Product Details
- Audio CD (October 20, 1998)
- Original Release Date: October 20, 1998
- Number of Discs: 2
- Label: Sony
Billy Joel Biography
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.
Currently 2010 he is touring with Elton John!!!
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