Early Life
Scialfa grew up in the Jersey Shore community of Deal, New Jersey. She was the middle child of Joseph Scialfa and Vivienne (née Morris) Scialfa. Her father was of Sicilian ancestry and her mother is of Scots-Irish ancestry. She also has half-siblings from her father's second marriage. Her father was a successful local entrepreneur, who started with a single television store and became a real estate developer.
Scialfa graduated from Asbury Park High School in 1971.
Scialfa was writing songs from an early age and first worked professionally as a back-up singer for New Jersey bar bands after she completed high school. In 1994, she stated in a Lear's Magazine interview that she had little talent for anything but music and that she attended college as a way to further her ambitions as a performer while also satisfying parental expectations. She has a music degree from New York University, earned after she transferred from the University of Miami's highly-respected jazz conservatory at the Frost School of Music.
Read more about this topic: Patti Scialfa
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“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
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