The Ballad of Billy The Kid
History Lesson
“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.”
Birth, Youth, and Bands
Born on May 9th, 1949 in the Bronx, New York City, NY, Billy Joel grew up most of his young life in Levittown in Hicksville, Long Island. His parents, Howard Joel and Rosalind Nyman were German Jews who had barely escaped the Holocaust by means of escaping to Cuba. The two of them also gave birth to Judith Joel and Howard later had Alexander Joel. A very musically inclined kid, Billy began to study piano at the age of 4 in 1953 and joined his first band in 1963, at the age of 14 after being enamored by the British Invasion happening at the time. This first band of his was called The Echoes until the name was later changed to The Lost Souls. In 1967, he joined the Long Island band, The Hassles and recorded a few albums. After this, in 1970, Joel created Attila with Jon Small, The Hassles drummer. They played heavy metal (very unlike Joel’s later music).
Joel on The Hassles and Attila
Studio Career
In his 20s, feeling like a failure, Joel attempted to take his own life. When he survived, he told himself that he “couldn’t even do that right”. The suicide note he had written would only a short time later become the song “Tomorrow is Today” on his first solo album, Cold Spring Harbor, released in 1971. After contractual disputes, Joel fled to live life out in the west, anonymously in Los Angeles. Columbia Records was able to track him down due to the radio popularity of his song “Captain Jack” and in 1973, he signed to Columbia and recorded the album Piano Man, his second solo, studio album (the titular song being about his time living anonymously in L.A.) (I’ve been to the place where he wrote it too!) During this time was when he married his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, who he remained married to until 1982. The next year, 1974, “Piano Man”, Joel’s biggest hit was his first to hit top 20, and Piano Man went gold. Streetlife Serenade was also written in L.A. Around this time was when his live-touring really began to kick off, and as we know, he is one of the most successful live-touring artists of all time. By ‘76, Joel returned to New York and recorded his fourth album, Turnstiles, which included his famous song “New York State of Mind”. The following year, The Stranger, Joel’s 5th solo album, produced by Phil Ramone, became Columbia’s highest selling album (until 1985 at least). Following The Stranger’s success, Joel won two Grammys in ’78 for the song “Just the Way You Are”. The same year, 52nd Street was released and reaches number 1 on the charts, the first of Joel’s album to do so. In 1979, Joel performed in Cuba for Havana Jam, a three day event.
By the 80’s, Joel had gained his fame and ran with it and in the following decade released the albums Glass Houses, Songs in the Attic, his 4th consecutive top 10 album, The Nylon Curtain, which gained him an Album of the year Grammy nomination, An Innocent Man, which included 6 top 40 songs as well as more Grammy nominations, The Bridge, including collaborations with Ray Charles, Cyndi Lauper, and Steve Winwood, Storm Front, produced with Mick Jones of The Clash. Among this, in 1985, Joel performed for U.S.A. for Africa’s charity single, “We Are the World”. This same year, he was married to Christie Brinkley and together, they had his eldest daughter, Alexa Ray Joel. 1987 beheld some of Joel’s most famous concerts in Moscow and Leningrad and his performance in the Soviet Union is released later that year. He was invited to perform in the Soviet Union because he was seen as a “nice, safe, first attempt at bringing in an American pop star.” In the early 90’s, Joel had more famous performances such as his two USO concerts in ‘91. In 1993, 22 years after his first solo album was released, Joel released River of Dreams, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Album Chart.
Life After Career
Throughout the late 90’s and 00’s and even up until around now, Joel continues to tour and receive awards such as the American Music Awards’ Award of Merit and in 2007 he performed the National Anthem for Super Bowl XLI. After his split with Brinkley in 1994, Joel has since been married twice more. First, in 2004, he married Katie Lee, with whom their marriage lasted 5 years. In 2015, he married Alexis Roderick and has since had two daughters with her, Della Rose Joel and Remy Anne Joel.
In all, Joel has won 6 Grammys and received 18 nominations in which he did not win. Outside of Grammys, Joel has won 25+ awards and achieved platinum status a plethora of times, lists of which can be found on his website (https://www.billyjoel.com/).
Looking back, Joel’s sound and style varies from album to album. In the 70’s, Joel created a lot of music that was very piano-heavy and not quite fitting the definition of “Rock”, but as the decade went on and Glass Houses released, he began to add more rock elements to his music and from then on created a mixture of both piano-centered ballads and pop-rock pieces.