Billy Joel

Billy Joel was born in the Bronx in 1949 and raised in Levittown, Long Island, where his mother made sure he took piano lessons. He dropped out of high school to chase music, passed through two short-lived bands, the Hassles and Attila, and made his solo debut with Cold Spring Harbor in 1971. The break came from Philadelphia, where a live radio performance of "Captain Jack" caught on, and Columbia signed him in 1972.

Piano Man, in 1973, gave him his signature song and the nickname that has followed him ever since. Streetlife Serenade came next in 1974 and Turnstiles in 1976, the year of "New York State of Mind". Then came The Stranger in 1977, his critical and commercial breakthrough and the best-selling release in Columbia's history, with "Just the Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Only the Good Die Young", "She's Always a Woman", and two songs that became concert staples, the sweeping "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and the gentle "Vienna".

52nd Street, in 1978, became his first number-one album and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Glass Houses, in 1980, was his bid to be taken seriously as a rocker, and "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" gave him his first number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The Nylon Curtain, in 1982, reached for more ambitious melodies and words, and An Innocent Man, in 1983, doffed its cap to the doo-wop and rhythm and blues he grew up on. The Bridge followed in 1986 and Storm Front in 1989, the year "We Didn't Start the Fire" went to the top of the Hot 100.

He took a rock show into the Soviet Union in 1987, among the very first Western acts to try it. After River of Dreams in 1993 he largely stepped away from pop records, and Fantasies & Delusions, in 2001, was a set of classical pieces he composed for another pianist to play. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1999, and the Gershwin Prize followed in 2014.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.