Joseph Walter Jackson (born July 26, 1929 in Fountain Hill, Arkansas) was the manager of the legendary family group The Jackson 5 and father of popular music legends Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. Many credit him for discovering and molding his children's talents, helping to make the entire family something of an institution.

Born to Samuel and Chrystal Jackson as the eldest of four children in Arkansas, Joseph grew up a lonely and reserved child who had few friends in school. Many say that his father's actions on him had a huge impact on how he treated his wife and children. When he was a teenager, his parents divorced with Samuel moving to Los Angeles, California and Chrystal living in Chicago, Illinois. Joseph would live with his father until he turned 18.

In 1947, he moved to Chicago to be close to his mother. It was there that he first met his wife, 17-year-old Katherine. He had already married but quickly divorced and was soon spending all his time with Katherine impressing her with his dreams of being a boxer. He found success in the Golden Gloves and was preparing for a professional career as one until Katherine gave him the news that she was pregnant with the young couple's first child.

Joseph decided to risk his boxing career on November 5, 1949 when he married Katherine, 19, in Crown Point, Indiana. Eventually he found a two-bedroom house in Gary, Indiana in the early 1950s for $800.

They had ten children:

* Maureen Reilette Jackson (also known as Rebbie) (born May 29, 1950)
* Sigmund Esco Jackson (also known as Jackie) (born May 4, 1951)
* Tariano Adaryll Jackson (also known as Tito) (born October 15, 1953)
* Jermaine La Juane Jackson (born December 11, 1954)
* LaToya Yvonne Jackson (born May 29, 1956)
* Twins Marlon David and Brandon Jackson (born March 12, 1957; Brandon was stillborn)
* Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958)
* Steven Randall Jackson (born October 30, 1961)
* Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966)

To support his growing family, Joseph, or Joe, spent the next 15 years working full time as a steel mill crane operator. Joe began his first trek in music by forming his own band, the Falcons. The group never got as far as playing local clubs in Indiana. Joseph was the lead singer and guitarist. His love for music was passed on to his older children, especially his three oldest sons who would play around with his guitar when Joe went to work. The brothers were always quick to put it away unscathed when Joe returned home but were busted after Tito broke a guitar string. Instead of disciplining him, however, Joe allowed his son to demonstrate his talents. Impressed, Joe gave Tito his own guitar and soon had him and his brothers Jackie and Jermaine form a group they called The Jackson Brothers in 1962 with two other kids from the neighborhood. Three years later, Joe's two younger sons, Marlon and Michael, joined the group and they changed their name to The Jackson Five.

Joe became the boys' manager in 1966 when he saw the group venture as a way of getting out of the poor streets of Gary, Indiana. Booking them on gigs as seedy as Gary's "Lucky's", the Jackson 5 soon moved up to more respective venues eventually earning a fateful spot at the Apollo Theater where they won an amateur night contest. After the Jackson 5 signed to Motown and became the first American group to have their first four singles go straight to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, he moved them and the rest of his family to California where they eventually settled at a gated mansion in Encino, California. Joe nicknamed the house "Hayvenhurst". When the Jackson 5's popularity began dimming in the mid-1970s, he began managing his youngest son Randy and daughters La Toya and Janet, and had the entire family perform in Las Vegas among other places together. By 1975, most of the Jackson 5 had grown frustrated over the direction that Motown were taking them. Also fed up that his sons couldn't write and produce their own material, he signed a deal with CBS Records. The split had some repercussions to it: the brothers had to give up the Jackson 5 moniker, Jermaine, now married to Motown president Berry Gordy's daughter Hazel, remained in the label now as a solo act and the group soon found itself fighting with the label over royalties and monetary payments that they thought they deserved.

Meanwhile, Joseph's personal life was not faring any better. In 1974, it was revealed that he had committed adultery on Katherine after another woman gave birth to his daughter. Katherine filed for divorce but soon dropped the claim. She brought them up again when she confronted a woman who was alleged to have had an affair with Joseph in 1982 but Joseph would not leave the house. Katherine, once again, dropped the claims and the couple remains married to this day. In the 1980s, just as his sons were successful again, they decided to leave his company and management for good. Before releasing his 1979 solo album, "Off the Wall", Michael fired Joseph asking for control of his own career. The rest of the Jackson brothers would follow in 1983. Joseph, in the meanwhile during the 1990s, was talked of badly in the press with some of his own family members accusing him of physical abuse. This issue kept the Jackson siblings in separate directions with several claiming abuse, others claiming discipline and some saying the abuse never occurred. Many in the media depicted Joseph as a "mean and tough disciplinarian that you didn't dare cross" because of his supposed reputation. Despite the bad press, Joseph's contributions to music were rewarded when his sons were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Today, Joseph spends a quiet life in California with Katherine. He recently attended a birthday party in his honor in Germany accompanied by son Jermaine and grandson Taj.

Joseph recently announced he would host a boot camp for aspiring hip-hop artists, both to move his career to the next stage and to change what he sees as distasteful about the genre. "Everybody is liking hip-hop now. I'm gonna have to clean it up a little bit: all that vulgar language out there. I'm gonna have to keep that clean, with nice singing in it, and great music behind it".

Source: Wikipedia.org