Is it premature to see Hall of Fame material in a guy who's just releasing his first album?
Not if that guy is Tony Jackson.
To put it plainly, Jackson is one of the most gifted singers ever to grace country music.
His initial videos from the album have excited over 40 Million Facebook views seemingly overnight, while Jackson tours tirelessly in support of the record.
?
The respect Jackson has already earned within the music community is evident throughout Tony Jackson, as the new album is titled. It features songs and/or performances by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members John Sebastian, Steve Cropper and Dr. 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 is the ease with which Jackson makes every song—even the familiar ones—distinctly his own that sets him apart. 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”?
On the first-time and lesser known songs, Jackson mints his own classics. 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. 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.