Carving her own space in dad's world,

Carving her own space in dad's world
Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA
Alexa Ray Joel is only 20 but she is on a national tour of Hard Rock Cafes as a headliner, singing her own songs at a piano with backup from a guitarist ...

Alexa Ray Joel is only 20 but she is on a national tour of Hard Rock Cafes as a headliner, singing her own songs at a piano with backup from a guitarist-vocalist, a bassist- vocalist and a drummer.

"It's really great," she says, speaking by phone from - she has to check - yes, Tampa, Fla.

She'll be a "special guest" opening for another pianist-songwriter, three-time Grammy winner Bruce Hornsby, when she appears at Oyster Bay's Planting Fields Arboretum this summer. But she's "really excited," she says, "to be playing someplace I consider local. My dad has a house in Oyster Bay."

Dad, of course, is Billy Joel, and his house is on Centre Island, a very pleasant part of Oyster Bay. "It'll be a nice excuse to relax and stay at my dad's house. I'll go there after the show" and probably remain "a couple of days."

She also expects that her father will attend the Aug. 25 performance, along with her new stepmom, Katie, and a bunch of local friends. Her mother, Christie Brinkley, plans to visit her during her tour, she says. She grew up mostly living with her mother, until about age 10 on Further Lane in East Hampton ("Jerry Seinfeld is now fortunate enough to own my old home") and then in Bridgehampton.

Now she has an apartment on Manhattan's Bleecker Street. She studied music at New York University one year before deciding she'd rather go on the road. "I felt I didn't fit in. This feels right," she says. She's hoping to get a recording contract by the summer.

"I love music. Those are my roots," Joel says. Her father is a big influence, she says, but right now "I want to be considered in my own right." Though her classical songwriting is similar, she says, her music is "more soulful, with a rhythm-and-blues edge." Some listeners describe her, she says, as "Norah Jones-y but more pop-y and rock-y." Her father, she adds, was "always encouraging. He was never a stage father." (Read more and hear her at www.myspace .com/alexarayjoel.)

Joel's concert is part of a Friends of the Arts season that includes (as it did last year) several scions of musical families. On July 29, Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody, appears with his children in the "Guthrie Family Legacy Tour." Ben Taylor, son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, performs June 23.

The series starts June 10 with Dr. John, Mavis Staples and The Neville Brothers in "America's Wetland Revival Tour: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana." A jazz weekend Aug. 11-13 includes David Sanborn, Regina Carter and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's "45th Anniversary New Orleans Revue." The 25th Anniversary Beethoven Festival is June 18. A "Back to School" benefit concert with The Click Five takes place Sept. 9.

Friends of the Arts Long Island Summer Festival, www.FOTAPresents.org, 516-922-0061 or Ticketmaster, 631-888-9000. Lawn seating generally $30-$35, pavilion $35-$125, $5 more day of performance, children under 12 free on lawn; benefits for members.