By ALEX COSTELLO
That is the abridged life story of Long Island's own Billy Joel from his own lyrics. And when people think of Long Island rock stars, Billy Joel is most likely the first name that comes to mind, but there are other rockers who hail from Long Island, and some of them are even in Joel's band.
Lynbrook native and a former Oceanside resident Tommy Byrnes has been Joel's guitarist for the past 18 years, and his is working with another Long Island talent, 18-year-old Gabrielle Ross, who has aspiration to be as famous as Joel.
Byrnes, 46, picked up his first guitar at age 5 and satarted taking lessons a year later. "I did classical piano for a couple of years, and just started playing Long Island clubs when I was 15 and just kept going," he said. His protegee, Ross, a resident of Bellmore, started her signing career a little differently.
She began dancing when she was two and started her vocal lessons when she was six. "At seven I started acting, I used to do shows every semester in acting class, and I fell in love with being on stage," she said. "And I haven't been off since."
Byrnes, who was born in Lynbrook and then moved to Oceanside when he was teen, was inspired to play guiter by his older brother, who was in a band. "I'm the younger brother and I just wanted to hang out with them more than anything else," he said. "The only way in was to learn to play."
Byrnes not only learned to play and play for his band, but when he formed his own band his brother joined them for a little while. "Then I threw him out of my band because, you know, he just wasn't getting any better," he added with a grin and a laugh. Ross also came from a family that loved music. "I've always been around it and I guess that's how I fell in love with it," she said.
It may seem unusal that an aspiring pop singer has teamed up with a rock guitarist who helped Billy Joel bring down the house at Shea Stadium in July. But they both work with the Long Beach-based OCD Music Group, a development, managmentand and consulting company, that helped bring the two together.
"[OCD approaches] me with a lot of the projects that they're interested in," said Byrnes. "And sometimes it works and goes forward and sometimes it doesn't, but we just keep doing it together and looking for new young talent."
But, in Ross' case, it seems to be working. He describes her as a remarkable, if humble, songwriter. "She's got perfect instincts as to interesting melodies and lyrics themselves."
Byrnes said that guys his age write good songs for 20-something women that are on the radio, but said the much better songs come for the female artists from that age group. "From my point of view, if it comes from them and they develop as an artist that way, and you can help the process, it's great," he said.
Ross feels fourtunate to work with Byrnes and OCD, learing a lot about herself and her songwriting.
When looking ahead, Ross knows exactly what she wants to do and where she wants to be: work on her her album, write hit songs and play big venues. "I'm just going to keep trying to get out there and accomplish my main goal," she said. "I want to be in Madison Square Garden and all the big theaters." Byrnes said he wants to play with her. But in the meantime, he's planing to tour Asia with Billy Joel and then with Elton John."I'm riding the Billy moment until it falls off a cliff," Byrnes said. "And I don't think it's ever going to, because he's going stronger than ever now."
He's still coming down from the euphoria of the shows with Joel at Shea Stadium and trying to remember how they went. Thankfully, Joel's production company recorded the shows for his documentary "Last Play at Shea."
"I'm excited to see it," he said, "but I'm also a little nervous because I can't quite remember what happened. "In the mean time, Byrnes is still working with Ross, helping her craft her voice and style into something that will allow her achieve her lofty goals.
"Gabrielle definitely kind of has an old soul approach to it, because what we don't want to do is create another little hip-hop girl who's going to go out and sing pop songs that are going to give people a toothache because they're so sweet," he said. "It's not to say you want to start off like Celine Dion or Barbera Streisand or something like that, but you want to be able to last long enough to end up there if you want."
Comments about this story? ACostello@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 207.
