Michael Jackson -King of Pop

Jackson's Bel-Air home in relation to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

The legal maneuvering that marked Jackson's extraordinary and troubled life continued , with his mother losing a bid to control his enormous but tangled estate. And in one of the few reminders of Jackson's darkest hours, a New York congressman branded Jackson a "pervert" undeserving of so much attention.
Jackson's friend Elizabeth Taylor will be mourning in private. She said on her Twitter feed Monday that she would not attend the memorial.
"I just don't believe that Michael would want me to share my grief with millions of others," she tweeted. "How I feel is between us. Not a public event."
In Los Angeles Superior Court, meanwhile, a judge appointed Jackson's longtime attorney and a family friend as administrators of his estate over the objections of his mother, Katherine. Attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain had been designated in Jackson's 2002 will as the people he wanted to oversee his empire.
Mrs. Jackson's attorneys expressed concerns about McClain and Branca's financial leadership.
"Frankly, Mrs. Jackson has concerns about handing over the keys to the kingdom," said one of her attorneys, John E. Schreiber.
Another one of her attorneys, Burt Levitch, told Judge Mitchell Beckloff that Branca had previously been removed from financial positions of authority by Jackson. Branca's attorney said he was rehired by Jackson on June 17, days before Jackson's death.
Branca and McClain will have to post a $1 million bond on the estate, and their authority will expire Aug. 3, when another hearing will be held.
"Mr. Branca and Mr. McClain for the next month are at the helm of the ship," the judge said.
Jackson died at age 50 with hundreds of millions in debts. But a court filing estimates his estate is worth more than $500 million. His assets are destined for a trust, with his three children, his mother and charities as beneficiaries.
On eBay, bids for memorial tickets were reaching as high as $3,000, and prices on Craigslist were in the thousands, although both sites were removing postings attempting to sell memorial tickets.
Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife and the mother of Jackson's two oldest children, had planned to attend the memorial but backed out Monday.
"The onslaught of media attention has made it clear her attendance would be an unnecessary distraction to an event that should focus exclusively on Michael's legacy," her attorney Marta Almli said in a statement. "Debbie will continue to celebrate Michael's memory privately."
In New York, Republican Rep. Peter King released a YouTube video calling Jackson, who was acquitted of child molestation charges, a "pervert" and a "low-life."
But the memories of Jackson's problems were far from the minds of fans preparing to say goodbye.

Michael Jackson had a mountain of unreleased recordings in the vault when he died, that will almost certainly be packaged for his fans in the years to come. This material includes unused tracks from studio sessions of some of his best albums, and some more recently recorded songs made with Senegalese R&B singer and producer Akon and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. People will hear a lot of this unreleased material for the first time ever! It could go on for many years!

Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's Discography:

Motown releases:
1971: Got to Be There
1972: Ben
1973: Music and Me
1975: Forever, Michael

Epic releases:
1979: Off the Wall
1982: Thriller
1987: Bad
1991: Dangerous
1995: HIStory
1997: Blood on the Dance Floor
2001: Invincible

Michael Jackson's estimated accumulative worldwide sales about 300 million albums!

