Children of Rock

When Nona Gaye first met Sean Lennon, she says, "I felt like I was talking to myself." Nona was nine years old when her father, Marvin Gaye, was shot and killed by his own father; Sean was five when his father, John Lennon, was shot and killed by a deranged fan. "My father was just such a beautiful force in so many people's lives, and Sean's father did such similar things," says Nona, a thirty-year-old actress who has appeared in Ali and the Matrix sequels. "And now we both have this feeling of, 'I have to carry on this legacy in my own way.' And who else knows how I feel? I just had to give him a great big hug and go, 'Oh! Somebody knows!' "

Alexa Joel -- the daughter of singer Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley -- had never met any other children of rock stars before the photo shoot for this issue's cover. Yet she too felt an immediate bond: "I think one of the reasons we all got along is because nobody was like, 'Oh, that's Stevie Wonder's daughter!' 'That's Marvin Gaye's daughter!' 'That's Paul Simon's son.' I mean, I can't tell you how many times I meet people and someone will say, 'This is Billy Joel's daughter.' I used to get mad and say, 'My name is Alexa!' Harper [Simon] and I were talking about how it was really nice, for once, to just discuss our own work and what we wanted to do with our own lives."

In fact, Alexa spent most of her childhood avoiding the trappings of celebrity. "My parents would ask me, 'Do you want to go to this movie premiere with me or watch me accept this award?' But it was embarrassing," she says. "When you're, like, eleven or twelve years old, you don't want people to make a fuss over your parents. You just want your parents to be normal."

Now a nineteen-year-old freshman at New York University, Alexa is thinking about switching her major from musical theater to English. "I've tried to leave some room for her to grow and find her own way," says Billy Joel. "She's an excellent songwriter. But when she tells me that I'm an influence on her, I don't necessarily want to be, because with her name, she may have some difficulty being taken seriously. I don't want to impinge on her ability to have a career as a musician, so I'm a little shy about being too involved."

Many children of rock stars decide, quite naturally, to get into the family business. Perhaps there's a gift for melody in the genes; perhaps growing up in a creative environment simply inspires them and makes such a career seem like a realistic possibility. But the notion of rocking-by-birthright has always been a tough sell. Fairly or unfairly, growing up in a world of fame and luxury does not lend itself to much street credibility.

"I don't like people to think, 'Maybe they just did music because their daddy did,' " says Otis Redding III, the son of the late soul legend. "When you're born into music and you love it, it's yours every day, whether you're successful or not."

Redding got tired of hearing A&R guys tell him, "Think about your old man's stuff. Make sure your lyrics are really, really strong." His goal, he says, was "to get better as a songwriter, and then you've got people telling you all the time, 'You need to be listening to your daddy!' I learned that just because you're Otis Redding's son, ain't nobody gonna bend over backward for you. Or maybe they will too much. But you know -- you just gotta get in where you fit in."

(Excerpted from RS 971, April 7, 2005)