Sound Engineer Russ Ragsdale Remembers Meeting Michael Jackson

"It is hard for me to believe that over 20 years passed since I met Michael Jackson. It was back in mid-1980s during the recording of the BAD album. The album project had started but Michael was in New York shooting the video for "Bad" while the album was still in progress at Westlake Studio. I first met Bruce, then came in Quincy. Very soon after that I met Michael, and for the next two years, we rolled up our shirt sleeves and made the most fantastic album that I have ever been involved with, still to this day... It didnt dawn on me until months after finishing the BAD album just how big a piece of history that album would become and how it would be embraced all around the world...

One fear of mine was that I knew there would come a day that it would just be Michael and I in the same room one on one. I'd rehearsed it in the mirror over and over again; just what was I going to say to this guy? Well, that day came and what was probably seconds seemed like a very long time. Catering had arrived at the studio and Michael and I were standing by ourselves. I was looking at the floor and I said to myself, "This is it, this is what I had been afraid of. I am going to have to break ice." I took a deep breath and raised my head to speak and wham- I got hit with a handful of corn! I thought, "Oh no this is going to be war". I picked up some pickles and threw them at Michael, then he threw something else and it went back and forth for a while. We were laughing so hard that we couldn't look at each other without laughing the next three weeks! What a great way for him to make me feel at ease.. Michael really has a great sense of humour; he just loves seeing people do a Three Stootages act and fumble all over themselves.

I wish there were more people in the world exactly like Michael Jackson. He is truly one amazing human being".