Today we feature an extended edition.
William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. Commonly nicknamed the “Piano Man”, he has been making music since the 1960s, releasing popular albums throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
He was born in 1949 in The Bronx, New York, and grew up on Long Island, New York, both places that influenced his music. After dropping out of high school, Joel took part in two short-lived bands, The Hassles and Attila, before signing a record deal with Family Productions and kicking off a solo career in 1971 with his first release, Cold Spring Harbor. In 1972, Joel caught the attention of Columbia Records after a live radio performance of the song “Captain Jack” became popular in Philadelphia, prompting him to sign a new record deal with the company and release his second solo album, Piano Man; this album contained his first hit single of the same name, which is often considered to be his signature song. After releasing two more albums, Streetlife Serenade and Turnstiles, Joel released his critical and commercial breakthrough album, The Stranger, in 1977; this album became Columbia’s best-selling release, selling over 10 million copies and spawning several hit singles, including “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”, “Just the Way You Are”, “Only the Good Die Young”, and “She’s Always a Woman”.
In 1978, Joel’s album 52nd Street was his first album to peak at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Joel released his seventh studio album, Glass Houses, in an attempt to further establish himself as a rock and roll artist; this release featured “It’s Still Rock & Roll to Me”, Joel’s first single to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as “Don’t Ask Me Why” and “Sometimes a Fantasy”. His next album, The Nylon Curtain, was released in 1982, and stemmed from a desire from Joel to create more lyrically and melodically ambitious music. An Innocent Man, released in 1983, served as an homage to genres of music which Joel had grown up with in the 1950s, such as rhythm and blues and doo-wop; this release featured “Uptown Girl” and “The Longest Time”, two of his most popular songs. After releasing the albums The Bridge and Storm Front in 1986 and 1989 respectively, Joel released his twelfth and final solo album, River of Dreams, in 1993. He went on to release Fantasies and Delusions, a 2001 album featuring classical compositions composed by Joel and performed by British-Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo. Joel also provided voiceover work in 1988 for the 27th animated Disney film, Oliver & Company, in which he provided the voice of the character Dodger, and contributed to the soundtracks to several different films, including Easy Money, Ruthless People, and Honeymoon in Vegas.
Across the 20 years of his solo career, Joel produced 33 Top 40 hits in the US, all of which he wrote himself, and three of which (“It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”, “Tell Her About It”, and “We Didn’t Start the Fire”) managed to top the charts. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner who has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards. With over 150 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the best-selling artists of all time as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the US.
Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006). In 2001, Joel received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors, the nation’s highest honor for influencing American culture through the arts. Since the advent of his solo career, Joel has held a successful touring career, holding live performances across the globe in which he sings several of his written songs. In 1987, he became one of the very first artists to hold a rock and roll tour in the Soviet Union following the country’s alleviation of the ban on rock and roll music. Despite largely retiring from writing and releasing pop music following the release of River of Dreams, he continues to tour. He frequently performs at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Joel has been in several relationships, including marriages to Elizabeth Weber Small, model Christie Brinkley, and Katie Lee. Since 2015, he has been married to Alexis Roderick, his 4th spouse.
The Stranger is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Billy Joel, released on September 29, 1977 by Columbia Records. It was the first of Joel’s albums to be produced by Phil Ramone, whom he would go on to work with for all of his albums up until his 1986 album, The Bridge.
William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Commonly nicknamed the “Piano Man”, he has written several pop songs, many of which focus on the piano as a primary instrument.
Tonight, April 30 at 10pm Eastern time (US) RadioMaxMusic will be presenting the first, (hastily assembled) episode of “The LP Lounge”. A spin-off of my regular show The Vinyl Resting Place. Our plan is to play complete LPs, one side at a time – interrupting the music only as needed to turn the record over.
Tonight we serve up The Isley Brothers 3+3 and Billy Joel’s Piano Man. – I think we’ll have time for a bonus track from Mr. Joel as well.
52nd Street is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released in 1978. It was the first of four Joel albums to top the Billboard charts, and it earned him two Grammys. Three songs reached the Top 40 in the United States, contributing to the album’s success: “My Life” (#3), “Big Shot” (#14), and “Honesty” (#24). It was similarly well received by critics, earning the 1979 Grammy for Album of the Year. This Grammy was presented to its producer, Phil Ramone. Upon Ramone’s death, 52nd Street’s Album of the Year Grammy was passed on to Joel. Additionally, the album is notable for being the first to be commercially released on the compact disc format, reaching store shelves on October 1, 1982 in Japan (though it wasn’t the first work to be pressed on the format, being predated by Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony and ABBA’s The Visitors).
The Stranger is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on September 29, 1977, by Columbia Records. While his four previous albums had been moderately successful, The Stranger became Joel’s true critical and commercial breakthrough, spending six weeks at number 2 on the US albums chart. Considered his magnum opus, it remains his best-selling non-compilation album to date, and was ranked number 70 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.