Zebra

Biography

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Zebra (1975-1990, 1999-present): a Hard Rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

andy Jackson, Zebra's founder, was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He started playing piano and guitar at age 5. His earliest influences were Les Paul And Mary Ford, The Beatles, Allman Brothers, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin.

In 1973, he joined Shepards Bush as lead guitarist. It was here that he met bassist/keyboardist and vocalist Felix Hanemann. Randy and Felix left Shepards Bush a year later. They soon met drummer Guy Gelso and formed Zebra in 1975, when Randy started singing lead vocals.

After playing the New Orleans area for a year Zebra moved to New York and in 1982 signed a recording contract with 'Atlantic Records'. Their self-titled debut went gold and became the fastest selling debut album in the history of 'Atlantic' at the time. Over the succeeding years, Zebra played as opener for Aerosmith, Journey, ZZ Top, Loverboy, Cheap Trick, Sammy Hagar and Reo Speedwagon.

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With combined sales of over 2 million Zebra released four albums besides their 29 US charting debut, for the others with the membership of vocalist Randy Jackson (vocal/guitar/keyboards) a fellow that had a voice matching Rush's Geddy Lee, Felix Hanemann (bass/keyboards/vocals), Guy Gelso (drums/vocals), George Small (piano as guest) and Stan Bronstein (synclavier sax samples), the first of the lot was 1984's No Tellin' Lies, an album much in the band's flavor of the 1970s pomp that made it to US 84 that was followed by 3.V (1986), an album that demonstrated the band's maturity in the genre but ironically demonstrated their commercial momentum had passed. Their last chance was the live chance, Zebra Live (1990), featuring the reduced line-up of just Jackson, Hanemann and Gelso and album that signaled their good bye from the scene.

Years later, these albums were followed by the 1998 "best of... The Best Of Zebra In Black And White now on the independent 'Mayhem' label. But in 1999 the band was back in form for King Biscuit Flower Hour on 'King Biscuit Flower Hour' and 2003's Zebra IV on 'Frontiers/Mayhem'.

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