IN 3 SOLD OUT UNIVERSAL SHOWS : SURPRISES AND CONTROL FROM FREDDIE JACKSON

You’ve got to hand it to Freddie Jackson--he knows his record charts.

Like a basketball player who keeps track of his point total during a game, the soul singer took time out during Saturday’s concert at the Universal Amphitheatre to recount some of the impressive sales performances of his albums and singles--a string that started with his platinum-selling 1985 debut album “Rock Me Tonight” and continues with the recent “Just Like the First Time.”

It was a little strange to hear Jackson announce his accomplishments. Even though he was sort of thanking his audience, he certainly seemed to be congratulating himself at the same time--a gesture you’d expect from a certified ego like James Brown, not from the unassuming-looking Freddie Jackson.

But Jackson had a few surprises in store at the Amphitheatre, where the gospel-influenced romantic balladeer sold out three weekend shows (he mentioned that too). Though he lacks a strong public image, he proved to have personality to spare. While his recorded singing is fairly slick and safe, he was a vocal powerhouse on stage, and while it’s hard to picture him as a sex symbol, he had the women swooning (especially the one that he brought on stage for a little one-on-one treatment).

The recent “Doonesbury” strip notwithstanding, this New York City soulster might be the real Dr. Whoopee. He was more carnal on stage than on his records, where in songs like “He’ll Never Love You Like I Do” and “You Are My Lady” he comes off as a top-of-the-line pleader, delivering gauzy greeting-card sentiments and heart-melting promises of profound and eternal love. At Saturday’s show, he emphatically added the element of “getting it.”

Jackson’s romantic appeal defies analysis. He doesn’t have the suave sexiness of a Marvin Gaye, nor the athletic excitement of an Al Green, nor the roly-poly huggability of the early (pre-slimming) Luther Vandross.

In fact, at first glance he’s a sort of shapeless, gray character. He seemed slightly uncomfortable dancing and gesturing as he opened the show at the top of the stage-set staircase, and what appeared to be patches of tinsel clinging to the shoulders of his jacket made it look as if he’d run into a Christmas tree on his way to the stage.

But a few virtuoso vocal excursions seemed to pump him up, and his sheer determination to throw himself into his role finished the job. Before you knew it, he’d taken complete control of the crowd. Much of that command arose from the authority of his unrestrained vocals. His churchy singing is full of idiosyncratic dips and slides, and some huffing, hot-breath segments went over well with the ladies.

Actually, the show’s most arresting moments came when he set aside the personality and became a kind of neutral vehicle for powerful emotions that shook and jerked his body as they welled up and broke out in free-ranging, gospel-shaped explosions. There was a purity there that was more compelling than the entertaining but less distinctive sex-symbol showboating.

The show also featured two other acts from Jackson’s management stable: Veteran R&B; hitmakers Ray, Goodman & Brown spent so much time on comedy routines that it was impossible to tell where they are musically these days, and Najee (big on the contemporary jazz charts these days) opened with a brief set of saxophone syrup.