Alexa Ray Joel

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Alexa Ray Joel
Birth name	Alexa Ray Brinkley-Joel
Born	January 1, 1986 (1986-01-01) (age 22)
Instrument(s)	Singing, piano
Website	http://www.alexarayjoel.com/

Alexa Ray Joel (born January 1, 1986) is an American singer and pianist. She is the daughter of popular pianist, singer, and songwriter Billy Joel and his second wife, model Christie Brinkley. Her middle name is credited to musician Ray Charles.^[1]

Alexa Ray Joel began writing songs at a very early age. Growing up in a musical household, her gift for singing and songwriting was always encouraged by her parents. Her deep love of music stems from as early as the tender age of two, when her father would sing and play nursery rhymes for her on the piano. Like her father, she pursued classical piano training for quite a few years before developing a knack for songwriting. She would soon find that her skills in classical piano provided a solid foundation for her songwriting.

At seventeen, she attended the Berklee College of Music's Five Week Music-Fest, where she honed her skills as a performer. She attended New York University's (NYU) Musical Theatre Program her freshman year, but by the summer started to pursue a career as a singer/songwriter.

By that fall, Alexa performed her first show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, followed by other gigs in the New York City area. She has most recently been performing at colleges and venues around the Northeast United States, and finished up a nationwide Hard Rock Cafe Tour in May 2006.

After playing nearly 100 shows since leaving NYU’s Musical theatre program, Alexa put out her first musical creation in August 2006--a six song EP called Sketches. This EP not only included her original songs with piano accompaniment but some original artwork as well. The EP is available through Target and itunes. Alexa is the very first independent artist to ever have exclusive rights through Target to distribute an EP.

In her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Alexa stated that the ballad "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)," found on her father Billy Joel's album River of Dreams, was written for her^{[citation needed]}. The song "The Downeaster Alexa," on Billy Joel's Storm Front album, shares her name. Alexa wrote the song “Now its gone” about her mom’s split from Peter Cook after the allegations of his infidelity.

According to her MySpace page, Alexa used to describe her musical style as pop/soul/blues. However, that is not completely accurate anymore since she has since written songs that have fallen into the category of jazz and funk--she has even written one country song.

She is only 5 years younger than step-mother Katie Lee Joel.