Background

Singer-songwriter William Martin "Billy" Joel was born in the Bronx, New York, on May 9, 1949, to Howard and Rosalind Joel. Shortly after he was born, the family moved to a section of America's famous "first suburb," Levittown on Long Island. Although his father was an accomplished classical pianist, it was Joel's mother who pushed the young boy to study piano. He began playing at the age of four and showed an immediate aptitude for the instrument. By the time he was 16, Billy Joel was already a pro, having joined his third band before he could drive.

Education

Billy Joel attended Hicksville High School. 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.

Career

Billy 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. The terms of Joel's contract with Family Productions turned out to be onerous and the artist was unhappy with the quality of the album they released. It wasn't a commercial success.

Disillusioned with trying to make it as a rock star, Joel moved to Los Angeles to fly under the radar for a while. In early 1972, he got a gig working as a lounge pianist under the pseudonym Bill Martin. His time playing at The Executive Room on Wilshire Boulevard would later be immortalized in his song "Piano Man," which describes a no-name lounge's down-and-out patrons.

By late 1972, an underground recording of Joel's "Captain Jack" had been released on the East Coast and was garnering positive attention. Executives from Columbia Records sought out the lounge player and gave Joel a second chance to become a rock star.

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 growing frustration with the music industry and Hollywood, foreshadowing his exit from Los Angeles in 1976. 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 United States 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.

Through the 1980s, Joel would be crowned a hit-maker with smashes such as "Tell Her About It," "Uptown Girl," "Innocent Man" and "The Longest Time." He would release two volumes of Greatest Hits and become the first American performer to unleash a full-scale rock production in the Soviet Union. While churning out hits, Joel would also frequent the benefit circuit, performing with stars such as Cyndi Lauper and John Mellencamp to raise money for various causes.

In 1989, on the heels of the successful single "We Didn't Start the Fire," Joel was presented with the Grammy Legend Award. His professional success continued unabated into the early 1990s, although his personal life became somewhat dramatic. After the release of River of Dreams (1994), Joel slowed his studio recordings but continued to tour alone and in combination with fellow artists such as Elton John. 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. Several years later, in 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors.

In the early 2000s, Joel found himself in and out of rehab, struggling with 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.

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."

When Joel's residency at Madison Square Garden was announced in 2013, his devoted fans proved how much the singer's music resonated with them. 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.

Achievements

• 

  Billy Joel is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter in the pop ballad tradition whose numerous hit songs in the 1970s and '80s made him an enduring favorite on the concert circuit. He has been listed as a notable Musician by Marquis Who's Who.
  
  Joel went on to become one of the major forces of the recording artists of the 70s, ‘80s and now the ‘90s. Of his fourteen album releases, eleven have been certified platinum and/or multi-platinum, in turn generating more than 40 chart-listed single hits, including "Piano Man," "Just The Way You Are," "Only The Good Die Young," "It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me," "Uptown Girl," and "We Didn’t Start The Fire."
  
  Among the many honors he has received, Joel has been nominated for 18 Grammy awards, winning five, including two each for "Just The Way You Are" and "52nd Street," and one for "Glass Houses." In addition, he was honored with the Grammy Legend Award in 1990.
  
  In 2000, he received The James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian Institution. In the same year, he received an honorary doctorate of music from Long Island University, Southampton College.
  
  

Works

More photos

• music

  • Cold Spring Harbor 1971
  • Piano Man 1973
  • Streetlife Serenade 1974
  • Turnstiles 1976
  • The Stranger 1977
  • 52nd Street 1978
  • Glass Houses 1980
  • The Nylon Curtain 1982
  • An Innocent Man 1983
  • The Bridge 1986
  • Storm Front 1989
  • River Of Dreams 1993
  • Fantasies & Delusions 2001

Religion

Joel’s parents are both Jewish and Joel identifies with his heritage, calling himself a "cultural Jew." But Joel’s household was not particularly devout and he admits to attending Catholic mass as much as a Jewish temple. But that didn’t really take either. Joel said of his Catholic experience:

"I viewed the whole business as a lot of very enthralling hocus-pocus. There’s a guy hanging upon the wall in the church, nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everybody’s blaming themselves for that man’s torment, but I said to myself, ‘Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. There’s no blood of any sacred martyr on my hands. I pass on all of this.’"

