Billy Joel

William Martin Joel was born on 9th May 1949 in the Bronx and was raised in a Levitt house in a section of Levittown, New York in the town of Oyster Bay.

Joel’s father, Howard was a classical pianist and businessman born in Nuremberg, Germany. His father had created a highly successful mail-order textile business. To escape the Nazi regime, Howard’s family immigrated to Switzerland. His father sold his business at a fraction of its value to emigrate. The family reached the United States via Cuba.

As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so he could defend himself. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning 22 bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after his nose was broken in his 24th match.

When The Beatles made their US live debut on CBS-TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show. on 9th February 1964, they were seen by an estimated 73 million people, including Billy Joel who that night decided to pursue a music career. In a later interview, he said of the group’s impact, “That one performance changed my life… Up to that moment, I’d never considered playing rock as a career. I can relate to these guys, I am these guys. This is what I’m going to do – play in a rock band.”

In 1964, New York band The Echoes recruited a new 16-year-old unknown piano player, named Billy Joel. The group specialized in British Invasion covers.

Joel played on a demo version of “Leader of the Pack”, which became a major hit for the Shangri-Las.

In late 1965, the Echoes changed their name to the Emeralds, and then to the Lost Souls. Joel left the band in 1967 to join the Hassles, a Long Island group that had signed with United Artists Records. Over the next year and a half, they released four singles and two albums (The Hassles and Hour of the Wolf). All were commercial failures. Joel and drummer Jon Small left the Hassles in 1969 to form the duo Attila, releasing an eponymous debut album in July 1970. The duo disbanded the following October when Joel began an affair with Small’s wife, Elizabeth.

Joel began his Cold Spring Harbor tour in the fall of 1971, touring with his band, throughout the mainland United States and Puerto Rico, opening for groups such as the J. Geils Band, The Beach Boys and Badfinger.

Cold Spring Harbor the debut solo album by Billy Joel was released late 1971. The album was named after a hamlet of the same name in the town of Huntington, New York, a seaside community near Joel’s hometown.

During the spring of 1972, the Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM began playing a concert recording of “Captain Jack”, which became an underground hit on the East Coast. Herb Gordon, a Columbia Records executive, heard Joel’s music and introduced him to the company. Joel signed a recording contract with Columbia in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles, California where he lived there for the next three years.

Joel’s first album with Columbia was Piano Man, released in 1973. Despite modest sales, Piano Man’s title track became his signature song, ending nearly every concert.

Streetlife Serenade Billy Joel’s third studio album was released in 1974. The album contains two songs that were featured in many of Joel’s live shows during the 1970s: the instrumental “Root Beer Rag” and the short song “Souvenir”.

His fifth studio album The Stranger was released in 1977 and became Joel’s true critical and commercial breakthrough, spending six weeks at No.2 on the US album charts. Singles released from the album include “Just the Way You Are” (which won the Grammy for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year), the acoustic ballad “She’s Always A Woman,” “Only the Good Die Young,” and “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song).”

On 18th November 1978 Joel went to No.1 on the US album chart with his sixth studio album, 52nd Street. His first US No.1 album was also the first commercial album to be released on compact disc (by Sony Music Entertainment) and won Joel the 1979 Grammy for Album of the Year.

At the 21st Grammy Awards in 1979, Joel’s ‘Just the Way You Are’ won Record and Song of the Year.

In June 1980, Joel started a six-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Glass Houses, his second US No.1 album. The album features “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”, Joel’s first song to peak at No.1 on Billboard’s Pop Singles chart.

His 1983 single “Uptown Girl”, stayed at the top of the charts for five weeks. The song was initially written about his relationship with his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife Christie Brinkley (both women being two of the most famous supermodels of the 1980s). Joel later married model Christie Brinkley on a boat moored alongside the Statue Of Liberty. They divorced in 1993.

In 1989 Joel fired his manager and former brother-in-law Frank Weber after an audit revealed discrepancies. Joel took Weber to court and sued him for $90 million.

In 1989, Joel scored a No.1 on the US singles chart with “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Its lyrics are made up of rapid-fire brief allusions to over a hundred headline events between 1949 (Joel was born on May 9 of that year) and 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front.

Talking about his 1993 album River Of Dreams, Joel claimed most of the music came to him in his sleep, hence the title. The singer’s second wife, Christie Brinkley, painted the album cover which was later voted the worst album cover of the year.

In 1996, Joel merged his long-held love of boating with his desire for a second career. With Long Island boating businessman Peter Needham, he formed the Long Island Boat Company.

In 2003 Joel was airlifted to hospital after his car smashed into a tree. The singer lost control of his Mercedes S500 and skidded for 100 yards before crashing. The accident happened in The Hamptons, New York.

In 2004 Joel married 23-year-old Kate Lee at his Centre Island, New York mansion. It was the third marriage for Joel.

Joel was sued by his former drummer for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties. Liberty Devitto, claimed that Joel hadn’t paid him proper royalties for 10 years of his work. Devitto was Joel’s drummer from 1975 until 2005 when he said he was abruptly thrown out of the band. He said: “People get fired, they get severance or insurance for a certain period. I didn’t even get a phone call. It was cold.”

On 1st August 2009, Joel and Elton John closed their ‘Face To Face’ Tour in Philadelphia. Beginning in 1994, the tours, made them the longest-running and most successful concert tandem in pop music history.

In 2011 Joel became the first non-classical musician honoured with a portrait in Steinway Hall.

Joel has won five Grammys, including Album of the Year for 52nd Street and Song of the Year and Record of the Year for “Just the Way You Are”.

On December 29, 2013, in Washington, D.C., Joel received Kennedy Center Honors, the nation’s highest honor for influencing American culture through the arts.