Coming October 15, pre-sale beginning in August

“You’ve Got Michael” Living through HIStory

By Dan Beck

In 1991, Dan Beck was a senior product manager at Epic Records when he was made Michael Jackson’s main marketing contact at the label. For five rollercoaster years, he was immersed in a world of unequalled stardom, dealing with the outsized ambition, whims and idiosyncrasies of the world’s most famous entertainer.

It was a pivotal point in Jackson’s career. His previous album had failed to repeat the record-shattering success of Thriller. Would the upcoming Dangerous help rebuild the King of Pop’s global audience? Rumors about his personal life and his eccentricities had made him the subject of gossip and accusations in the press, which had taken to calling him “Wacko Jacko.”

“You’ve Got Michael” is the story of the high-stakes battle to save Michael Jackson's career and market his 1995 greatest hits album, as told by the record company executive who was the closest to him. Rather than rehashing a controversial career, “You’ve Got Michael” goes behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of the music business at its multi-platinum height.

From the frequent 2:00 a.m. phone calls to the runaway budgets of video shoots, the desperate efforts to get Michael to complete the new songs for the HIStory greatest hits collection to corporate damage control on a monumental career on the precipice of collapse, “You’ve Got Michael” offers a unique look into the workings of the record industry before the digital age and the details of working so closely with one of its biggest figures, a supreme talent hampered by naïveté and blind spots when it came to his behavior and image.

Working with Michael brought Beck into contact with other stars, including Michael Jordan, Lisa Marie Presley, Janet Jackson and super-lawyer Robert Kardashian. He and Jackson shivered together in an airplane hangar and spent time together at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Beck was there when Jackson redefined the Super Bowl halftime show and rubbed shoulders with celebrities at the Museum of Natural History to celebrate the success of Thriller.

Dan Beck writes, “I wish I could put Michael Jackson in some neat compartment of my brain. Some gray matter that could integrate the intrigue, the sense of responsibility, the exhaustion, the utter helplessness, the power, the joy, the dread, the embarrassment, the pride, the awe, the pity and, yes, the thrill of working with Michael Jackson.”

979-8-9990487-0-7  paperback

979-8-9990487-1-4  eBook

$22.50 (paper) $8.95 (eBook)

300 pages. Indexed, with eight pages of photographs