The Jackson Five to set foot in Armenia

09/02/2006 Nune HAKHVERDYAN

In contrast to his brother, king of pop Michael Jackson and his sisters, Janet and Toya Jacksons, his solo career was not so successful. Jermaine has made albums ( one of his albums includes a song written by Stеvie Wonder), but he couldn’t reach much success in the pop music world and now is simply known as Michael Jackson’s brother, who used to sing in the “Jackson Five” group when he was ten years old.

Jermaine Jackson has been in Armenia for five days already and has been sightseeing. He has already visited the History Museum and has been to Echmiadzin. He also wants to get information about the show business in Armenia. He decided to visit Armenia after meeting American Armenian businessman Grigor Serobyan. “I heard about Armenia first in 1984 when I met producer Michael Amaryan. I have Armenian friends, for example Kirk Kirkoryan. I know about Noah’s Arc too”, said Jermaine Jackson.

But Kirk Kirkoryan wasn’t the one that suggested that he visit Armenia, but rather Grigor Serobyan, who took care of the expenses for his and his Afghan wife’s 12-day trip . But they didn’t inform us about how much he had paid for traveling all the way here and said that it was a secret. When speaking about the purpose of his visit he said: “These are only plans. We want to found an entertainment center in Armenia called “Jackson Five”, where there will be a restaurant, TV channel and a hotel. I want people to visit Armenia then tell everybody about it after leaving”. He says that he wants a lot of stars to visit Armenia, see our country and organize concerts. But they haven’t visited anyone or applied to the municipality to buy territories. But according to G. Serobyan, several officials met them at the airport and Jermaine simply said that everything would be a success. That day Serobyan just wanted to organize a press conference to show that he has good ties with Michael Jackson’s brother.

G. Serobyan was born in Armenia, but he didn’t want to tell us what he’s doing in the USA and said: “I do different things”. As for Jermaine Jackson, he said that after visiting Armenia he is going to bring a lot of entertainment here and he also wants to help children’s hospitals. But he hasn’t decided which hospital and how he is going to help. “I must find out what kind of medicines they need”, said Jermaine Jackson. When speaking about music Jermaine Jackson said: “music doesn’t have limits, because it is universal”. He knows the name of Jivan Gasparyan and has heard that the guys of the “System of a down” are Armenians, but he is not familiar with the Armenian show business yet and can’t say anything.

During the press conference the former “Miss Armenia”, Gohar Harutyunyan said that she was lucky not only to meet Jermaine Jackson, but also Michael Jackson, because she had taken some photos with the king of pop in some advertisements in American journals. We asked Jermaine Jackson whether he thought it was possible that Michael Jackson may visit Armenia in the future and he answered: “Why not? Let everyone see that they can come to Armenia”. Why not? Really, let them visit Armenia, but it would be better of them to decide before the press conference whether the purpose of their visit was tourism or business related. And if the purpose is business related, they’d better make some evaluations about whether we deserve to have the “Jackson Five” famous in Armenia or not.