Jennifer Batten’s breakthrough moment came when she landed the highly coveted role of Michael Jackson’s touring guitarist – a spot she held down for a decade.
Playing with the world's biggest superstar at the time led to a milestone or two, including performing at the record-breaking 1993 Super Bowl halftime show, joining Jeff Beck’s band, releasing her own solo work… and becoming a role model for a new generation of players along the way.
“That was 1984 [when] I moved up [to LA]. [In] 1987, I got the call to audition for Michael Jackson,” Batten relates in an interview with The Sessions Panel. “One of his people called Musicians Institute, because at that time, once I moved to LA, I was teaching there, so they called there and said, ‘Send us two players.’ And I was one of the lucky people that got to go audition.
“I asked what tunes to learn and when the last possible time I could go in was, so I could just stay home and just knock those things into the gray matter. I bought my first CD player so I could hear more clearly than a cassette,” she recalls of her audition prep.
When Batten finally went to audition, she was surprised that there was no band present – it was just her and a video camera.
“The only guidance I was given was that most of the gig would be funky rhythm, so I improvised something, then I started soloing. By the time I got the Jackson gig, I had done three demos with Michael Sembello for my first record, and one of the things I worked out [was] this tapping thing for [John Coltrane's] Giant Steps. I finished the audition with playing the Beat It solo.”
Not long after, Batten received the call she'd been hoping for.
She continues, “The call was, ‘Michael's interested. Can you come down, rehearse with the band, and can you take a year off?’ And I said, ‘Take me anywhere for any length of time.’ And so I went in, and day after day after day, I'd play, and I was working my butt off.”
Initially, Batten and her Michael Jackson bandmates spent a month sans the King of Pop – and, as she reveals, “a lot of that time was tweaking sounds.
“God, they had programmers, trying to get all the sounds that are on the record [Bad] because those songs were so popular, the EQ on the snare is ingrained in people's heads, so there was a lot of effort put into sound.
“So we rehearsed for a month before we met Michael, and I was just subbing out all my other work all this time and not telling anybody about it. Because how much would it suck to say I got the Michael Jackson gig, and then it doesn't happen?”
A month in, the band heard that if Jackson was happy with the music, “he'll probably start dancing.” Lo and behold, as Batten remembers, “He came in and started dancing right away. It's like that vision is frozen in my mind forever... and I just remember being introduced to him, and I just thought... very magical, stunning, radiant energy.”
As for how it felt to play to thousands upon thousands of people every night, Batten is quick to remark, “It was always surreal. Especially the last tour [HIStory World Tour], I felt like I was in a theater production because I had that leather mask. It [was] the first time I had any crazy costumes, and then they decided to whack out my hair. This is a whole transformation on every possible level.”
Decades into her career, Batten looks back on her Michael Jackson era as crucial to developing her superhuman work ethic. “One of the takeaways that I tell people [is] that boy, I have never felt over-rehearsed. I always feel like, if I had another time, I could take that time to make it better!” she says matter-of-factly.
In last year’s Guitar World interview, Batten shared her gear epiphanies – and how she felt letting go of the Washburn she used with Jeff Beck and Michael Jackson
