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Although Billy Joel never was a critic's favorite, the pianist emerged as
one of the most popular singer/songwriters of the latter half of the '70s.
Joel's music consistently demonstrates an affection for Beatlesque
hooks and a flair for Tin Pan Alley and Broadway melodies. His fusion of
two distinct eras made him a superstar in the late '70s and '80s, as he
racked an impressive string of multi-platinum albums and hit singles.
Born in the Bronx, Joel was raised in the Long Island suburb of
Hicksville, where he learned to play piano as a child. As he approached
his adolescence, Joel started to rebel, joining teenage street gangs and
boxing as welterweight. He fought a total of 22 fights as a teenager, and
during one of the fights, he broke his nose. For the early years of his
adolescence, he divided his time between studying piano and fighting. Upon
seeing the
Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Joel decided to pursue
a full-time musical career and set about finding a local Long Island band
to join. Eventually, he found the
Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. The
Echoes became a popular New York attraction, convincing him to quit
high school to become a professional musician.
While still a member of the
Echoes, Joel began playing recording sessions in 1965, when he was
just 16 years old. Joel played piano on several recordings George
"Shadow" Morton produced — including the
Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" — as well as several
records released through Kama Sutra Productions. During this time, the
Echoes started to play numerous late-night shows.
Later in 1965, the
Echoes changed their name twice — once to the
Emeralds and finally to the
Lost Souls. For two years, he played sessions and performed with the
Lost Souls. In 1967, he left the band to join the
Hassles, a local Long Island rock & roll band that had signed a
contract with United Artists Records. Over the next year and a half, the
Hassles released two albums and four singles, all of which failed
commercially. In 1969, the
Hassles broke up. Joel and the band's drummer, Jon
Small, formed an organ and drums duo called Attila.
In Attila,
Joel played his organ through a variety of effects pedals, creating a
heavy psychedelic hard rock album completely without guitars. On the cover
of the band's eponymous album, both Joel and Small
were dressed as barbarians; in an interview on the back of the album, Joel
claimed to forget the name of his previous band and stated that he only
"sweated" two things — perfecting his sound and the war in
Southeast Asia. Epic released Attila
early in 1970 and it was an immediate bomb and the duo broke up. While the
group was still together, Joel began a romance with Small's
wife, Elizabeth; she would eventually leave the drummer to marry the
pianist.
After Attila's
embarrassing failure, Joel wrote rock criticism for a magazine called
Changes and played on commercial jingles, including a Chubby
Checker spot for Bachman Pretzels. However, Joel entered a severe bout
of depression, culminating with him drinking a bottle of furniture polish
in an attempt to end his life. Following his failed suicide attempt, Joel
checked himself into Meadowbrook Hospital, where he received psychiatric
treatment for depression.
Joel returned to playing music in 1971, signing a deal with Family
Productions. Under the terms of the contract, Joel signed to the label,
for life; the pianist was unaware of the clause at the time, but it would
come back to haunt him — Family Productions received royalties from
every album Joel sold until the late '80s. Joel refashioned himself as a
sensitive singer/songwriter for his debut album, Cold
Spring Harbor, which was released in November of 1971. Due to an
error in the mastering of the album, Cold
Spring Harbor was released a couple of tape speeds too fast; the
album remained in that bastardized form until 1984. Following the release
of the album, Joel went on a small live tour, during which he would
frequently delve into standup comedy. The tour received good reviews but
Joel remained unhappy with the quality of his performance and, especially,
the quality of the album. Furthermore, he lost a manager during this time
and Family Productions were experiencing legal and financial difficulties,
which prevented him from recording an immediate follow-up.
Early in 1972, he moved out to Los Angeles with his girlfriend Elizabeth.
Joel adopted the name Bill Martin and spent half a year playing lounge
piano at the Executive Room. Toward the end of the year, he began touring,
playing various nightclubs across the country. At the beginning of 1973,
Joel married Elizabeth Weber and she enrolled at UCLA's Graduate School of
Management. Around the same time, a radio station began playing a live
version of "Captain Jack" that was recorded at a Philadelphia
radio broadcast. Soon, record companies were eagerly seeking to sign the
pianist, and he eventually signed with Columbia Records. In order for Joel
to sign with Columbia, the major label had to agree to pay Family
Productions 25 cents for each album sold, plus display the Family and
Remus logos on each record Joel released.
