New Michael Jackson Recordings to Be Released This Fall

Hot on the heels of the MTV Video Music Awards telecast that featured multiple tributes to Michael Jackson and just days before Oprah Winfrey will be airing her own televised homage to the King of Pop, comes the word that a number of early recordings of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 have been unearthed and are set for a November release.

The precious gems sat unnoticed, buried deep in the vaults of Motown Records for decades. As of this writing, there are no less than 11 newly discovered songs, never put out as singles or included on any Jackson 5 or Michael Jackson albums, which are now in the process of being mixed for the first NEW Jackson 5 album in decades.

Russ Terrana, the very same gifted recording engineer who mixed all of the original Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson records 40 years ago, has confirmed that he is mixing down new Motown tracks never before released nor heard by the public. Terrana also recorded and mixed hits for virtually every other major Motown star and superstars from other labels as well, including the No. 1 hit "Didn't We Almost Have It All" by Whitney Houston.

The news of the discovery of a cache of historically significant recordings comes on the heels of a succession of wild rumors and speculation about the existence of hundreds of so-called "lost" Michael Jackson recordings.

But this is the first bona fide report of an actual "find" of never-before-heard performances of the late pop icon or his musical brothers.

The songs on the newly recovered masters were never mixed down or otherwise prepared for public release until now, and it's most likely these tracks have only been heard by the group, the producer at the session, the people in the studio and Berry Gordy himself back when they were being recorded in 1969 or 1970.

Late last month, Terrana was recruited by Harry Weinger, a senior executive at Universal Music Group and Universal Music Enterprises to perform new digital audio mixes of the newly found songs. Terrana received the digital audio files of 11 previously unreleased tracks late in August. During the week before Labor Day, he began working on the tracks in a small, state-of-the-art digital recording studio in Scots Valley, California, owned by a close friend, Rick Vierra. As of this writing, he has finished at least four digital mixes and continues to labor on the meticulous process of mixing seven more songs.

All of the tracks are early Jackson 5 recordings, made at the same time as the group was recording its original legendary smash hits. According to Terrana, UMG plans to release these "new" Jackson 5 gems in mid-November, just in time for the holiday buying season.

Last night, the MTV Video Music Awards created a huge buzz on Twitter and throughout the Blogosphere. But Kanye West's off-the-wall shout-out to Beyonce in the middle of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for her Best Female video award did little to overshadow the primary focus of the ceremony - dedicated and in tribute to Michael Jackson.

From the moving and well-staged tribute to that opened the show (featuring Madonna and Janet Jackson) to the world premiere of the trailer for "Michael Jackson's This Is It," (the MJ documentary that opens in theaters October 28) which aired just before the show's end, the show was nothing short of historic.

Now, more history is about to be made with the release of the latest Motown Jackson 5 tracks, scheduled to occur just weeks after the much-anticipated new documentary.

Almost immediately following the unexpected death of the King of Pop, speculation about the existence of so-called "lost tracks" featuring Michael Jackson recordings began running rampant, and the hunt was on for any material featuring performances by Michael Jackson that had not been previously released to the public.

There has been a significant degree of buzz surrounding La Toya Jackson, who was rumored to have grabbed hard drives and, perhaps other recordings (such as cassettes and CDs) from Michael's rented Holmby Hills estate the night of the singer's death. La Toya denied removing hard drives or taking any recordings from the home in an interview with Barbara Walters on a segment of ABC's 20/20 that aired Friday, September 10. Even if she, or anyone else, has the recordings, legal claims to the rights of ownership and control of the material could prevent a public release for years.

Enter the Motown Vaults

The most obvious source for "lost" recordings of Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 is the vaults of Motown Records, where Michael and his brothers recorded a huge number of songs in the 15 years they were at the label. What sets the Motown tracks apart from a historical perspective is that the early recordings made at Motown are of a young, energetic and gifted Michael, poised for super-stardom. Recordings from the subsequent years chronicled Jackson's growth and evolution as an artist as he matured into adulthood -- but before he achieved his widely-known status as the King Of Pop.

In the weeks following Michael's demise, nowhere was the search for old master tapes more feverish than in the vaults Motown Records. The rights to the early Motown recordings are now controlled by the Universal Music Group (UMG) and Universal Music Enterprises, which is the catalog division of the entertainment conglomerate. More importantly, the ownership of this library of recordings and the songs (mostly owned by Jobete Music, the publishing company founded by Berry Gordy over 50 years ago) are not in dispute and are all candidates for new releases of Michael Jackson or Jackson 5 material for the foreseeable future.

