The Hassles, Billy Joel's first recorded band, to be inducted into Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame

Ray Charles and The Beatles were some of the better-known influences on rock icon Billy Joel, but there’s another musician who could be added to the list: Jericho-raised drummer Jon Small.

"I had superlong hair,” Small, 78, says of his younger self during the mid-1960s, when he invited an even younger Joel to join his band, The Hassles. Walking into Joel’s Hicksville home for the first time, Small says, he met Rosalind Joel, the mother of the future Piano Man. "I want to look just like him,” Joel said, according to the drummer. "And she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh, great.’”

The Hassles, Joel's first recorded band, will be inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame on June 28, in a ceremony that will feature Small and original Hassles guitarist Rich McKenna. Liberty DeVitto, Joel’s longtime drummer, will induct the band. There will also be live music from The Alessi Brothers with drummer Mike Ricciardella — all one-time members of local rock heroes Barnaby Bye — and journeyman guitarist Jimmy Rip. Joel, currently undergoing treatment for a brain disorder, won’t be in attendance, though he’s now a two-time Hall of Fame inductee.

"The Hassles were a dynamic and influential part of Long Island’s musical fabric in the 1960s,” Tom Needham, the Hall of Fame’s vice chairman, said in a statement. "Their recordings and live shows left a lasting impression on the region, and their role in launching Billy Joel’s career only adds to their enduring legacy.”

The Hassles formed in 1964 and began rehearsing in the basement of a Syosset wallpaper store owned by Small’s mother with a lineup that included singer John Dizek, bassist Howie Arthur Blauvelt and keyboardist Harry Weber. "We played in every bad bar you could play in, on Hempstead Turnpike or wherever they were,” Small recalls. The steady gigging led to a residency at the Plainview nightclub My House, whose owner, Danny Mazur, began managing the group.

After Weber left the band, Small says, Mazur came up with a slightly sneaky plan: hold auditions for bands at My House, then steal the best keyboardist. After Joel came in with his group The Lost Souls, Small lured him away with the offer of a coveted Hammond B-3 organ. The new version of the Hassles landed a recording contract with United Artists, then released an eponymous 1967 album that produced an almost-hit, a cover of Sam & Dave's "You Got Me Hummin’.” A 1969 follow-up album, "The Hour of the Wolf,” featured tracks co-written by Joel and Small but produced no singles; the band split soon after its release.

A difficult period followed. Joel moved into a Dix Hills house with the drummer and his wife, Elizabeth Weber, and fell in love with her. Joel’s guilt over the affair led to two suicide attempts and a brief stay in a psychiatric ward, he recounts in the upcoming documentary "Billy Joel: And So It Goes.” Small, for his part, saw a therapist who encouraged him to curse his ex-wife aloud whenever he thought of her.

"I'd be on an elevator with people, and I would scream,” Small says. "It really helped.”

Eventually, the three reunited. Weber married Joel and became his manager; Small says he worked for them briefly as a travel booker and record-company liaison. (Weber and Joel divorced in 1982.) During the early MTV era, Small turned himself into a successful music video director. According to IMDb.com, he co-directed Joel’s "Tell Her About It (1983) and directed the genre-bending Aerosmith-Run-D.M.C. collaboration "Walk This Way” (1986).

Now splitting his time between Asharoken and Palm Beach, Florida, Small remembers his years with The Hassles as "nothing but greatness.” His advice to parents: "Get your kid into playing music,” he says. "It's just great. You're out all the time, you're meeting new people and you become a star in your own head.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com