Joe Jackson

Genres:	Big Band & Swing • Drama • Jazz • Music Videos & Concerts • Pop / Rock
Descriptive "tags":	new wave • singer-songwriter • pop • 80s • rock • british
Decades Active:	1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Official Homepage • Wikipedia

Biography

11 August 1954, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. Having learned violin and piano as a teenager in Portsmouth, Jackson gained a place to study piano, percussion, composition and orchestration at London’s Royal Academy of Music. After leaving college in 1974 he joined the covers band Edward Bear. The line-up of Jackson, Mark Andrews (vocals) and Graham Maby (bass) changed their name to Arms & Legs and released three unsuccessful singles on the MAM Records label. Jackson returned to Portsmouth in 1977, where he worked as musical director to local cabaret act Koffee ’N’ Kreme and began working on his own demo material. Joined by Maby, Gary Sanford (guitar) and Dave Houghton (drums), he was signed up by A&M Records in the summer of 1978. His accomplished debut, ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’, was not an immediate hit; however, by the time Look Sharp! was released in 1979, the song had become one of the stand-out numbers...

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