In a recent interview, Glen Ballard shared stories and memories about the King of Pop while he is in London promoting the musical “Back to the Future”.
Michael Jackson collaborator Glen Ballard famously worked on the King of Pop’s studio albums Thriller, Bad and Dangerous, most notably co-writing Man in the Mirror. And now the lyricist and record producer has shared his studio memories of the late star. It all began when Glen was given his big break on Thriller by Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton.
“I did work on Thriller. I wrote a song for Thriller that didn’t make the album and actually Michael and I did a little demo of it in the studio at Westlake.
“And the next week Michael Jackson came in with two new songs. One was called Billie Jean and the other was called Beat It.
“So they knocked my little song right off the record. But, you know, I never complained because the two songs that knocked it off were so much better!”
Nevertheless, Glen stuck around for Michael Jackson’s 1987 album Bad and was fortunate to get a Billboard No 1 hit with Man in the Mirror.
The 68-year-old said: “It’s one of the great weeks of my life to have Michael and the choir and we all felt something special was happening on that record.
“I was just lucky to have been there and to have worked with Quincy. I worked as a staff producer with him for three years.
“I was working with the greatest musicians, the greatest singers, the best studios. It was like a dream come true for me.”
Glen added: “I don’t think I slept for about a decade because I was so happy to be working y’know.”
On being with Michael in the studio, he shared: “Michael was so generous with his time and with his patience.
“Making records in the eighties was much more difficult. To get enough tracks we had to do all kinds of things to make it like a modern thing where you had unlimited tracks.
“Michael was always patient. He was just a sweet presence always and always encouraging.”
And then on working on 1991’s Dangerous, Glen said: “We wrote a song called Keep The Faith and I sat at the piano and Siedah Garrett was there with me and Michael.
“We spent half the time laughing and having fun and just trying to find the easy end for the song.
“It was never like a gun to your head, it was just fun. That’s the Quincy Jones way. We’ve got to have fun while we’ll working.”
SOURCE: Express
Michael was “a sweet presence always and always encouraging.” I love that !