LIFE would never be the same for The Jackson 5 after the brothers from Gary, Indiana, racked up four number one singles in a row in the US charts.

But before that Tito Jackson was just a youngster who wanted to impress his dad.

He told Weekend: “My uncle Luther and my father Joe would play blues every weekend. My uncle would come over with his amplifier and his guitar and my father would have his already set up and they would just jam for a couple of hours. That’s what got me into music.”

The defining moment though was when Tito was 10 and he broke a string on a guitar that his dad had forbidden him from touching.

He said: “Pop used to go to work and tell me, Jackie and Jermaine not to touch his guitar while he was out. But my mother used to let me play it because I was very interested in it. I used to try and do everything my father did.

“I broke a string and I didn’t know what to do. So when he found out he spanked me and then said: ‘Show me what you know’. He was surprised I knew how to play. He told me I could have the guitar and he wanted me to learn every song on the radio. So that’s what I did.”

That broken guitar string is arguably responsible for the formation of the Jackson Brothers and everything that followed because it was Joe that convinced Tito, Jackie and Jermaine to form a singing group a short while later.

They took on the name The Jackson 5 after younger brothers Marlon and Michael joined the group. Success came fast with four consecutive number ones, I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save and I’ll Be There, between 1969 and 70.

Fast forward to 2017 and the Jacksons are now celebrating 50 years in the music business.

Tito added: “I feel great. I feel accomplished and having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a while back it gives me a feeling of validity. One of the reasons we can celebrate 50 years and still be able to do it today is because we started out so young.”

Indeed, Tito was just 14 when he and his brothers were thrust into the limelight with I Want You Back. They went on to score 17 top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, their Motown hits alone sold in excess of 200 million records and the group provided the launch pad for Michael Jackson’s incredible solo career.

“We saw the screaming fans, we ran from the mobs but at the end of the day we just looked at it as fun,” said Tito, who recently released his debut solo album Tito Time.

“We were a bunch of kids who loved what we did but didn’t really know what the impact of it was. We would talk about it and laugh about it and after a while it felt normal.

“In every city we went to all over the world they used to let all the other passengers off the plane first because there would always be a mob waiting for us outside.

“Back then you didn’t have to go through security checks. You could just walk up to the gate and wait for your buddy to come off the flight.

“It was crazy. I remember we came to Heathrow and there were 5,000 or 6,000 fans waiting for us. Even more possibly. And I got caught outside of the limousine and I had get on top of the car. I had to hold on for dear life as the driver tried to get us away from there.

“Our whole thing was to make the fans so excited that they’d charge the stage. That was our aim.

“We rarely got to finish a show at that time as we had to leave early for our own safety.”

Being a family helped when it all became too much though.

Tito added: “We depended on each other. We moved as a team and being brothers and having my father there along with us made it a lot easier.

“People also took care of us because they knew we were so young.

“There was always something exciting and new to see. Whether we were in Africa or Australia or Japan there were places to visit.

“And we all had our own room in the hotels so that was great as we were five boys who were used to sleeping in one room on triple bunks.”

The Jacksons, who have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, will be celebrating 50 years in showbusiness with a performance at Haydock Park in Newton on Friday, July 7 – and the set list has been put together by fans.

Tito said: “We asked them to write in and give us a selection of songs they would like to hear.

“So we made a list from that. Of course all the hits are included and some album cuts as well – some songs that weren’t singles but were popular like Heartbreak Hotel and Lovely One.

“It’ll will be an exciting, high energy show. We want people to have a great time. A party actually.

“We do a few Michael songs and of course it will be in memory of him as well.

“We feel his spirit when we’re on stage. It’s hard not to feel that when we’ve done so much work together and had so many successes side by side.

“People in the business have told me we were pioneers of what music represents today.

“Motown was a very large part of that whole connection so for us to be one of the biggest selling entities in that company is a great accomplishment.

“A good song never dies. Chances are there’s someone hearing I Want You Back for the first time right now and discovering it.”

DAVID MORGAN