Amid VMA Tributes, Are New Michael Jackson Songs the Best Legacy of All?

Sunday night, viewers around the world witnessed the televised proof that Michael Jackson is still in the hearts and minds of the entire entertainment industry, if not fans, the world over.

Today, Oprah Winfrey keeps the tributes coming with the airing of her own televised tribute to MJ, which, knowing Oprah, promises to be a first-rate tear-jerker in its own right.

Amid all of the honors and ongoing showers of admiration, has come the announcement that a new collection of previously unreleased material recorded by a pre-teenage Michael Jackson and his luminous brothers was recently discovered in the vaults of Motown Records. At least 11 of the lost Jackson 5 gems are now in the process of being mixed and prepared for an anticipated release this fall.

The find was a series of raw, unmixed multi-track analog tapes, which had, apparently, sat unnoticed in the vaults of the venerable label, now owned by Seagram's Universal Music Group, for decades.

The masters are in the process of being mixed down by another music business legend, fabled recording engineer Russ Terrana, who was Motown's lead engineer for over twenty years from the sixties until Berry Gordy shuttered the Motown Studios in Hollywood in 1988 after selling the company.

It was Terrana who Gordy called upon to remix the original early Jackson 5 hits that were recorded in Los Angeles, after he was not satisfied with original mixes made there. (Russ was still working for the label in its Detroit studios at the time.) The talented engineer went on to become a living legend himself, by record and mixing hundreds of additional Motown hits for the next two decades.

For the last couple of weeks, Terrana is hunkered down in small Scots Valley California recording facility, mixing no less than 11 songs never before heard or released to the public.

With one legendary figure contributing to the art created by other legends, the results can only be historic.

The story will undoubtedly get more exciting with each passing day as events-and new mixes-unfold.

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About the Author - Joe Klein is a veteran writer and media producer who with decades of experience in mainstream and new media projects, productions and ventures.

Klein has been a close friend of engineer Russ Terrana since early in 1975, when the two met in Hollywood at the Motown Recording Studios.

About the Article's Contributor and Editor - Brett Bumeter is a ghost writer, blogger, & social media consultant. He is a former corporate whistle blower and former intelligence analyst working today from a Wi-Fi Fishing Dock on Lake Wylie in North Carolina just across the water from Charlotte.