Billy Joel's daughter, Alexa, makes Toronto stop as she launches ...

Billy Joel's daughter, Alexa, makes Toronto stop as she launches ...
Canada.com - Hamilton,Ontario,Canada
TORONTO (CP) - Alexa Ray Joel, daughter of piano man Billy Joel, says it took a bit of convincing to get her pop idol dad and supermodel mom Christie Brinkley ...
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 TORONTO (CP) - Alexa Ray Joel, daughter of piano man Billy Joel, says it took a bit of convincing to get her pop idol dad and supermodel mom Christie Brinkley to support her recent decision to leave university and become a musician.

"It wasn't hard for me because I ... just felt it. I knew that I needed to do it or I would not be very happy," the 20-year-old piano-playing singer said over the phone Tuesday.

"It was just a matter of convincing my parents who, of course, were very disappointed at first but now they couldn't be more proud."

Joel - whose middle name is an homage to the legendary Ray Charles - is on a Hard Rock Cafe Tour with three bandmates this month in an effort to get her bearings as a performer before she embarks on a recording session for her debut album.

The brown-haired beauty, who is scheduled to perform a free concert at Toronto's Hard Rock Cafe on Wednesday, says she's been singing since she was one, and playing classical piano since she was 10.

But last summer when she announced that she was taking an "open leave" from New York University's musical theatre program to launch a stage career, her parents were "concerned."

"I think it surprised them," she confessed in an interview just an hour after arriving in the city.

"They did not think I was going to pursue this whole thing so quickly and with such vigour and it's gone so well that they don't even mention school to me anymore, which is funny."

The New York City-based pop vocalist also finds it funny considering her parents also left school to pursue their careers.

"He didn't even graduate high school," she said of her father, who has since received five or six honorary degrees, including a doctorate of fine arts from Syracuse University earlier this month.

"And my mom didn't graduate college and I always throw that back at them too. I'm always like, 'You can't say anything!"'

The younger Joel, who grew up mostly in New York's tony Hamptons, hasn't shopped her demos to any record labels yet and she doesn't have a manager so she's calling her Rock and Roll Hall of Famer dad "all the time on the road" for advice.

Don't count on seeing him at any of her shows, though - they've both agreed "it would be a bad idea."

"If he came to all the shows ... it would immediately direct all the attention onto him," said Joel.

"He's been to a couple - you know, he's kind of snuck in and kept a low profile - and he's going to come to a few more later on. But he could never just start coming to them on a regular basis."

On the Net:

www.myspace.com/alexarayjoel