It's been reported that Michael Jackson recorded musical versions of Scottish poet Robert Burns's work in the past.

Friend-of-Jackson David Gest apparently told the Daily Record that the former Pop God set up the recording sessions in his own California studio, after plans to make a musical based on Burns fell through.

Gest
, who features on the album, said: ""Michael and I were originally going to do a musical on his [Burns'] life with Gene Kelly directing and Anthony Perkins as executive producer, but they both died - so Michael and I put all the poems to contemporary music in his studio in Encino.

"We did '
Ae Fond Kiss', 'Tam O'Shanter' and all that. We turned his work into show tunes. It is beautiful and I still have the recordings."

Former Fairground Attraction singer Eddi Reader also set Burns poems to music on her 2003 album 'Sings the Songs of Robert Burns'.