Randy Jackson has been a huge part of the music industry ever since he was just a teenager. As a young child, he was surrounded by good music and that made him fall in love with it more and more.

“You had a huge jazz culture, a huge blues culture, a huge rock culture, everything that you can imagine,” Jackson told Hits Daily Double about his upbringing and the effect music had on him.

“So, a kid growing up loving James Brown, Motown, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin to death, getting turned on to the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke, Miles Davis and John Coltrane when I was 15… I couldn’t replace it for anything.”

“I immersed myself in music; that’s all I could think about. I practiced, took every lesson, listened to every record, hung out every place I could hang out where the music was happening. I really went for it. And that’s kind of the way my personality is, and what I do with almost anything I get into.”

He had his big breakthrough when he was just 17 and was invited to perform together with the iconic 1960s’ band John Fred and the Playboys. This established him as a potential big name in the world of music. Some time later, he got the chance to play alongside jazz drummer Billy Cobham and that added to his prominence as a musician even more. Everyone knew that Billy wouldn’t play with anyone who wasn’t perfect at what they did, so everybody’s eyes were on Jackson all of a sudden.

Over the years, he worked with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Tracy Chapman, Mariah Carey, Kenny G, Madonna, and many other celebs.

Besides being very successful on stage, Jackson has been an eminent producer who creates magic as a studio musician. According to a Tampa Bay Times article, this renowned musician has worked on more than 1,000 gold and multiplatinum albums.

In 2002, Jackson embarked on the adventure called American Idol, the show which became a huge hit and attracted millions of viewers. It all started when he got a call from an agent who told him that the producer of the UK show Pop Idol, Simon Cowell, was taking the project to America.

“An agent friend called and said, ‘There’s a show starting that’s coming over here from Britain. You may want to check it out. Somebody mentioned your name. Make the call and see if you’d be interested,’” Jackson recalled in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.