Monday, Feb. 6, 2006 | 8:28 a.m.
Although his father was a bass player with such renowned band leaders as Earl "Fatha" Hines and Fletcher Henderson in the 1940s, 55-year-old Jerry Brookings says he didn't get serious about music until he met Tito and Jermaine Jackson in junior high school.
Brookings, who changed his name from "Brookins," grew up in Gary, Ind., hometown of the famous Jackson family.
Before they became the Jackson Five and international stars, the family was struggling to make ends meet just as everyone else was in the working-class city 30 miles south of Chicago.
"The Jackson family was in the neighborhood," said Brookings, who performs with his combo on Tuesday nights at the Artisan Hotel's lounge, 1501 W. Sahara Ave. "We all grew up right there. They were just a few blocks away.
"Me, Jermaine and Tito were about the same age, and we became good friends after we met in junior high. I looked up to them. Their mother (Katherine), she liked me; LaToya, she was just as outspoken then as she is today."
Tito, Jermaine and older brother Jackie (and two unrelated musicians) had been performing locally as The Jackson Brothers since 1962, managed part time by their father, Joseph (who worked full time in a steel mill).
Michael joined the group in 1963, at age 5.
Brookings met the family in 1967, before they were discovered by Motown in 1969.
"I was just a kid, 11 or 12 years old, when my father bought me a guitar and I went to the band room at school to try to learn to play it," he said.
The school was Beckman Junior High.
"I ran into Tito Jackson and told him I wanted to learn to play and he invited me to his house," Brookings said.
He said Michael was just a little kid. Janet was a baby crawling on the floor.
"They were poor," Brookings said. "Everybody was poor. They didn't even have professional instrumentation, but they were making great music - they were actually on a professional level."
Tito showed him some licks on the guitar, and Brookings says he began hanging around the family a lot, becoming an ex officio member.
"I actually had a little R&B group, and Tito performed with me once," Brookings said.
But his association with the Jackson family didn't last long.
They already had become popular in the region, and then they were signed by Motown and in December '69 made their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
"When I saw them leave a black ghetto and become international superstars, in my mind there was no other way to go," Brookings said. "That was it. I had to be a musician - that's how I got into music."
Brookings never made it to superstar status, and today he holds a day job to support his music at night. But he is satisfied with his career choice.
He performed in the Midwest with various bands until moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s. "I started studying some music, trying to grow as a musician in Hollywood," Brookings said.
The Jackson Five had become superstars. Brookings says he still had some contact with the family, but didn't use that to open any doors. "They were so high in the business, I saw a lot of people trying to hang onto them, to get favors from them, and it turned me off," he said. "So I just played wherever I could around town."
He said in 1982 he auditioned for Lou Rawls, but didn't get the gig and joined the Marines.
"I just got tired of the business," Brookings said.
While stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was attached to an amphibious assault battalion, he ran into Rawls again.
"Lou came down to perform there, part of his military tour," Brookings said.
Brookings made it a point to go to the concert and say hello. Rawls remembered him.
"He asked me what in the world I was doing in the Marines and I told him I'd be out in a few years and was wondering if I could get another shot at a gig with him when I got out," Brookings said.
When he was discharged from the Marines, he returned to Gary. "I wound up back in the black ghetto where I started," he said. "Nothing was happening, so I buried myself in music."
He got a call from a friend who had a contact with Rawls, who would be performing in Chicago.
"He told me Lou might be looking for a bass player," Brookings said. He went to the concert and again asked Rawls for a job, and finally was hired. He toured with Rawls for a year, got back on his feet and moved to Los Angeles, where he performed with Phil Upchurch and his group for about five years.
"He showed me how to lead a band, which was something I had always wanted to do," Brookings said.
Brookings said he left Los Angeles and moved to Las Vegas in 1998.
"The music business was starting to change," he said. "California was changing - I got laid off of a job in California, went back to Gary for awhile. But I wasn't making it there.
"A friend of mine here in Vegas sent for me."
Since moving to town he has performed with local entertainer Freddie Bell and others.
Things were looking up, and then 9/11 turned the music business in Las Vegas upside down.
It became difficult to get any kind of gig."After that I just kept struggling to keep a band together and to get on my feet," Brookings said. "I played some lounges. I played at the Plaza.
"I finally found this room down here at the Artisan. It's really a nice place. The ambiance is wonderful."
He says he's tired of bouncing around from lounge to lounge and wants to remain at the Artisan, where he works for tips, paying his combo out of his own pocket.
"I want to make the Artisan work," he said. "Besides, if you can't pack a 100- seat room, why go anyplace else?"
Jerry Fink can be reached at 259- 4058 or at [email protected].
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