Randy Jackson

Randy Jackson (born February 28, 1955) is an American rock musician, best known as frontman for the band Zebra. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. In addition to his career with Zebra, he is a Long Island Music Hall of Fame inductee, a Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee, and has toured with Jefferson Airplane and tributes to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Doors. Career In 1973, he joined Shepards Bush as lead guitarist. It was here that he met Felix Hanemann. Hanemann worked at Jazz City Studios in New Orleans owned by Cosimo Matassa. Shepards Bush recorded a demo at the studio which was Jackson’s first experience in a recording studio. Jackson and Hanemann left Shepards Bush a year later. They soon met drummer Guy Gelso and formed “Zebra” in 1975. It was at this point that Jackson started singing lead vocals. After playing the New Orleans area for two years, Zebra moved to Long Island in New York in 1977 and dedicated themselves to playing in that area’s club and college scene, mainly as a cover band. Even with their limited selection of original music. Zebra was talented enough to impress Atlantic Records, who signed the group to a five album deal right out of the gate in late 1982. Their first album, Zebra was produced by Jack Douglas, went gold and was the fastest selling debut album in the history of Atlantic Records. Zebra sold over 75,000 copies in its first week and spent eight months on the Billboard charts, peaked at number 29. During the next couple of years Zebra played opener for Aerosmith, Journey, ZZ Top, Loverboy, Cheap Trick, Sammy Hagar and REO Speedwagon. The group has produced five albums and five videos with combined sales of over 2,000,000.