UMG has been under the Seagram corporate umbrella since the purchase of Polygram by Seagram at the end of 1998. Since the end of last year, the two Universal divisions have been collaborating on new compilations, merchandise and several media events to mark a year-long celebration of Motown's 50th anniversary, which began in January.

Universal Music Enterprises has been the marketing muscle behind countless compilations and reissues of Motown product over the last decade, under the supervision of its vice president of A&R, Harry Weinger, himself a well-respected figure in pop and R&B music. Weinger has been involved in a multitude of compilations and reissues of vintage and classic Motown recordings. Weinger has completed projects with major artists including:

• Public Enemy - Power to the People and the Beats: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits (2005)
• The Supremes - There's a Place for Us (2004) & Where Did Our Love Go (2004) & The '70s Anthology (2002)
• Diana Ross & The Supremes - Anthology (2001)

Weinger has received major recognition and awards and recognition for his work. In 2003, he received a Grammy in the Film/TV/Media Category for:

* Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media - Allan Slutsky, Harry Weinger (producers), Ted Greenberg (producer & engineer/mixer), Kooster McAllister (engineer/mixer) & The Funk Brothers for Standing in the Shadows of Motown performed by The Funk Brothers & various artists

Back in July, Weinger contacted Russ Terrana, a legendary, but not widely known, recording engineer who mixed down virtually every Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson hit until they departed the label for Epic Records in the mid '80s.

Initially, Weinger asked Terrana for his recollections about working on Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson projects for Motown over the years, saying that he may want to include Terrana's comments for future compilations.

Then, in August, Weinger contacted Terrana again, telling him he had several original master recordings of early Jackson 5 tracks that had been found.

Harry Weinger was having the multi-track masters converted to the digital audio format, and the fabled engineer was asked if he would be interested in performing his mixing magic once again, this time in the digital realm 40 years after the tracks were recorded. The recordings had been made during the same period as the original Jackson 5 hits, but were never included in the early albums.

It took Russ all of a couple of seconds to come up with an answer: "Yes!" Russ told Harry he'd be thrilled to get back into the studio and start blending more of the same sounds that he had crafted into hit records decades ago.

What's more, Terrana said, the advanced and sophisticated digital audio hardware and software in use today would allow him to utilize tools, techniques and tricks to improve, refine and shape the sound in ways that were not even imaginable back in the early '70s, when audio was still fully in the analog domain.

Making Music Magic with the Latest Tools of The Trade

As fate would have it, Terrana met an eager and talented audio producer and engineer named Rick Vierra a few years back. Vierra lives not far from the Santa Cruz home where Terrana currently resides. When Vierra learned about Terrana's accomplishments and career history, he was overjoyed, and the two became instant friends.

Inspired by Terrana, Vierra has been honing his own craft and making significant improvements to his once modest digital home studio, which has blossomed into a state-of-the-art digital facility, complete with all the latest ProTools recording gear plus a room full of additional electronic bells and whistles. The studio even sports a large collection of vintage classic analog audio gear, available to use in the instances where the digital processing devices don't result in the exact sound sought.

While Vierra learned from Terrana about recording and using the ears to work the equipment and tailor the best sounds, Terrana, the seasoned studio veteran, learned about all the newfangled digital gear and what it was capable of doing.

By the time Harry Weinger contacted Russ near the end of August to discuss digitally mixing the old Jackson 5 masters, Terrana and Vierra were ready, willing and able to take on the job.

Terrana told Weinger that he and Vierra, working together in Vierra's facility, should be able to work some serious magic and bring the old Jackson tapes back to a vibrant new life. A preliminary deal was struck and, in the week before the Labor Day holiday, Weinger forwarded to Russ the digital files that contained the tracks of 11 Jackson 5 recordings, circa 1970.

The original master tapes were 16-track analog tapes, which Weinger had engineers carefully convert to the highest quality digital recordings. Once the digital files were in Terrana's hands, he began the meticulous process of analyzing, enhancing and preparing the raw individual tracks of four of the 11 songs in early September. By Labor Day, after several days and nights of audio mixing, tweaking, polishing and mixing some more, the four mixes of the songs had been completed and sent back to Harry Weinger.

Terrana is waiting to hear back from Weinger for his reaction to the mixes. Meanwhile, he is back in Vierra's studio, forging ahead with the process of mixing seven more songs.

