Billy Joel

Billy Joel is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist. He has had a worldwide successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released twelve studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 150 million records sold worldwide. Throughout the years, Joel’s songs have acted as personal and cultural touchstones for millions of people, mirroring his own goal of writing songs that “meant something during the time in which I lived… and transcended that time.”

Early Life:

William Martin Joel was born in the Bronx, New York City, on May 9, 1949.

Joel’s father was a classical pianist and businessman, and was born in Nuremberg, Germany, to a Jewish family. Joel’s mother was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Jewish parents, who had immigrated from England.

Joel reluctantly began piano lessons at age four, at his mother’s insistence.

After his parents divorced in 1957, his father returned to Europe. Billy Joel has a half-brother, Alexander Joel, born to his father in Europe, who became a classical conductor there.

As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so he could defend himself. He boxed successfully, but abandoned the sport shortly after his nose was broken.

Joel attended Hicksville High School until 1967, but he did not graduate with his class. He had been playing at a piano bar to help support himself, his mother and his sister. Joel decided to begin a career in music.

By the time he was 16, Billy Joel was already a pro, having joined his third band before he could drive.

Early Career:

Joel dropped out of high school to pursue a performing career, devoting himself to creating his first solo album Cold Spring Harbor, which was released in 1971, and wasn’t a commercial success.

In 1972 Joel moved to Los Angeles, and worked as a lounge pianist, time that would later be immortalized in his song “Piano Man”.

By late 1972, an underground recording of Joel’s “Captain Jack” had been released on the East Coast and was garnering positive attention.

Influenced by early-rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues artists, Joel favored tightly structured pop melodies and down-to-earth songwriting.

Career Breakthrough:

With the momentum of a Top 20 single (“Piano Man”) to his name, Joel began recording new songs and albums, coming out with Streetlife Serenade in 1974. Many of his songs related to a growing frustration with the music industry and Hollywood. As the years passed, Joel’s style began to evolve, showing his range from pop to the bluesy-jazz stylings that are now closely associated with his name. The Stranger (1977) was Joel’s first major commercial breakthrough, landing him four songs in the Top 25 of the U.S. Billboard charts. By 1981, Joel had collected a slew of awards, including a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance and a People’s Choice Award.

The success of his piano-driven ballads like “Just the Way You Are”, “She’s Always a Woman”, and “Honesty” led some critics to label Joel a “balladeer” and “soft rocker”. in response to the critics, joel recorded the album Glass Houses that inculded hits like “You May Be Right”, “Don’t Ask Me Why”, “Sometimes a Fantasy” and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” which spent 11 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and was the 7th biggest hit of 1980 according to American Top 40. His five sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in 1980 earned him the Garden’s Gold Ticket Award for selling more than 100,000 tickets at the venue.

Joel’s next album included two worldwide successful hits: “Tell Her About It” and “Uptown Girl”.

Later Career (1994–present): Touring

These years have been largely characterized by very successful touring, both as a solo artist and with duets with Elton John and other succsesful musicians.

In the early 2000s, Joel found himself in and out of rehab, struggling with an ongoing alcohol addiction. In 2007, Joel released the single “All My Life,” his first song with original lyrics in 13 years. Though semi-retired in terms of recording new pop songs, Joel has continued to tour and branch out as an artist. He has composed a number of classical songs and even reworked older ballads with an orchestral backing.

As the first music franchise in MSG’s history, Joel broke records; his monthly concerts have sold out every time, and as of October 2015, he has grossed over $46 million in sales.

Historical-socio-cultural background and its effects on Billy Joel:

Joel’s musical sources undoubtedly came from his father, Howard Joel, a classical musician who was educated in Germany, and from the encouragement and insistence of his mother.

in addition, The 1960s provided a perfect background for his growth as a musician, due to the development and popularity of popular music during those years.

The 1960s were characterized by the invasion of the british music into the United States, which created a combination between different cultures and their various sources. That combination is certainly characterized also by Joel’s music, which combines different and varied sources.

Joel himself noted that his origins are bands from these years, especially the Beatles. Sociologically, all popular culture began to flourish then, as well as the evolution of television and mass communication.

In the 1970s, while Joel’s breakthrough as an internationally recognized musician, there was a continuation and development of trends that began in the 1960s. during those years, Joel also formulated the typical musical line defined by the critics as street life serenade.

Awards and Achievements:

1. In 1989, on the heels of the successful single “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Joel was presented with the Grammy Legend Award.
2. In 1993, Joel was the second entertainer out of thirty persons to be inducted into the Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame.
3. In 1999, the worldwide sales of his songs passed the 100 million mark. Also that year, Joel was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by his idol, Ray Charles.
4. In 2002, Joel was also named MusiCares Person of the Year, an award given each year at the same time as the Grammy Awards.
5. On September 20, 2004, Joel received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his work in the music industry.
6. On October 15, 2006, He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
7. On December 12, 2011 Joel became the first non-classical musician honored with a portrait in Steinway Hall.
8. In 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors, the nation’s highest honor for influencing American culture through the arts.
9. On 2014, the Library of Congress announced that Joel would be the sixth recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. He received the prize at a performance ceremony in November 2014 from James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
10. On July 18, 2018, Governor Andrew Cuomo proclaimed the date to be Billy Joel Day in New York state to mark his 100th performance at Madison Square Garden.
11. Joel has been presented with multiple honorary doctorates:

Doctor of Humane Letters from Fairfield University (1991)

Doctor of Music from Berklee College of Music (1993)

Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University (1997)

Doctor of Music from Southampton College (2000)

Doctor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University (2006)

Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music (2008)

Doctor of Music from Stony Brook University (2015)

12. 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”.

13. Joel is the only performing artist to have played both Yankee and Shea Stadiums, as well as Giants Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Personal Life:

Joel’s first wife was Elizabeth Weber Small. When their relationship began, she was married to Jon Small, his music partner in the short-lived duo Attila, with whom she had a son. Weber and Joel later married in 1973 and she became his manager. They divorced on July 20, 1982.

Joel married a second time, to model Christie Brinkley, in March 1985. Their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, was born in that year. Joel and Brinkley divorced on August 26, 1994.

On October 2, 2004, Joel married chef Katie Lee, his third wife. At the time of the wedding, Lee was 23 and Joel was 55. On June 17, 2009, they announced their separation.

On July 4, 2015, Joel married a fourth time, to Alexis Roderick, an equestrian and former Morgan Stanley executive, at his estate on Long Island. The couple had been together since 2009. On August 12, 2015, the couple’s daughter, Della Rose Joel, was born. The couple had a second daughter, Remy Anne Joel, on October 22, 2017.