as “free” and later moved to fee-based models, was that SKYPE now started costing, or cost more to use.

This, in itself, is understandable, and, as a capitalist myself, in not being condemned by me. But, along with the increase in cost to use SKYPE came a slow decline in one very important aspect of the service, that being CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Advances in internet technology, technology in general and the exponential expansion of broadband availability and adoption by consumers contributed to a measurable degree of technical improvement in the SKYPE service overall. But, at the same time, the “customer service” component of SKYPE, barely existent from the service’s inception, took a slide to non-existent in the years that followed the acquisition of the service by Ebay. By last year, customer service, for all intents and purposes, simply did not exist for SKYPE subscribers. There was no way to speak live with a CSR at SKYPE. The only way to “contact customer service” was to fill out a request online. There was no way at all to contact a customer service representative at SKYPE and talk with him or her “live.” How ironic was this for a VO/IP service that was acquired by Ebay primarily as a means to facilitate live voice communication between sellers and buyers of merchandise?

Even worse, customer support requests submitted online were answered after long delays (of several days or even weeks) after being submitted, and the answers were, for the most part, “scripted" responses that did not directly address the issue submitted. If a subscriber persisted with repeated inquiries, they were answered, at best, with personalized responses often composed by low-wage employees who did not even speak the native language of the subscriber who submitted the inquiry.

Adding to the “customer-unfriendly” scenario was the company website’s product sales pages, which failed to accurately describe the products and services offered in detail and left prospective customers confused and bewildered (myself included), scratching their heads trying to figure out exactly what services were available and how much they cost.

Finally, if all of the problems with sales efforts (which were practically devoid in any event) and customer service (totally devoid for the last couple of years) weren’t enough, SKYPE even dropped the ball with their billing process. But, unlike the profitable “nickel-and-diming” overcharging of consumers being perpetrated on countless millions of consumers of other media and telecommunications service (and I won’t name names here) on a constant basis, SKYPE actually committed the UNTHINKABLE capitalist act of allowing the money-collecting functions of their business to malfunction and fail. Hundreds of thousands of SKYPE accounts signed up for “automatic payments” via credit card were simply cut-off, after the credit cards on file were mistakenly not charged or the card information was lost!

The last straw for New Media Creative came a few months ago when the credit card on file with SKYPE that we provided was repeatedly not charged and our subscription was canceled. In all fairness, as it turns out, we were partly to blame, as the email on file with SKYPE that we had provided for notifications had changed and we failed to update it, but, that being said, the credit card on file with SKYPE was still valid and it was the SKYPE billing system that failed to charge the card and initiated the account termination.

So, okay. We have vented here, and published to the world our own limited recounts of SKYPE and views on the service. Now, on to the primary subject of this blog post, that being our early praise for the recently announced GOOGLE VOICE service.

If you’ve read this far, you already know about the positives and negatives of the SKYPE service. As of last month, our company phone number, actually a “Skype-In” number (or whatever in the world it is called now) had been “disconnected” twice and, for us, enough was enough. If the disconnection wasn’t enough, repeated attempts to migrate the number from our old company SKYPE account (under the name “PODCASTVOICEGUYS”) to our current company account with SKYPE (with the name “NEWMEDIACREATIVE”) were fruitless. After repeated attempts to accomplish this migration and get a clear and understandable response from Skype’s “customer service” failed, we simply allowed the number to, for the second time, expire. (Those of you who have tried to contact our company through our primary office phone line may have reached a “not in service” recording at times over the last few months and, for that, we are embarrassed and do sincerely apologize.)

Being one of the “old skooI” members of New Media Creative, I admit that I am often a bit “behind the curve” of the very latest technology trends and news and, silly me, I only first learned of the “Grand Central” VO/IP service in June of last year when I happened on a year-old article by Mike Arrington on TechCrunch about the planned acquisition of the company by Google! Even at that time last summer, I was still pretty satisfied with our SKYPE account and did not persue the Grand Central service any further. But, early this year, just as I was beginning to become disgruntled with the customer service end of SKYPE, a significant degree of buzz was building about the rebranding of Grand Central as Google Voice and all the positive aspects of the service. A few of my friends, who, like me, were former die-hard “phone phreaks” from the sixties and seventies, were buzzing as well, and we were all filled with eager anticipation about this highly-anticipated new Google-backed VO/IP offering.

