Patriarch who managed family acts the Jackson 5 and Janet Jackson, Joe Jackson has died aged 89 in hospital in Las Vegas.
The music manager and father to 11 children, including pop superstar Michael and Janet Jackson, was being cared for in a hospital in Las Vegas.
Jackson was said to be in the final stages of terminal cancer.
He had previously suffered a stroke in São Paulo in 2015, along with a number of heart attacks.
His fourth child, Jermaine, told the Daily Mail before Jackson’s death that his father had attempted to prevent visits from his family, withholding information about his location and diagnosis. They were permitted to see him on 19 June.
“No one knew what was going on,” said Jackson. “We shouldn’t have to beg, plead and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this. We have been hurting.”
Joe Jackson’s legacy is the shaping and promotion of the Jackson 5, comprising his sons Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, and later Randy.
The young family band from Gary, Indiana, became a phenomenon in the late 1960s and 70s, with their first four singles, I Want You Back in 1969, and ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There in 1970, topping the Billboard charts.
Joe Jackson was born Joseph Walter Jackson on 26 July 1928 in Fountain Hill, Arkansas, the oldest of five children.
His parents split when he was 12 and he moved to Oakland, California, to live with his father Samuel.
When he turned 18, he moved to be near his mother in East Chicago, Indiana. In Indiana, Jackson pursued his dreams of becoming a boxer and played guitar in an R&B group called the Falcons.
He married Katherine Scuse in November 1949.
After the birth of their first child, daughter Rebbie, in 1950, Jackson left boxing and became a full-time crane operator for US Steel to support his family.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Katherine, and their children Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Randy and Janet.
Their seventh child, Brandon, died at one day old on 13 March 1957.
Michael Jacdkson died aged 50 on 25 June 2009. Jackson is also survived by another daughter, Joh’Vonnie, by Cheryl Terrell.
Source: The Guardian