Michael Jackson, the pop icon, has died, and it’s pop culture news so big, even we can’t ignore it. But although there could only be one Michael Jackson (thankfully?), there have been many people with the name “Michael Jackson” — not even counting the probable-millions who have been named after the Michael Jackson — and more than that, there have been many notable people who have borne the name “Michael Jackson” (or variants thereon) over the years.
First: the great beer and whiskey critic, who died of Parkinson’s in 2007. I particularly recommend his beautiful and informative coffee-table book, Whiskey. Also, he was narrator of a bunch of popular audiobooks back in the 90s, which imprinted me when I was young, and in my first job, and wanting to read at all times, even while I was driving a car.
Then there’s the English disco singer, Michael “Mick” Jackson, who wrote something called “Blame it on the Boogie”. Confusingly, the song achieved its greatest success when it was covered by none other than The Jacksons. According to Mick Jackson, thanks to this hit, for years afterwards he received a lot of phone calls intended for the other singer named Michael Jackson.
Also, Michael Jackson, the author, and “Mick” Jackson, the singer, should never be confused with Mick Jackson, the author. (By the way: Bears of England? How did I not hear of this guy before today?)
If you were around in the late 90s to follow the news of the Kosovo War, you might remember the really scary-tough British military commander who probably has never tolerated references to the singer in his presence in his entire life. (His troops referred to him as Darth Vader, or alternatively, The Prince of Darkness.) Most famously, in June 1999, General Jackson refused to obey an order from the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, with the words “I won’t start World War III for you.”
There was a football player, a wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens, whose legal name was Michael Dyson, but he preferred to go by Jackson anyway.
And possibly my favorite Michael Jackson almost certainly never existed: Wikipedia claims there was a solider in the American Revolution named Michael Jackson, who supposedly was an innovator in the printing industry. However, I couldn’t find anything about the guy either in reliable sources like the Britannica or Funk & Wagnalls, or anywhere else on the internet. In fact, the only source for this information is the late 19th-century reference Appleton’s Cyclopedia, whose authors were paid by the word and whose editorial oversight was far more lax than Wikipedia’s. Consequently, the book is well-padded with fictional but plausible (and occasionally entertaining) biographies. I think the tipoff here is “his five brothers and five sons (including Michael Jackson, Jr.) also served in the war.”
