A boyish-looking, sandy-haired charmer from Cambridge, MA, Adams fell in love with music as a kid. “My dad played drums in a rock band for 25 years and my mom sang back-up,” he says. “They loved music — everything from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles to Led Zeppelin and Canned Heat.” Adams began playing piano at age seven and learned to improvise at age 11. “Everything changed for me at that point because it was my type of thing,” he says. “I didn't have to read sheet music of someone else's song. I could come up with my own.”