Just before Labor Day, Weinger told Terrana that UMG and UME were hoping to have enough tracks to release a new album of Jackson 5 songs in time for the holiday buying season. This would be the first "new" album from the Jackson's in nearly three decades.

Is There Really Lost Gold In These Vintage Jackson Family Recordings?

It is important to remember that, to this day, the finished albums released by artists and record labels have songs that some people will like more than others. It was, and still is, a common practice to release an album on which the label and/or artist pick "singles" or sides that they feel should be spotlighted, played on the radio or have made into music videos.

As the saying goes, they can't all be hits. To have enough material to choose from, record labels have usually paid to have more songs recorded than they actually needed for a full album. Berry Gordy, who owned his own record company, studio and owned most, if not all, of the publishing rights to the songs his artists recorded, figured he should just record as much stuff as was possible for each separate album, especially as his artists blossomed into big stars. Motown was very well known for this "over-recording" of artists' material.

Just as directors shoot far more footage than ultimately ends up in a motion picture, Berry Gordy almost always recorded far more music than he needed for an album. The decision as to what ended up in the final package could be made by the producer, the artist, by Gordy himself, or by committee. Exactly who was involved in the selection processed varied from project to project.

Of course, judging the material that did, or didn't, make the final cut for each album involved a lot of subjectivity. Some ultimately liked the stuff that was left on the recording studio's cutting-room floor more than the sides that made it on an album's final release.

Once the decisions were made which songs to include on an album, the others were, more or less, left behind. Still, there was a chance that the cast-offs for may be tapped for a subsequent album by the same artist. Does this mean that the unreleased material falls short, or should be considered "throw-away" tracks?

The answer, especially in the case of the Jackson 5 or the inimitable Michael Jackson, is, simply, "Not necessarily!"

The Man Behind The Mixing Magic

Making this story even more compelling is the obscure but colorful history of the recording engineer himself. Russ Terrana is, without question, an incredibly gifted sound recording engineer with a history of success that is unequaled. Still, his accomplishments and skills are not widely known to those outside of the superstars, producers, writers and assistant engineers he worked with.

Terrana, in fact, mixed a majority of Motown's hits from late in 1966 in Detroit until the closing of Motown's Hitsville Studios in Hollywood in the fall of 1988. A trusted and treasured employee of Berry Gordy for over 20 years, Terrana was tapped by Gordy to remix all of the original Jackson 5 tracks (which were recorded in L.A. as the label began its and the Jackson family's relocation to Southern California). Terrana was still working for the label out of its Detroit studios, so the multi-track master tapes were shipped back to Detroit, where Russ used his tremendous skill and super keen ears to mold the sound of the early Jackson family records into the smash hit records Berry Gordy was looking to put out.

In the years that followed, he continued mixing hit after hit in Detroit. In 1972, Berry Gordy had relocated nearly all of his Motown operations to Hollywood and that same year purchased a recording studio named Poppy Studios, reportedly built by an eccentric who really had no concept of what to do with the studio. After its purchase, the facility was immediately upgraded and improved. Gordy relocated Terrana to Hollywood to labor on in Motown's Hollywood studios, recording and mixing countless hundreds, if not thousands of tracks for the mammoth label.

Terrana was called into "save the day" from time to time, when Gordy was unhappy with tracks or mixes done by other engineers. Nine times out of 10, it was Terrana's work that prevailed in Gordy's opinion, to great success. One very notable story is about the "save" he accomplished on the smash Diana Ross Album, "Diana," which was recorded and originally mixed at the Power Station Studio in New York City. Producing power duo at that time, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, produced a great album, but Berry Gordy thought that the mixes were lacking and holding back the magic contained in the original tracks. At the eleventh hour, Gordy ordered that Russ remix the album. The result was the masterpiece Berry heard in his mind all along, and the "Diana" album was a smash that achieved the status of a classic, remembered to this day.

By the time Terrana's career at Motown ended with the closing of the Hollywood studio in the fall of 1988, Russ had accomplished what no other recording engineer of pop music ever had. He had mixed no less than 89 No. 1 singles, 300 more charted singles and scores of other platinum hits.

Think of any memorable Motown hit by the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, the Supremes, Diana Ross, the Four Tops, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie or the Commodores and there is a very good chance that Russ recorded it, mixed it or both. It's a "track record" shared with no other in pop music history.