Now Joel is a self-identified atheist with some interesting perspectives on the topic. He explains choosing atheism as an analogy to a father and child, saying:

"You decide first of all that will not ask Daddy - meaning God in all of his imagined forms - for a helping hand when you’re in a jam. Then you have to try and make some sort of sense out of your problems. And if you try and find you can’t, you have no choice but to be good and scared - but that’s okay!"

Politics

Billy Joel and politics is a rather recent development in his 40-some old years as a wildly famous rocker. But when it comes down to it, he’s a Democrat. Of the $13,500 Joel has given to political causes since 1988, $8,000 was to Democratic candidates and the rest has been to the ASCAP Legislative Fund for the Arts.

When Obama emerged in 2008, Joel jumped on the bandwagon and performed shows with Bruce Springsteen and others to help Obama along. But that was the first time Joel had ever done anything like that. In fact, his policy had always been one of quiet support. He said:

"People who pay for your tickets, I don’t think they want to hear who you’re going to vote for and how you think they should vote."

Which explains nearly 40 years of radio silence from Joel on political and social issues.

Views

Over the years, Joel has been active on behalf of the community and environmental projects, performing at benefit concerts, most notably the Concert for the Bays and Baymen, Farm Aid 1, Charity Begins At Home, Concert For the New York City Police Athletic League, Back At The Ranch, and The Concert for Walden Woods.

Quotations: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - the sinners are much more fun."

"If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time."

"The good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

"For whatever reason, not all people are born with the particular gift of being able to express ourselves through music. And, believe me, it is a gift."

"When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory."

"Why do musicians give so much time to charitable causes? The most humanitarian cause that we can give our time to is the creation and performance of music itself."

"I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist."

"There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? Peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex."

"We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge."

"Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?"

Personality

Billy Joel appeared in the music video and sang in the choir on the song "We Are the World."

Joel was once a successful Long Island boxer, winning 22 out of 24 fights. He had taken boxing lessons because he was frequently beaten up by neighborhood bullies. He left his boxing career and went into music when his nose was broken in his 24th fight.

Interests

• piano

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Sport & Clubs

  boxing

• Music & Bands

  Steve Winwood, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix

Connections

In 1982, Joel split with his first wife, Elizabeth Weber Small, who had been his partner since 1973. In 1984, Joel would famously meet and marry supermodel Christie Brinkley. Soon after, their daughter Alexa Ray (named after Ray Charles) was born on December 29, 1985.

Joel divorced Brinkley in 1993. In 2004, he married the television personality and journalist Katie Lee. They would eventually divorce after five years of marriage.

In 2015, Billy Joel and his girlfriend of six years, Alexis Roderick, announced they were expecting a baby together. That summer, Joel and Roderick tied the knot at the couple's annual Fourth of July party at his Long Island estate. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo presided over the nuptials. Their daughter Della Rose Joel was born on August 12, 2015. In 2017 the couple welcomed their second daughter Remy Anne Joel.

Father:

Howard Joel

Mother:

Rosalind (Nyman) Joel

Spouse:

Alexis Roderick

Daughter:

Alexa Ray Joel

ex-spouse:

Christie Brinkley

ex-spouse:

Elizabeth Weber Small

ex-spouse:

Katie Lee

Daughter:

Della Rose Joel

Daughter:

Remy Anne Joel

colleague:

Elton John

colleague:

Nick Jonas

References

• A Biography On The Life & Times of Billy Joel
• Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography
• Billy Joel: America's Piano Man
• Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man
• Billy Joel - Piano Man
• Billy Joel: The Biography
• Billy Joel Official Site