’Sixth Jackson’ dies in Midtown from stabbingMarch 3, 2006
By Andy Grimm and Lori Caldwell / Post-Tribune staff writers
GARY — Johnny Jackson, the drummer who shared a last name and a hometown with the more celebrated members of the Jackson 5, was stabbed to death in a Midtown house late Wednesday.
Jackson, 55, was dead when police arrived at an house at 2626 Connecticut St. A neighbor came downstairs after hearing arguing and found Jackson bleeding onto the living room floor from a chest wound around 11:20 p.m.
“It hurts me so bad,” said boyhood friend and current bandmate Anthony Acoff on Thursday. “I called him that night. We were supposed to go to a jam session.”
Police still are looking for the woman who lived at the address. She was not there when Patrolmen Burt Sanders and Don Rosenski arrived at the Midtown home. Acoff said Jackson and the woman had been dating for several months, and fought often.
All day Thursday, Sgt. Thomas Branson and detectives from the Homicide Squad knocked on doors in Midtown looking for the woman to question her about the events that led to Jackson’s death.
Cmdr. Jack Arnold said the woman has not been located, but declined to identify her or say she is a suspect in the slaying.
Police did not recover a weapon from the scene, Arnold said.
Jackson grew up only a few blocks from the Jackson family and had made a name for himself as a drumming prodigy before he started high school, said Gordon Keith, who has sued Jackson family members several times over the rights to their early recordings with his Steeltown Records.
“He was a show drummer,” Keith recalled. “There were times that he would outshine Michael at their shows.”
Though sometimes called the sixth Jackson in the legendary pop group, Johnny Jackson wasn’t a blood relative — though Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson adopted the drummer when he was 17 so Johnny could join the band for national tours.
Johnny Jackson bragged that he had toured the world seven times while backing up the Gary-born pop supergroup during the 1970s. He moved with the family to California in 1969, living in the Jackson household but also enjoying the high life, Acoff recalls.
When he came back to his hometown after his first tour with the Jackson 5, Johnny drove a brand new Corvette.
Some 15 years later, he split with the band before what would be the group’s final tour. By 1982, he had returned to Gary — this time behind the wheel of a “beat up old Cadillac,” Acoff said.
“He was making good money ... but a 17-year-old kid don’t know what to do with money,” Acoff said.
Later that year, Jackson was standing outside a Gary pool hall when he was shot four times in the legs in a drive-by shooting, which left him unable to sit behind a drum kit for six months, Acoff said.
The injury and the emergence of electronic drum machines that drove the rap and hip-hop music of the 1980s and ’90s limited Jackson’s career.
In the years that followed, Jackson would struggle with alcoholism. He worked occasionally as a studio musician, backing up local acts and sometimes receiving “care packages” of cash from Jermaine Jackson.
While he played on tour with the Jackson 5 for 15 years, producers often booked studio musicians to record the chart-topping hits that made millions for Joe Jackson’s brood, Acoff said.
In recent years, Jackson stayed sober and played with Acoff’s band, White Dove. Jackson quickly picked up the group’s signature reggae rhythms, just as he had absorbed everything from the R & B beats of Motown to jazz.
“He was the best d**n drummer,” Acoff said. “I fired a drummer to bring (Jackson) on. I said 'This cat can’t kick it like Johnny.’
“He was groomed and cultured by Motown. He just had that sound.”
Several months ago, Jackson’s drinking forced his bandmates to drop him from the lineup. He rejoined the group only a few weeks ago, Acoff said.
“We played a show two weeks ago, and he was clean and he sounded great man,” Acoff said. “d**n, man. He still had it. He was the best d**n drummer in the world.”
source: www.post-trib.comEnrico
