Tag Archives: American composer

Carole King: Talented Brooklyn Composer

Carole Klein was born on February 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York. Her talent and love for music revealed itself by the age of four when she began playing piano. While in high school, she formed her first band, the “Co-Sines,” and regularly attended the local rock and roll shows created by influential disc jockey and impresario, Alan Freed. She attended Queens College where she met and forged a writing partnership with budding songwriters Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka and Gerry Goffin, whom she later married. In 1961, she and Goffin scored their very first hit with the Shirelle’s chart-topping number, … Continue reading →

Billy Joel: Long Island’s Own Music Man

William Martin “Billy” Joel was born on May 9, 1949, in the South Bronx, New York. The son of a Holocaust survivor from Germany, his family moved to Long Island soon after his birth. His parents later divorced and his father, Howard Joel, moved back to Eastern Europe. He has a half brother, Alexander Joel, who is an acclaimed European classical pianist. An intense love of music appears to have run in the family, and from an early age, Billy began piano lessons, drawn especially to classical music. This was fodder for much bullying and teasing in his formative years, … Continue reading →

Phil Spector: A Lonely, Tortured Talent

Harvey Phillip Spector was born into a lower middle class Jewish family on December 20, 1940, in the Bronx, New York, on December 26, 1940. His parents were first cousins, a fact that he later admitted in a newspaper interview, “might have had something to do with what I am or who I became.” His father committed suicide because of family indebtedness when Phil was only nine years of age, and this profoundly affected his personality. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1953 to make a new start. As a young boy, he served as an apprentice under Jerry … Continue reading →