One of those phone phreaks is a close friend of mine for nearly forty years named MARK ROBBINS, a good-natured, generous and wonderfully gifted guy who has always loved to “tinker” in nearly all-things tech. Mark created and wrote the code for LAPLINK, one of the world’s most popular early software programs and was a founding partner in TRAVELING SOFTWARE that marketed the innovative data transfer application back in the eighties. Mark, himself, was enamored with Google Voice and signed up for an early invitation to the service months ago. Soon thereafter, he added me to the invitation list, and I received my own invite to create a Google Voice account in late July.

It took me until just about a week ago (after finally deciding to abandon SKYPE as the provider of the New Media Creative office telephone service in August) to finally sign up for Google Voice. And, as the title of this post proclaims, it almost immediately proved itself as nothing short of a “perfect fit!”

Learning about the details of the service wasn’t “easy as pie,” but, in stark contrast to SKYPE, it was far easier and more and straightforward to figure out what Google Voice had to offer than to figure out what is currently available on SKYPE from visiting the online pages of the service. Even better, all of the services offered by Google Voice (with the exception of international calling) are, currently, free! And, best of all, signing up and activating the service, including picking an area code and phone number was relatively simple and pain-free. I was actually able to pick a number that was identical to my existing cell-phone number, with the exception of the very first digit after the (same) area code! How cool is that?

Once I enabled the account and the new company phone number was activated, the “love-fest” with Google Voice began! I was thrilled and overjoyed, feeling like that very young “phone phreak” all over again as I quickly learned and experienced the myriad of capabilities and functionality that this very cool VO/IP service offers.

Sparing another paragraph or two of technical details, suffice it to say that Google Voice does just about everything well that SKYPE now falls short in. While we cannot use Google Voice to connect our recording chain directly to our clients (something that we will happily continue to use SKYPE for as long as it’s available), the service immediately proved itself worthy of all our other VO/IP needs! It has all sorts of great ways to route our new “office line” anywhere we want—to other land lines, cell phones or whatever. Google Voice even offers the absolute coolest voice mail service around. The voice mail includes (at no charge, of course) the service of emailing not just notifications of voice mails, but actual TRANSCRIPTIONS of the voice messages as well. It even allows “passing through” of SMS text messages to a cell phone number that the Google Voice primary number is forwarded to. How cool is all this?

Okay, sales pitch over. I’m not, in any way, a paid spokesperson for Google Voice, nor do I even have any kind of affiliate relation with this service. (For the time being, it’s all but free anyway!) But, still, I’ve got nothing but the highest praise and recommendation for this invaluable service. Let’s hope it stays free, or, at the least, continues on in its present incarnation at a low cost, (which I, for one, would gladly pay). Let’s also hope that the service keeps improving, rather than experiencing the down-side of a huge high-tech corporate take-over, as SKYPE did.

So, wouldn’t you know it, just as I decided to post this long (and, admittedly, tiring) blog post about Google Voice, that, as I mentioned early on in this article, Google Voice, along with SKYPE, have become the subjects of high-profile tech stories of late. In early September it was reported that a pending sale of SKYPE was imminent. The price was not disclosed, but reports had the sale pegged at somewhere around the $2 billion dollar mark, which would result in about a $1 billion loss to Ebay. On the heels of that story, Google Voice was back in the news when Apple refused to allow the service to be migrating into its popular iPhone as an application. A few days ago, a story in the Wall Street Journal stated that the service was likely come under scrutiny and, earlier today came the breaking news that Google Voice is now the subject of an FCC probe, following a claim just filed by Telecommunications giant AT&T accusing the Google Voice service of restricting connectivity to to other carriers.

Why are we not all surprised? Sorry to be the voice of skepticism here, but I have to pose the question: If a new service or product is too good to be true, is it’s fate ultimately doomed?

