Born on May 8, in Boulder, Colorado, Joel Abbott has spent the last thirty-two years making music as a singer, songwriter, keyboardist, composer, and producer, and flautist.
From the age of five, he took guitar lessons, and then flute lessons, which eventually led to him majoring in flute performance at the University of Georgia. Unfortunately, UGA’s music school was (and is) focused mainly on generating band directors. Not wanting to be a band director, he left the music school, changed his major to English Education, and eventually became a high school English teacher, a job he worked for twelve years.
In his teens, Joel’s most significant musical influence was his grandfather, Mike Rosenfeld, who was a dixieland banjo player. His grandfather taught Joel hundreds of jazz standards, and they spent hours playing through fakebooks. Joel became proficient at jazz improv on the flute. Unfortunately, the demand for jazz flute players is a niche market, and so he abandoned that career path.
It wasn’t until 2000 that he found a venue that suited him. As the musical improviser for Dad’s Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia, Joel underscored scenes and for provided the accompaniment for improvised musicals, operas, and ballets. Over the eight years that he made music at Dad’s Garage, he played over 2200 shows, as well as participating in comedy festivals and tournaments in Atlanta, Dallas, and Edmonton.
In 2004, Joel wrote the music and lyrics for “Carrie White: The Musical” based on the book by Stephen King and the movie by Brian DePalma. The play received an extended run at Dad’s Garage, and three years later was re-mounted as a staged reading at Bricolage Theater in Pittsburgh.
In 2007, he and his wife moved to Burlington, Vermont. Realizing that he’d spent the last ten years building a large collection of synthesizers and other musical equipment, he decided to use them to finally make an album. A few months later, Joel Abbott, using the band name The Go Ahead And released his first album, “Babies Don’t Have Hands” (the title derived from an old inside joke between Joel and a college classmate).
Joel Abbott’s follow up to “Babies Don’t Have Hands” is a holiday album called “Christmas and Glowsticks” which is a collection of Christmas hymns all arranged for synth rock orchestra. It was conceived because Joel never liked Christmas music and decided to make an album of Christmas music that even he would like.
