William Martin Joel, born May 9, 1949, in The Bronx, NY, grew up in a comfortable Long Island suburb, Levittown, during the years following World War II. His German-born father, Howard Joel, who was imprisoned by the Nazis at Dachau during the war, moved to America after his release, to begin a new life in New York. That new life included adopting a new faith for his son--although Joel Sr. was Jewish, young Billy was raised in a predominately Catholic neighborhood and frequently attended mass and confession.

Joel's father secured work as an engineer with General Electric while his mother, Rosalind, set to work raising Billy and his sister Judy. Both of Joel's parents provided early musical influences: his father was a classically trained, self-disciplined pianist, and his mother had once sung in the chorus for Gilbert and Sullivan.
Though he scored well on tests, his teachers refused to graduate him from high school due to his many absences from skipping school. It was also......

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Title: Billy Joel
Approximate Word Count: 376
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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