A sketch of The Jackson 5 in clothes envisioned and made for the band by designer Boyd Clopton.
 
In addition to creating unique stagewear and costumes for acts like The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes and Aretha Franklin (among many, many others), Boyd Clopton was also a talented painter whose personal works have been known to fetch as much as twenty grand when they become available.

A resident of Venice Beach during the glorious time it was still very much a mecca for bohemian beat poets, musicians, and creatives, Clopton lived there for three decades starting sometime in 1960 when he was in his late 20s. In the early 70s, Clopton’s wildly groovy designs were being worn almost exclusively by The Jackson 5 during their live shows, television appearances, and photo shoots. Aretha Franklin was also a fan of Clopton’s duds and would make it a point to seek him out whenever she was in Los Angeles (as mentioned in a 1974 interview published in Ebony magazine). Like other designers, Clopton would sketch out his concept clothing on paper for his clients. Unfortunately, Clopton’s career was cut short by his untimely death in 1989 at the age of 55. Single articles of clothing designed by Clopton have sold for hundreds and even thousands of dollars in auctions as have his sketches—many which reside in an archive maintained by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Below, some examples of Clopton’s fantastic sketches featuring his famous muses, as well as a few shots of The Jackson 5 wearing his outrageous outfits in real life. Keep it funky, now.
 

A sketch of Marlon Jackson of The Jackson 5 in one of Clopton’s designs.
 

The Jackson 5.
 

Dusty Springfield 1972.
 
Much more after the jump…

 
On a recent episode of the NPR radio show “Bullseye,” host Jesse Thorn used his closing “Outshot” segment to throw some hosannas in the direction of the Jackson 5’s classic 1969 hit “I Want You Back,” which he considers to be the greatest pop song ever recorded. In fact, it’s so good that, well, everybody likes it. Says Thorn:
 

The greatest pop song of all time is a song that makes literally anyone happy. You could play it for Israelis and Palestinians, you could play it for deep Amazonians who have never heard a record or, for all I care, you could play it for mole people deep under the crust of the earth, and you would get one reaction: happiness. Absolute, dancing, clapping, wide-smiling joy. It’s a song so good, it even stands up to a ridiculous introduction like that one.

 
Ah! But Thorn didn’t reckon with one of his listeners, who wrote in to complain about the effervescent pop classic released 44 years ago:
 

Yesterday afternoon, I listened and enjoyed most of your program. However, I guess I am from a different generation, in fact I know I am. I had never heard that song, couldn’t understand a single word that Michael Jackson sang, and it just sounded like a lot of noise. I can think of a lot of songs from my era that were a lot happier than that, many of them from Disney movies. Examples Mairsy Doats, Zipededoodah, among others. And in those I remember the words because you could understand them, enunciation was a big thing in my day, hearing the words, understanding the words, important to getting the point across.

 
Yes, you read that right, somewhere out there is an intelligent woman (Thorn identified her as a woman on his Facebook feed) who can compose a proper letter and who likes NPR (and Bullseye), and is bothered that everyone seems to like this craaaaazy song “I Want You Back” that she can’t understand and sees as such a far cry from the songs of her youth. It seems of a piece with the people who used to think that e.g. the Rolling Stones or Marilyn Manson or whoever are ruining the country. Does she think that the Jackson 5 are ruining the country? She would prefer it, you see, if we went back to doing songs like “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” which, you’ll surely remember, was introduced in the 1946 Disney movie Song of the South, a movie so cringe-inducingly patronizing on the subject of race that Disney has been trying for years to pretend it never released it.
 

 
We forget sometimes that the battle over, say, punk music, which seems so settled, isn’t actually over at all. There’s always going to be that one last holdout—always. In 1970, just one year after the Jackson 5 released “I Want You Back,” Black Sabbath released both their eponymous debut album and Paranoid. We have no record of what this NPR listener would have made of that. No, her issue is that you can’t understand the joyous warblings of a supremely talented 10-year-old singing (a bit incongruously, granted) about wanting his ex back.

The really hilarious aspect of it all is that Thorn frequently dedicates his “Outshot” segments to rap songs. But either she didn’t listen to those episodes, or else she really digs the stylings of Jay-Z.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Samuel Jackson 5
Jackson 5 nightmare: ‘Junk Food Junkie’

 
My childhood television-watching memories were pretty much informed by three people: Maxwell Smart, Julia Child and the late, great Flip Wilson.  Comedian Clerow “Flip” Wilson was a Laugh-In regular and a frequent guest on Johnny Carson, but I remember him best, and most vividly, from his variety show that ran on NBC in the early 70s.

Whether he was dressed in drag as Geraldine (watch him flirt here with Muhammad Ali), or posing as the con-artist minister, “Reverend Leroy” (before he goes off to “fight sin” in Vegas, watch here as he puts in charge of his flock Redd Foxx‘s “Pussyfoot Johnson”), Flip and his show were definitely groundbreaking, and not just to my childhood mind—although I was probably the only kid in my neighborhood who went around shouting, The Devil Made Me Do It!

Anyway, The Flip Wilson Show was a regular stop for mainstream acts like Aretha Franklin and The Jackson 5, but, for his five years on primetime network TV, Flip was also a tireless champion of ripening greats like Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor and Albert Brooks.   And while I don’t remember their appearances, some of them, fortunately, are now showing up on YouTube.  As “reissue fever” sweeps the land—or just Pitchfork—witness below the great Lena Horne doing her rendition of “Rocky Raccoon.”  Amazing!