By the end of 1973, Billy Joel's first album for Columbia Records, Piano
Man, had been released. The record slowly worked its way up the
charts, peaking at number 27 in the spring of 1974. The title track —
culled from experiences he had while singing at the Executive Room —
became a Top 40 hit single. At the end of the summer, Joel assembled a
touring band and undertook a national tour, opening for acts like the
J. Geils Band and the
Doobie Brothers. By the end of 1974, he had released his second album, Streetlife
Serenade, which reached number 35 early in 1975. After its
success, Joel signed a contract with James
William Guercio and Larry
Fitzgerald's management company, Caribou, and moved from California to
New York. Through songs like "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and
"New York State of Mind," Joel celebrated the move his 1976
album Turnstiles.
The sessions for Turnstiles
were long and filled with tension, culminating with Joel firing the
album's original producer, Guercio,
and producing the album himself. Once he fired Guercio,
Joel also left Caribou, and hired his wife as his new manager.
Turnstiles
stalled on the charts, only reaching number 122. Joel's next album would
prove to be the make-or-break point for his career, and the resulting
album, The
Stranger, catapulted him into superstardom. The
Stranger was released in the fall of 1977. By the end of the year,
it peaked at number two and had gone platinum, and within the course of a
year, it would spawn the Top 40 singles "Just the Way You Are"
— which would win the 1978 Grammy for Record of the Year and Song of the
Year — "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," "She's Always a
Woman," and "Only the Good Die Young." Over the next two
decades, the album would sell over seven million copies. Joel followed The
Stranger with 52nd
Street, which was released in the fall of 1978. 52nd
Street spent eight weeks at number one in the U.S., selling over
two millions copies within the first month of its release. The album
spawned the hit singles "My Life," "Big Shot," and
"Honesty," and won the 1979 Grammy award for Album of the Year.
Although he had become a genuine star, critics had not looked kindly to
Joel's music, and the pianist became a vocal opponent of rock criticism in
the late '70s. In one incident he denounced Los Angeles Herald Examiner
critic Ken Tucker on-stage and then, as a form of protest, tore up the
critic's reviews.
In the spring of 1980, Joel released Glass
Houses, theoretically a harder-edged album that was a response to
the punk and new wave movement. Glass
Houses reached number one in America, where it stayed for six
weeks; the album spawned the Top 40 singles "You May Be Right"
(number seven), "It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me" (number one),
"Don't Ask Me Why" (number 19), and "Sometimes a
Fantasy" (number 36) and won the 1980 Grammy for Best Rock Vocal
Performance, Male. In the fall of 1981, Joel released Songs
in the Attic, a live album that concentrated on material written
and recorded before he became a star in 1977. The album's "Say
Goodbye to Hollywood" and "She's Got a Way" became Top 40
hits.
Songs
in the Attic bought Joel some time as he was completing an album
he had designed as his bid to be taken seriously as a composer. Before the
album was finished, he suffered a serious motorcycle accident in the
spring of 1982. He broke his wrist in the accident — it would take major
surgery to repair the wound. In July of 1982, Joel divorced his wife,
Elizabeth. His new album, The
Nylon Curtain, was finally released in the fall. A concept album
about baby boomers and their experiences, the album was a commercial
disappointment, only selling a million copies, but it did earn him some of
his better reviews, as well as spawning the Top 20 hits
"Pressure" and "Allentown." Joel quickly followed the
album in 1983 with the oldies pastiche An
Innocent Man.
An
Innocent Man restored Joel to his multi-platinum status,
eventually selling over seven million copies and spawning the hit singles
"Uptown Girl" (number three), "Tell Her About It"
(number one), "An Innocent Man" (number ten), and "Keeping
the Faith" (number 18). Several of the songs on the album were about
model Christie Brinkley, who was engaged to Joel by the time the album was
released. During 1983 and 1984, Joel became one of the first '70s stars to
embrace MTV and music videos, shooting a number of clips for the album
that were aired frequently on the network. Brinkley and Joel were married
in the spring of 1985.
