IC
Beyond writing unforgettable hits, he’s enjoyed a successful solo career since the 1970s. Today, he stands as one of the world’s best-selling music artists and ranks as the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States, no small feat for someone who grew up with very modest means.
Born in the Bronx, New York City, he was raised on Long Island alongside his cousin Judy, whom his parents adopted.
His family history was far from ordinary. His father, a successful businessman, had been forced to flee Nazi Germany, losing everything in the process. Though he eventually made his way to New York, he rarely spoke about the horrors of the war.
In many ways, our artist grew up in a typical working-class household. His father later became an engineer, and the community around him in Oyster Bay was filled with families like theirs, people who had survived the Second World War, left behind difficult lives in cities, and sought to build something new and better.
A year ago, the global superstar opened up about his childhood, revealing details that few had known until now. Among other things, he shared that his father, Howard, was a “wonderful pianist.”
”He knocked me out”
The artist himself began studying piano at just four years old, but according to a 2025 documentary about his life, Howard “never really showed kindness, compassion, or understanding toward his talent” as he was growing up.
It wasn’t just that his father ignored the young, talented boy — he could also be violent at times. The artist recalled a memory from when he was eight years old. He was supposed to be playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 as written, but instead performed a rock-and-roll version of the piece.
At one point, his father “came down the stairs, bang, I got whacked,” the Grammy winner said.
“I got whacked so hard he knocked me out, I was unconscious for like a minute. And I remember waking up going, ‘Well, that got his attention,’ and that was my memory of his piano lessons,” he added with a laugh.
“So, he didn’t teach me much.”
Regarding his parents, he reflected in the film on the lack of happy memories of them as a couple. “I saw stuff with them when I was a little kid that was not good, things were very tense between them,” he said, noting that he and his cousin were “kind of relieved” when they got divorced.
Afterward, they were raised by their mother, Rosalind.
In a 1992 interview, the musician reflected on feeling like an outcast as a child growing up without a father. ”There was no breadwinner, so our situation went downhill pretty fast,” he said. ”I was different than the other kids because they had dads. And I remember, especially like a lot of guys my age, there was a dynamic with their fathers that I actually didn’t have.”
But his cousin saw things differently. In the documentary, she recalled, “When Howard left, it was a relief in that my mother felt more free, but it did give her a lot more stress in that she had to then work very, very hard to keep the family going.”
A childhood friend added, “A depression settled over the house” after Howard’s departure.
He described Rosalind as “a very loving woman” and said he was “almost smothered” by her affection. “I think it was to try to compensate for my dad’s lack of it. But there were also some troubling things about her. She was very isolated. She was lonely a lot, and I think she drank to assuage her loneliness,” he explained.
Knew something was very wrong
Her alcohol use became noticeable. “I would see mom drinking very often and we would say, ‘Mom don’t start, you know how you get,’ and she would be crying, screaming for hours and hours and hours,” his cousin recalled.
“We knew that there was something very wrong, that she was most likely bipolar — we didn’t know the word at the time. There wasn’t peace because we knew we had to walk on eggshells, that anything could throw her off.”
While he admitted that living with Rosalind could be “difficult,” he also recognized her deep love, noting the “dichotomy” in their relationship.
The siblings grew especially close during this time. “We felt each other’s pain and worry and we would get strength from each other. We were very close, we were very close, yes. We had to be,” his cousin said.
Leave a Comment