Frank Leone was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1940. He began playing the piano as a young child and by junior high school, Leone was participating in the school orchestra alongside Frankie Avalon. In high school he played piano in the symphony and joined Local 77 in Philadelphia in 1955 at the age of fifteen. While in Philadelphia, Leone started playing teenage dances as a member of a quintet and eventually began recording. Frank would earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Curtis Institute.