Billy Joel Born: Piano Man of American Pop

Billy Joel grew up on Long Island and taught himself to play piano by ear. Born on May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, New York, and raised in Levittown, a postwar suburban development that became a symbol of middle-class American aspiration, he spent his career trying to write honestly about the people and places he knew. He studied classical piano as a child, boxed as a teenager, and played in bar bands across Long Island before his solo career began. His first album, "Cold Spring Harbor," released in 1971, was a commercial failure partly because a production error caused the album to play at a slightly faster speed, making his voice sound higher than it actually was. He relocated to Los Angeles and performed under a pseudonym in a piano bar, an experience that directly inspired "Piano Man," which was released in 1973 and became one of the most recognizable songs in American popular music. The song is performed at bars, weddings, and sporting events worldwide. His commercial breakthrough came with "The Stranger" in 1977 and "52nd Street" in 1978, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year. The run of albums from "The Stranger" through "Storm Front" in 1989 produced a string of hits that defined a particular strain of American piano rock: sophisticated, melodic, lyrically detailed, and unapologetically populist. He has sold over 150 million records worldwide. In 2014, he began a residency at Madison Square Garden, performing one show per month. He has played Madison Square Garden over 150 times, more than any other artist in the venue's history. Nobody else has done that.