What is the story behind the Steeltown recording “Big Boy”?
In the 1960s, the Jackson 5 won Gary, Indiana’s first city-wide talent show and were signed to Steeltown Records. In 1967, they recorded an album at Steeltown that was never released. In 1968, the single “Big Boy” from this album was a minor hit in the Chicago area. In 1994, record executive Ben Brown claimed to have rediscovered the original tapes of “Big Boy” in his mother’s pantry. Through a New York City label called Inverted, he remastered and re-released more than 250,000 limited-edition, gold-plated copies of the single. However, Brown’s re-release bears a strong resemblance to the remixed recording released by Gordon Keith on the SDEG label in 1989, and the sound quality is poor. On the original Steeltown recording, Michael’s lead vocals come through loud and clear, but on Brown’s reissue, they are obscured by overdubs. (from VOA, Jackson 5 Magazine) Is there an MJ single called “Someone Put Your Hand Out” that was never released on any album? The single was released in Europe
