Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson and the manager of the famed Jackson family, died Wednesday, a family source confirms to ABC News. He was 89.
His grandson Randy Jackson also tweeted, "RIP to the king that made everything possible!!! I love you."
Jackson had been battling health issues in recent years. He suffered a stroke while visiting Brazil for his 87th birthday two years ago and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a Sao Paulo hospital.
Jackson had suffered minor strokes in the past, including one in 2012.
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Joseph Walter Jackson was born the eldest of five children to Crystal Lee and Samuel Jackson, a schoolteacher, in Fountain Hill, Arkansas, on July 26, 1928. His family eventually settled in East Chicago, Indiana, where he later met and married Katherine Scruse. The newlyweds purchased a three-room house in Gary, Indiana, where they raised their 11 children.
Jackson, himself a guitar player whose blues band failed to take off, began working with his eldest sons, Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, and their group The Jackson Brothers in the early 1960s. After younger sons Marlon and Michael joined the group, the name was changed to The Jackson Five and eventually The Jackson 5.
Read more about his life from ABC News here.