Whilst the Jackson 5’s widely known Big Boy received its commercial release in 1968 on Steeltown Records, a demo of the track was originally recorded one year prior, for label One-derful! Records.
Well now, that demo, which sees the while band playing all their own instruments, has surfaced online.
According to Rolling Stone, the session remained forgotten until guitarist Larry Blasingaine informed Chicago Reader columnist Jake Austen of the track (Austen was researching a story on Steeltown); Austen then preceded to track down the lost tapes.
“Until Jake Austen called me to explain that there was potentially a missing Jackson 5 demo tape, and if we had it it would be the holy grail of Jackson recordings, we had no idea we had it in our possession,” says Eric D. Leaner, who inherited the One-derful! Records masters. “I asked my brother-in-law Herb Newkirk to see if he could find it with little hope since we had already been through the tapes. A couple of days later, he called me and said, ‘Brother-in-law, I found it!'”.
Check the full ORIGINAL stream of Big Boy below; a 45-vinyl of the track will be available for the first 500 people who order a new collection of One-derful! songs that were released by the label between 1962 to 1971. The 7xCD package is available here; and hit play on the Soundcloud widget to stream Big Boy in its entirety – boy does it sound amazing!?
