Billy Joel

William Martin Joel (; born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his signature 1973 song of the same name, Joel has had a successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s. From 1971 to 1993, he released 12 studio albums spanning the genres of pop and rock, and in 2001 released a one-off studio album of classical compositions. With over 160 million records sold worldwide, Joel is one of the world's best-selling music artists and is the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits – Volume I & Volume II, is one of the best-selling albums in the U.S.

Joel was born in the Bronx in New York City and grew up in the Levittown portion of Hicksville on Long Island, where he began taking piano lessons at his mother's insistence. After dropping out of high school to pursue a music career, Joel took part in two short-lived bands, the Hassles and Attila, before signing a record deal with Family Productions and embarking on a solo career with his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor (1971). In 1972, Joel caught the attention of Columbia Records after a live radio performance of "Captain Jack" became popular in Philadelphia, prompting him to sign a new record deal with the company, through which he released his second album, Piano Man (1973). After Streetlife Serenade (1974) and Turnstiles (1976), Joel achieved his critical and commercial breakthrough with The Stranger (1977). It became Columbia's best-selling release, selling over 10 million copies and spawning the hit singles "Just the Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Only the Good Die Young", and "She's Always a Woman", as well as the concert staples "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and "Vienna".

Joel's 52nd Street (1978) was his first album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Glass Houses (1980) was an attempt to further establish him as a rock artist; it featured "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" (Joel's first single to top the Billboard Hot 100), "You May Be Right", "Don't Ask Me Why", and "Sometimes a Fantasy". The Nylon Curtain (1982) stemmed from a desire to create more lyrically and melodically ambitious music. An Innocent Man (1983) served as an homage to genres of music that Joel had grown up with in the 1950s, such as rhythm and blues and doo-wop; it featured "Tell Her About It", "Uptown Girl", and "The Longest Time", three of his best-known songs. After River of Dreams (1993), Joel largely retired from producing studio material, although he went on to release Fantasies & Delusions (2001), featuring classical compositions composed by him and performed by British-Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo. Joel provided voiceover work in 1988 for the Disney animated film Oliver & Company, performing the song "Why Should I Worry?", and contributed to the soundtracks to several films, including Easy Money (1983), Ruthless People (1986), A League of Their Own, and Honeymoon in Vegas (both 1992). Joel returned to composing new music with the 2024 single "Turn the Lights Back On".

Joel has had a successful touring career, holding live performances across the globe. In 1987, he became one of the first artists to hold a rock tour in the Soviet Union. Joel has had 33 Top 40 hits in the U.S., three of which ("It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", "Tell Her About It", and "We Didn't Start the Fire") topped the Billboard Hot 100. He has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards, winning six, including Album of the Year for 52nd Street. Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006. He received the 2001 Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was recognized at the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors.

Early life, family and education

William Martin Joel was born on May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, New York. At age one, he moved with his family to Hicksville in the town of Oyster Bay on Long Island. Joel and his cousin Judy, whom his parents adopted, were raised in a nondescript house similar to those in nearby Levittown.

His mother, Rosalind (1922–2014), was born in Brooklyn to Jewish parents, Philip and Rebecca Nyman, who emigrated from England. Billy's father, Howard (born Helmut) Joel (1923–2011), an accomplished amateur classical pianist and businessman, was born in Nuremberg, Germany to a Jewish family, the only child of merchant and manufacturer Karl Amson Joel, and educated in Switzerland. In 1928, Karl Joel set up a prosperous mail-order textile company, Joel Macht Fabrik, which within 10 years had become the second largest of its type in Germany. Escaping the Nazi regime, Karl, his wife and young son emigrated to Switzerland. Following the passing of laws which prevented Jews from owning property and businesses, in 1938 he was forced to sell his company to Josef Neckermann for a fraction of its true value. As direct entry to the United States was difficult for German Jews due to strict quotas imposed by the Immigration Act of 1924, the family reached the country via Cuba, where they arrived in early 1939 and stayed for nearly two years. In the United States, Howard became an engineer but always loved music.

Joel's parents met in 1942, whilst taking part in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance at the City College of New York. He has said that neither of his parents talked much about World War II. It was not until later that Joel learned more about his father's family. After Rosalind and Howard Joel divorced in 1957, Howard returned to Europe, as he had never liked the United States: he considered the people uneducated and materialistic. Howard settled in Vienna, Austria, and later remarried. Joel has a half-brother, Alexander Joel, born to his father in England, who became a classical conductor in Europe and was the chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 2001 to 2014.

At age four, Joel began taking piano lessons reluctantly at his mother's insistence, after he started banging on the piano in the family home. He continued with formal tuition until about the age of 16, his teachers including the noted American pianist Morton Estrin and musician Timothy Ford. When learning a new piece, he would sometimes improvise in the style of its composer to avoid reading the music. Joel has said that he is a better organist than a pianist. As a teenager, Joel took up boxing and competed on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit as a welterweight. He abandoned the sport after his nose was broken, having won 22 of his 26 fights.

Although Joel's parents were Jewish, he did not grow up in the religion. Joel stated: "I was not brought up Jewish in any religious way. My circumcision was as Jewish as they got." He attended a Roman Catholic church with friends. At age 11, Joel was baptized in a Church of Christ in Hicksville. He now identifies as a Jewish atheist.

Joel attended Hicksville High School until 1967 but did not graduate with his class. He was playing at a piano bar to help support himself, his mother and sister, and missed a crucial English exam after playing a late-night gig the evening before. Although Joel was a comparatively strong student, at the end of his senior year, he did not have enough credits to graduate. Rather than attend summer school to earn his diploma, Joel decided to begin a music career: "I told them, 'To hell with it. If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records, and you don't need a high school diploma over there'." In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board in lieu of the missed exam. They were accepted, and he was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High's annual graduation ceremony 25 years after leaving.

Music career

1964–1970: Early career

Although Joel's compositions are infused with references to classical music, his music mostly encompasses pop and rock, fitting into the subgenres of pop rock and soft rock. Furthermore, Joel's tightly structured melodies and down-to-earth songwriting betray the influence of early rock & roll and rhythm & blues artists, including Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers. However, it was only after seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show that he decided to pursue a career in music. As he later commented:

That one performance changed my life ... Up to that moment I'd never considered playing rock as a career ... (W)hen I saw four guys who didn't look like they'd come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon's face—and he looked like he was always saying: '---- you!'—I said: 'I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys. This is what I'm going to do—play in a rock band'.