Time will tell. In the meantime, If this useful, versatile and cost saving service interests you, I would encourage you to try it out, At this time, Google voice is available by invitation only, but you can request and invitation here and you’ll get an email from Google Voice when the service is available for you or your company.

Our enthusiasm and support is confirmed by the Google Voice widget that now appears predominantly at the top our website’s sidebar! Click on the badge and say hello, or add  your own comment to this long-winded story and let us and the world know your thoughts!

(***UPDATED ON OCTOBER 8, 2009***) Michael Arrington, a well known tech blogger and evangelist, posted a pretty geeky story on Tech Crunch about the fight for SKYPE that is now playing out.

By Joe Klein

There has been a whole lot of hoopla over the last couple months about the existence of so-called “lost” Michael Jackson songs or recordings. One of the biggest and widely-circulated rumors was that Michael’s sister Latoya Jackson had “smuggled out” a hundred or more recordings contained on hard drives, CD’s or cassettes from the mansion rented by the King Of Pop in the hours following his sudden and unexpected death. LaToya denied this allegation in an interview with Barbara Walters that aired last week on ABC’s 20/20 telecast.

Almost immediately following Michael’s passing in June, the lust for songs and anything and everything recorded by Michael Jackson has been building, almost to a frenzy not seen since the glory years of MJ in the late eighties and early nineties. A frantic search has been on for new, undiscovered or otherwise “lost” material.

Besides all the gossip surrounding Latoya, rumors have also been circulating of the existence of a library of unreleased material at Epic Records, the label that Michael Jackson and The Jacksons recorded for following their departure from Motown Records in the mid-eighties. However, until now, there has been little buzz about the existence of “lost tracks” of Michael or the Jackson 5 in the most obvious “lost and found” department of all, the vaults of Motown, Berry Gordy’s storied Detroit label where their fabled and historic careers began.

The day after the MTV Video Music Awards played homage to MJ, we posted a story online that broke the news about a cache of early recordings of Michael and the his brothers had been found! We released a second story the following day.

Apparently the old multi-track analog master tapes, which are early recordings of the Jackson 5 with a pre-teen Michael Jackson singing lead vocals, were uncovered at some point over the summer and converted to digital audio data. At the end of August, Harry Weinger, a senior executive at Universal Music Enterprises (who markets the old Motown catalog product) contacted my old friend Russ Terrana, the highly respected and gifted engineer who mixed and recorded most the early Jackson 5 and Micahel Jackson Motown hits. Weinger asked Terrana if he would be interested in digitally mixing several newly-discovered Jackson 5 songs, and Russ jumped at the chance.

I posted the story here on our company’s blog just after the second breaking news story appeared online. I was thrilled for Russ when I first learned of the project back at the end of August and asked if I could blog about it. I was even more excited to break the story to the world and help get Russ some newly found attention and much-deserved recognition for the mountain of success and accomplishments he’s achieved over the years, plus his unquestionable contribution to the history of recorded pop music.

Terrana is currently mixing down eleven songs never before released in a small facility in Scots Valley, California called ROCKER STUDIOS, owned by a good friend of Russ’ named Rick Vierra. Russ hopes to have the mixes done at some point over the next week or two. Meanwhile, Weinger told Russ that UME is planning to release the tracks as a “new” Jackson 5 album in November, just in time for the holiday buying season, and this seems consistent with another story that appeared online just after our first story broke. This item reports that the new collection will be called “I Want You Back” (a pretty good, an appropriate title for the package) and that UME has scheduled a release date of November 10 for the new album! This seems consistent with what Weinger told Russ a couple weeks ago.

As far as the existence of more “hidden gems,” nothing further has been confirmed at this point. But there’s little doubt the rumors, speculation and reports of more discoveries of MJ and J5 material will continue for some time, and the story of “lost tracks” of Michael Jackson will go on for months, if not years, to come.

The story about the first confirmed “find” of “lost tracks” featuring Michael Jackson is sure to build excitement to fans the world over and is already starting to create a stir among fans of the King Of Pop and his storied family as it starts circulating around the net. The first story we published online is here and our follow up story, released a day later, can be found here.