Joel released a double-album compilation, Greatest
Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 in the summer of 1985. Two new songs — the
Top Ten "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" and the Top 40
"The Night Is Still Young" — were added to the hits
collection; the album itself peaked at number six and would eventually
sell over ten million copies. In the summer of 1986, Joel returned with
the Top Ten single "Modern Woman," which was taken from the
soundtrack of Ruthless People. "Modern Woman" was also a
teaser from his new album, The
Bridge, which was released in August. The
Bridge was another success for Joel, peaking at number seven,
selling over two million copies, and spawning the Top 40 hits "A
Matter of Trust" (number ten) and "This Is the Time"
(number 18), as well as "Big Man on Mulberry Street," which was
used as the basis for an episode of the popular Bruce
Willis/Cybill
Shepherd television series Moonlighting.
In the spring of 1987, Joel embarked on a major tour of the U.S.S.R.,
during which he had an on-stage temper tantrum and shoved a piano off the
stage. His Leningrad concert was recorded and released in the fall of 1987
as the live double album Kohuept,
which means concert in Russian. Joel was quiet for much of 1988,
only appearing as the voice of Dodger in the Walt Disney animated feature Oliver
and Company.
Joel fired his longtime manager and former brother-in-law Frank Weber in
August of 1989, after an audit revealed that there were major
discrepancies in Weber's accounting. Following Weber's dismissal, Joel
sued Weber for 90 million dollars, claiming fraud and breach of fiduciary
duty. Immediately after filing suit, Joel was hospitalized with kidney
stones. All of this turmoil didn't prevent the release of his 12th studio
album, Storm
Front, in the fall of 1989. It was preceded by the single "We
Didn't Start the Fire," whose lyrics were just a string of historical
facts. The single became a huge hit, reaching number one and inspiring
history students across America. Storm
Front marked a significant change for Joel — he fired his band,
keeping only Liberty
DeVito, and ceased his relationship with producer Phil
Ramone, hiring Mick
Jones of Foreigner
to produce the album. Storm
Front was another hit for Joel, reaching number one in the U.S.
and selling over three million albums.
During 1990, Joel undertook a major U.S. tour, which ran well into 1991.
In January, the court awarded Joel two million dollars in a partial
judgment against Frank Weber, and in April, the court dismissed a 30
million dollar countersuit. At the end of the year, the National Academy
of Recording Arts and Sciences honored Joel with a Grammy Living Legend
award; that same year, Quincy
Jones, Johnny
Cash, and Aretha
Franklin were also given the honor.
Following the Storm
Front world tour, Joel spent the next few years quietly. In 1991,
he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Fairfield University in
Connecticut. In the summer of 1992, Joel filed a 90 million dollar lawsuit
charging his former lawyer Allen Grubman of fraud, breach of contract, and
malpractice; in October of 1993, the two parties settled their differences
out of court. Joel returned in the summer of 1993 with River
of Dreams, which entered the charts at number one and spawned the
Top Ten title track. Following the River
of Dreams tour, Joel divorced Christie Brinkley. In 1996, he gave
a series of lectures at a variety of American colleges. He performed at
the 1999 New Year's Eve Party in Times Square, and 2000
Years: The Millennium Concert, a live album of this concert, was
released early the following year.
His next studio record, Fantasies
& Delusions, arrived in 2001 and was his first album of his
own classical compositions. A year later, Twyla
Tharp choreographed and directed Movin' Out, a Broadway musical based
on Joel's music. A new venture as a children's author began in 2004 with
the release of his first book, Goodnight, My Angel: A Lullaby. The
54-year-old Joel married the 23-year-old Katie Lee that same year and was
making tabloid headlines again in March of 2005 when he checked into the
Betty Ford Clinic for treatment of alcohol abuse. He checked out in April,
and in November his four-CD/one-DVD career retrospective My
Lives was released. Live
in Madison Square Garden NYC and the accompanying 12
Gardens Live arrived in 2006.
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