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. For the early years of his adolescence, he divided his time between studying piano and fighting.
He fought a total of 22 fights as a teenager, and during one of the fights, he broke his nose. As he approached his adolescence, Joel started to rebel, joining teenage street gangs and boxing as welterweight. After the residency was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Joel made a grand return to his hometown arena in late 2021.īorn on in the Bronx, Joel was raised in the Long Island suburb of Hicksville, where he learned to play piano as a child. Among the many honors bestowed upon him is an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Kennedy Center Honors, and the only retired number by a non-athlete at New York's Madison Square Garden arena where he began a monthly residency gig in 2014. Joel remained a significant concert draw, touring frequently throughout the 2000s and 2010s, occasionally as part of a popular package with Elton John. He ended the decade on top with 1989's Storm Front and its smash hit "We Didn't Start the Fire." Released in 1993, River of Dreams proved to be Joel's last release of pop material and, aside from a 2001 album of original classical material, he shifted into legacy mode in the 21st century. and he even reached across the Iron Curtain, doing a high profile tour of the Soviet Union in the late '80s. Joel's success extended well beyond the U.S. 1 & 2 became a ubiquitous chart presence, eventually earning Diamond certification. Released in 1985 his double disc Greatest Hits Vol. Released in 1977, his fifth album, The Stranger, launched him into superstardom yielding four Top 40 hits including "Only the Good Die Young" and the Grammy Award-winning soft rock ballad "Just the Way You Are." By the end of the '70s, Joel was a major concert draw and one of the top American pop artists with a string of massive hits to his credit including "Movin' Out," "My Life," and "She's Always a Woman." His success continued into the '80s with albums like Glass Houses and An Innocent Man, the latter of which helped usher him into the MTV era with its "Uptown Girl" video starring supermodel and wife Christie Brinkley. A Long Island native with a powerful voice and knack for storytelling, Joel first made the pop charts with "Piano Man," a rousing barroom sing-along with a bittersweet old-timey feel that became his signature song. A New York icon and one of the most successful singer/songwriters of the late 20th century, Billy Joel rose to success in the mid 1970s with a melodic piano-led pop sound that merged Beatlesque hooks with elements of rock, jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and even Broadway.
0 kommentar(er)
