“I told my dad I was joining because I was sick of taking orders,” he says with a wry grin. Two weeks after graduating from high school, Jackson joined the Marines. “I did,” he says, “and I was hooked after that.”
My mother forced me to sing in the church choir, but I was kind of buried in the voices along with everybody else.” This was basically his entire musical resume until ten or so years ago when a friend whose band had lost its lead singer asked Jackson to try out for the spot. “Everybody seemed to love it, but I was a wreck. “I sang 'White Christmas' in the Christmas play in the sixth grade,” he recalls. His early musical background was sketchy at best. The son of a Navy man, he led a base-to-base existence, at one point living with his family in Rota, Spain for three years. Jackson is currently a headliner on the Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, Virginia, and is almost certainly the only major bank executive ever to abandon a prominent IT job in finance at a Fortune 500 company to embark on a career in country music. And hundreds of thousands have done just that. Jackson shines as a keen-eyed songwriter in his own right with such memorable excursions as “Drink By Drink,” “Old Porch Swing,” and “She's Taking Me Home.”įrom start to finish, Tony Jackson stands out as a “discovery” album, the kind you listen to with such delight that you have to recommend it to friends. and Willie Nelson in “They Lived It Up,” a lyrical scrapbook from Anderson and Bobby Tomberlin. With reverence and a twinkle in his eye, he enlists Sebastian and Vince Gill in revivifying (after 50 years) the Lovin' Spoonful's 1966 romp, “Nashville Cats.” “When asked if we should recut the song,” Sebastian begins, “I said absolutely but we have to get Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and today’s real Nashville Cats in on the session and fortunately it was preserved on video,” he beams.Īfter capturing perfectly, the excitement of new love in Bill Anderson's “I Didn't Wake Up This Morning,” he moves on to a memory-stirring homage to Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr. With its sweeping steel guitar flourishes and ambient barroom clatter, he transforms John Sebastian and Phil Galdston's “Last Call” into the sweetest, most affectionate separation ballad imaginable. On the first-time and lesser known songs, Jackson mints his own classics. Who else would dare to try and then succeed in bringing a fresh layer of emotional urgency to such a classic as George Jones' “The Grand Tour” or Conway Twitty's eternal “It's Only Make Believe”? It is the ease with which Jackson makes every song-even the familiar ones-distinctly his own that sets him apart. John “Mac” Rebennack, Country Music Hall of Famers Vince Gill, Bill Anderson and Conway Twitty and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame luminary Norro Wilson. It features songs and/or performances by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members John Sebastian, Steve Cropper and Dr. The respect Jackson has already earned within the music community is evident throughout Tony Jackson, as the new album is titled. His initial videos from the album have excited over 25 Million Facebook views seemingly overnight, while Jackson tours tirelessly in support of the record. To put it plainly, Jackson is one of the most gifted singers ever to grace country music. Is it premature to see Hall of Fame material in a guy who's just releasing his first album?
Check-In Online and Download the HAL Navigator App!.Exclusive Country Music Cruise Merchandise.Group Leader Program Terms and Conditions.The Oak Ridge Boys (special appearance).