During his two decades at Motown, Terrana accomplished even more. He was responsible for creating a plethora of new recording techniques and sound ideas that no one ever dared try before he did. From novel and innovative use of vintage "outboard" recording gear in use, to daring and revolutionary uses of microphones, echo chambers and other recording devices, Terrana quietly revolutionized the sound of recorded pop music in ways that few even realize to this day.

Electronic Wizardry, Pillows, Blankets and Microphone Stands Were All A Part of Russ Terrana's Recording Arsenal

Terrana called upon his boundless energy and bold determination to record "outside the box" and create sounds and aural textures never before heard at the time. In one example, that's still the stuff of legend to this day, he would loop recording tape from the tape recorder's "record" head around microphone stands in the control room to increase the delay between the record and play heads of the machine. This long delayed sound would then be routed to an acoustic echo chamber and combined with the sound from another echo chamber that was not delayed, and the result was a huge, cavernous sound, difficult, if not impossible to achieve using conventional methods at the time. This was years before digital or even acoustic delay devices started being employed.

Terrana was one of the first engineers to experiment with deadened sound from a drummer's bass, or "kick" drum, by cutting a hole in the outward-facing skin and then stuffing pillows or blankets inside the drum. He would tape pieces of paper towels to a snare drum to deaden, or "tighten" its sound. He was a genius when it came to recording vocals and other instrumental tracks as well.

Russ Terrana was simply one of the best; He was a Rembrandt, a Fellini or a Stanley Kubrick behind the control board. And, it's a sure bet to say that his genius is timeless. It is quite surprising that, in spite of all his tremendous accomplishments and success as an indispensable cog in world of pop music, Terrana, to this day, is not widely known or acknowledged to this day, due, in part to a lack of receiving label credit for a sizable portion of his engineering work on the records which he recorded or mixed. Interestingly, Russ was the first recording engineer to receive a Motown album credit, for his brilliant mixing of the Temptations "Psychedelic Shack" album back in 1969. Happily, many more engineering credits did follow in subsequent years.

Still, there has not been a whole lot of reporting about the remarkable accomplishments of this modest and gentle genius of sound.

In a recent Associated Press article written by Mike Householder and Jeff Karoub reporting on the 50th anniversary of the fabled record label, rocker Ted Nugent was quoted about the Motown sound of decades past.

"You had naturally gifted engineers and producers that didn't let that technical expertise interfere with that rawness. ...Somehow the ... engineer/producers, thank God, either admittedly or just instinctually saw when these guys started jamming it just sounded good." - Ted Nugent, rock guitarist and singer

While this writer is not exactly sure what Nugent was trying to relate, there were, in fact, a number or talented recording engineers that passed through the doors of Motown Studios through the years. Sitting at the top of the heap, however, was a quiet, hard-working Italian with ears of gold named Russ Terrana.

Some of Russ Terrana's story has been documented in a recent book entitled "The Road Through Motown," penned by Russ' brother, Ralph Terrana. A book about Russ' own fable career has recently been completed, and is set for publication within the next several months.

Now, for Russ Terrana, Harry Weinger and Motown fans around the world, it seems likely that a new chapter in recorded music history is about to be written with the upcoming release of the newly-unearthed Jackson family gems.

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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. He currently operates a new media creative services company. NewmediaCreative.com @newmediacreativ

About the Article's Contributor and Editor - Brett Bumeter is a ghost writer, blogger and 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. SoftduitMedia.com @brettbum

Sources

The majority of this article was directly sourced by the authors. Some background material was confirmed or double sourced through the resources below.

Harry Weinger - BBC

Taylor Swift Thanks "Gracious" Beyonce for Inviting Her Onstage After Kanye Stunt at VMAs - Rock&Roll Daily ~Rolling Stone

Hello World The Motown Collection - Michael Jackson - Rolling Stone

La Toya Jackson: 'My Brother's Home Was Raided By Thieves - StarPulse.com

Grammy Awards of 2003 - KnowledgeRush

Diana Ross Diana - Deluxe Edition Review - BBC

Secrets of Motown - Modern Drummer

Russ Terrana - Discogs

Jeff Karoub, Mike Householder - Yesterday, today, forever: 50 years after Motown Records is born, the famous 'sound' endure WPIX11

Jackson's Beatles Songs -- Let it Be - TMZ

Whitney Houston "Oprah" Interview Sneak Peek (VIDEO) - PopCrunch

Barry Gordy and Suzanne DePasse attend MJ funeral - Urban Mecca

Ani - Janet Jackson finally speaks up after MJ's death - Entertainment Daily