Jackson inspired early on by Domino

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critic
• Published: May 15, 2009

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An older lady in Al Jackson’s Bridge City neighborhood surprised the then 14-year-old singer when she said he sounded like Fats Domino.

Jackson loved the music of Domino, B.B. King, Smiley Lewis, Huey “Piano” Smith, Earl King, Ernie K-Doe, Chuck Berry and other classic rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll stars, but it never occurred to him that he sounded like Domino, the New Orleans singer-pianist who sold some 65 million records in the 1950s and ’60s.  

“I kind of laughed,” the now 35-year-old Jackson said of his neighbor’s observation. “It should have struck me then that she probably knew what she was talking about, but I didn’t pay much attention.”

Jackson grew up with hundreds of 45-rpm records that came from the jukebox in his grandmother’s Bridge City club. His grandfather, club manager John Hill, rather than give or throw the discs away, Jackson said from his home in Westwego, took them home after their jukebox run ended.

Childhood days spent listening to those records with his grandfather, and hearing Hill tell stories connected to the songs, are among Jackson’s happiest memories.

“That’s where I get all this from,” the singer-pianist known as Al “Lil’ Fats” Jackson said. “When I’m on stage, the closest thing I can liken it to is putting a record on in my head. The bands that work with me, they catch the devil for the first few gigs because I don’t work from a set list. Whatever memory hits me, that’s what I do.”

Jackson didn’t have a piano growing up, just a Casino keyboard.

“It was more like a calculator than a keyboard,” he said and laughed. “It had buttons, not keys.”

He finally got to play a real piano at L.W. Higgins High School. Adept at multiple instruments, he also played drums, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, baritone sax, tuba and, his favorite, trombone. 

Jackson’s road to being a full-time musician started with a 1994 Christmas party at the Orleans Parish Courthouse. His mother, a court deputy, worked with a judge who liked Domino’s music. She asked her son to play a few songs featured on the newly released Domino Christmas CD at a courthouse Christmas party.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” Jackson said. “I figured she knew how shy I was and that I wouldn’t do it. But she persisted and I wound up going.”

When Joe Cardinia, another court deputy, happened to pass by the party, he was so impressed that he suggested Jackson begin playing professionally. 

“I agreed,” Jackson said, “but only because I figured nobody would pay me to do something I was doing anyway. So, maybe 24 hours later, Joe called and said, ‘OK, I got a party for you this weekend.’ I was scared out of my mind, man. Actually, the first year, every time I moved to do something like that I was afraid.”