Danny Brill currently lives with his daughter Jessie and son Keith in Ossining, New York, but his musical story starts while growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Danny was exposed to a lot of music at an early age by his parents. Although not musicians themselves, they were great music lovers and usually had classical music playing on an old RCA phonograph all weekend. By the age of 5 Danny had heard Beethoven piano concertos enough to know that he wanted to learn to play the piano. He surprised his parents by announcing this desire, (usually it's the parents who suggest the kid start piano lessons!), but they were thrilled and promptly enrolled him in a music theory class at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

A year later, at age 6, he started piano lessons at the same music school. After 6 years of formal classical training, Danny's family moved from Cleveland Heights (living in Rhode Island, Virginia, and suburbs of New York City over the years) but he continued studying classical piano through high school, attending Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, where he also started playing electric organ. But it was his classical training that served as the foundation and technical basis for all that followed musically.

During this same time Danny had a parallel interest in popular music, starting with the Beatles, and continuing with all the great music of the 1960's. In the early 70's, now a student at Vassar College, he was making frequent weekend forays into New York City with a group of friends to see concerts at the old Fillmore East. And in May of 1971 he saw a mind-blowing show that changed the course of his life, it was Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's first stop on their first U.S. tour. He still remembers that concert vividly, and in fact has dedicated his first solo CD, Better Late Than Never, to Keith Emerson for being such a huge musical influence as a keyboard player. He now knew what he wanted to do professionally. And musically he had been shown how to combine classical elements and compositional techniques with rock to make what would become later known as 'progressive rock'. He became very influenced musically by other bands such as Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Gentle Giant, to name a few.