They watch someone else and try to do exactly what that performer did. He studied the greats and became great himself.Ĭopiers are just that. He didn’t “steal” anything except in the most playful sense of that word. Mike never mastered Jackie’s back-bend half-split or Jackie’s up-from-the-ankles reverse knee drop, did he?) You can watch video of Michael Jackson and see what he borrowed and modified and incorporated from Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Elvis Presley, and Fred Astaire. (Of course, there was a limit to what MJ could take from Jackie. Take race off the table and ask yourself how many people complain that Michael Jackson “stole” his spins from Jackie Wilson. Elvis stole every stage mannerism, every concept, all his music from Black artists.” This extreme position is, of course, ridiculous, and so are the less extreme positions if “stole” is taken seriously as theft or anything else negative. The most angry insist that “Elvis is the White Jackie. Jacksonville, Florida: Heyday Publishing, Inc., 1998.Īs I stated in an earlier post, some Jackie Wilson fans cannot get beyond the title of the Doug Carter book, The Black Elvis: Jackie Wilson.
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