Michael Jackson spent the last night of his life doing what he had always done: performing. The singer was in rehearsals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, running through a full slate of songs from his upcoming 50-concert London event flanked by friends and colleagues. He marveled at the major set pieces that had finally been installed in the rehearsal space. "He was just glowing, and you could see it, that he was finally seeing it all come together," says Dorian Holley, the vocal director for Jackson's upcoming tour. "Up until Wednesday, it had always been [just a concept], but that last day you could see it in him, that he was seeing the show finally come together for the first time. It was a big moment."
Holley says he left rehearsals just before midnight on the night of June 24, as Jackson headed off to attend yet more meetings. About 12 hours later, a 911 call would be placed from Jackson's home in Holmby Hills, reporting urgently that "he's not breathing ... He's not responding to CPR, anything."
The pop icon had seemed different during these rehearsals - not ailing by any means, but perhaps more contemplative - says Holley, who has coached Jackson on solo tours since 1987. In preparing for previous tours, Holley said auditions for backup singers and other performing roles would usually be held via videotape, and it wouldn't be all that uncommon for the two to speak directly only two or three times over the span of a year. But for "This Is It," the London concerts scheduled to begin in July, Jackson was much more present and available, attending auditions and eagerly talking with everyone in the crew about the larger mission behind the tour.
"It almost sounds crazy to say that the show wasn't about him, but ... he'd put it in perspective all the time, saying, 'This is what we're here for, to spread a message of love and taking care of the planet, that we want people to understand it's very, very dear and not to take it for granted,'" Holley tells TIME.
Until the last hour of rehearsals, Jackson maintained a ferocious, perfectionist pace, says Holley, who, after decades working with the singer, says he was still astonished by his vocal and physical prowess. Some in the public questioned whether Jackson, at 50, would still be able to command a stage, and recent reports published Sunday in Britain's Daily Mail said that Jackson had been too feeble to dance, sing or, at times, even speak in the weeks leading up to his death. But, Holley - despite his own early concerns about a lack of rehearsal time leading up to the first London shows in July - says the star's presence and energy during his final week was unequivocal. "He'd take the stage with this group of dancers, all in their 20s, but you couldn't take your eyes off him ... Many of his songs have six or seven parts, and he would often come over if we were missing an important note in our mix, and he would sing through all the parts rapid-fire to show us what he wanted. We would just sit there with our jaws open - it was awesome," Holley says. "He could still do everything ... The only difference now was that he would sometimes talk about how it made him sore."
"This time around, we had the technology to isolate just his microphone and listen to his singing separate from everything else. I had no idea what a genius he was. The way he's able to use his voice as a percussion instrument, lyricist, jazz singer all at the same time. I'm sure as people mine his works in years to come, they're going to discover how much is there," he says.
It was a text message on Thursday afternoon that gave Holley the first hint of bad news - a note saying Jackson had been rushed to the hospital. Neither he nor the crew knew how to react to the uncertainty, so they did what they always did - they went in to rehearse. Except this time, as fans all over the world from Los Angeles to New York City to Tokyo to Buenos Aires played his music, sang his songs and emulated his dance in tribute, Holley says the crew couldn't bring themselves to touch the music.
Jackson had been preparing to take the world back, Holley says, and during the singer's final night, he finally knew he was ready. "You would think that, on the one hand, the world has kind of beaten him up, and you could forgive him for having some trepidation and fear. But he didn't have any of that," says Holley. "Words fail to describe what people would have seen with the tour. I couldn't even imagine until last week when it became physically apparent [on the set]. He was ready to show the world, and I so wish there could have been just one concert so the world would have seen."

Michael Jackson's seven year old will, filed in a Los Angeles court recently, gives his entire estate to a family trust and names his 79-year old mother, Katherine, and his children as the beneficiaries. The will also estimates the current value of his estate at more than $500 million.
Katherine Jackson was appointed their guardian, with entertainer Diana Ross, a longtime friend of Michael Jackson, named successor guardian if something happens to his mother. Ross introduced the Jackson 5 on the Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1960's and was instrumental in launching their career.

Once a symbol of Jackson's success, Neverland is nestled in wine country about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and now became the site of a makeshift memorial after his death.

Michael Jackson's ranch called "Neverland" in Santa Ynez, California.

The daughter of the late Elvis Presley says her former husband said he was afraid he was going to end up like her father.

Michael Jackson's ex-wife and the mother of his two older children is in line to obtain custody of them, even if the pop star designated another person as their guardian after his death, legal experts said Friday.

Michael Jackson in May with his three children that he raised without their mothers.

As a scrawny kid from Gary, Ind., in child-sized bell-bottoms and a radiant smile, Michael Jackson first stepped onto the scene at age 11 as part of the unforgettable Jackson 5. The Motown group, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1970s, was made up of Jackson and his four brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine (later replaced by Randy) and Marlon. (Sisters Rebbie, La Toya and Janet did not join the group.) The Jackson 5 were introduced to the public by Diana Ross on Aug. 11, 1968, in a performance at a club in Beverly Hills, Calif., and made their first television appearance at the Miss Black America Pageant in New York. Their first single, "I Want You Back," hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts by January 1970. Their next three singles all reached No. 1 as well, making the Jackson 5 the first musical act in history to achieve such a feat. Michael launched a solo career in 1971 with the hit "Got to Be There," and while he continued to perform with his brothers, it was already clear that the other Jacksons needed the precocious teenager more than he needed them. The group's fortunes dwindled through the early 1970s, and Michael left the group after the 1984 Victory tour.

When asked why he didn't live on his own like his brothers, rather than at his parents' house, he said, "Oh, no, I think I'd die on my own. I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room and sometimes cry. It is so hard to make friends, and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home." ~Michael when he was 23 years old.

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