I was born and raised in South Jersey, right over the bridge from Philadelphia. My family always played music around the house, with a healthy dose of piano-playing singer-songwriters: namely Billy Joel, Elton John, Barry Manilow, and Ben Folds.
At five years old, piano lessons were presented to me and voice lessons a few years later. My mom said when she’d drag me to the grocery store with her as a young kid, I would go up to shoppers—a potential audience– and ask if I could sing to them. *cue an aww from the reader*
Okay, we’ll speed this bio up. You can read the full story in my eventual memoir. Throughout my childhood I sang, played, and performed at various local festivals, talent shows, and the like. I went to New York University at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, focusing on both math and music. Within a week of turning 21, a friend took me to a dueling piano bar and I said, “This is what I’m going to do when I graduate”. My senior year of college became a crash course in piano bars. In addition to my studies, I’d go to piano bars every weekend, survey everything the performers were doing, and befriended the entertainers.
A few months after college, I visited New Orleans and left with a job offer to play a piano bar on Bourbon Street. I cut my teeth there for 7 years, playing for every crowd you can imagine– a 5pm Tuesday crowd of retirees to a 2am Saturday night of what I can only imagine was every bachelorette party in America squeezed into one bar. The learning experience was intense yet incredibly fun. More than anything, those gigs taught me how to entertain and change the performance based on what the room wants and needs at any given time.
I will leave you for now with a quote from my first music bio that a family friend helped me write when I was promoting my first ticketed event gig at age 17. This is just as accurate now as it was then, possibly prophetic to what I’d spend the next decade and beyond cultivating:
“The multi-instrumentalist can swoon with a ballad and rock with an intense electric piano. With impeccable musicality and spirit, Brody shines with style and grace, as well as excitement. He is the ultimate in song memorabilia, bringing the biggest and most unforgettable hits from these much-loved legends”.
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