William Joel
William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his album and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released 12 pop and rock studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album of classical compositions in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the seventh-best-selling recording artist and the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 160 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, '' Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2'', is one of the best-selling albums in the United States. Born in The Bronx, Joel grew up on Long Island, where both places influenced his music. Growing up, he took piano lessons at his mother's insistence. After dropping out of high school to pursue a music career, Joel took part in two short-lived bands, The Hassles and Attila, bef ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Signature Song
A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory or signer. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying its creator. A signature may be confused with an autograph, which is chiefly an artistic signature. This can lead to confusion when people have both an autograph and signature and as such some people in the public eye keep their signatures private whilst fully publishing their autograph. Function and types The traditional function of a signature is to permanently affix to a document a person's uniquely personal, undeniable self-identification as physical evidence of that person's personal witness and certification of the content of all, or a specified part, of the document. For examp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Piano Man (Billy Joel Album)
''Piano Man'' is the second studio album by American recording artist Billy Joel, released on November 9, 1973, by Columbia Records. The album emerged from legal difficulties with Joel's former label, Family Productions, and ultimately became his first breakthrough album. The title track, a fictionalized retelling of Joel's experiences with people he met as a lounge singer in Los Angeles, peaked at on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and on the Adult Contemporary singles chart. " Travelin' Prayer" and " Worse Comes to Worst" peaked at No. 77 and 80 on the Hot 100, respectively, while the album itself peaked at on the US ''Billboard'' 200. The album was certified gold by the RIAA in 1975, but Joel received only $8000 in royalties (US$ in dollars). Legacy edition Columbia Records released a two-disc legacy version of ''Piano Man'' in November 2011. This edition included a slightly truncated live 1972 Philadelphia 93.3 WMMR FM radio broadcast of early songs that Joel perform ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Captain Jack (Billy Joel Song)
"Captain Jack" is a song by Billy Joel featured on his 1973 album ''Piano Man'' with a live version on his 1981 album ''Songs in the Attic''. It is considered by some to be the most important and pivotal of his early compositions because his performance of the song at an April 15, 1972, live radio concert at Sigma Studios on WMMR in Philadelphia, and the subsequent airplay this live version received on the station, brought him to the attention of major record labels, including Columbia, with whom he would sign a recording contract in 1973. Composition Joel wrote "Captain Jack" in late 1971, while sitting in his apartment in Oyster Bay, Long Island, looking out the window, trying to find inspiration for a song. Across the street was a housing project, and he observed suburban teenagers going into the project and obtaining heroin from a dealer known as "Captain Jack". "It's about coming out of the New York suburbs," Joel told John Kalodner in 1974. "But in my travels I have se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Cold Spring Harbor (album)
''Cold Spring Harbor'' is the debut studio album by American recording artist Billy Joel, released on November 1, 1971, by Family Productions. Composition and recording ''Cold Spring Harbor'' was named after a hamlet of the same name in the Town of Huntington, New York. It is located on Long Island Sound near Joel's hometown. The front cover was photographed at Harbor Road in Cold Spring Harbor. His song "Tomorrow Is Today" drew from his period of depression and hospitalization the year before. Joel later released live versions of "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now", first included on this album, in his ''Songs in the Attic'' (1981), recorded in live performances. "She's Got a Way" was also released as a single in early 1982, and peaked at No. 23 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. Production Mastering Through an error in the album's mastering, the songs played slightly too fast, causing Joel's voice to sound unnaturally high (one-half of a semitone higher—Joel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Attila (rock Band)
Attila was an American rock band, most notable for having featured a young Billy Joel as a member. History Joel was a member of a band called The Hassles; he and the drummer Jon Small broke away from the Hassles and formed Attila in 1969. The instrumentation was organ and drums, with Joel also handling the bass lines with a keyboard, similar to the Doors' Ray Manzarek. Their creative partnership ended in 1970 when Joel ran off with Small's wife, Elizabeth, whom he later married, although this did not end their collaborations, as Small produced Joel's ''Концерт'' video as well as the '' Live at Shea Stadium'' performance. ''Attila'' album Their only album, ''Attila'', was released on July 27, 1970. Joel himself has gone on record as describing the album as "psychedelic bullshit". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, "''Attila'' undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll — hell, the history of recorded music itself. There have been many ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Hassles
The Hassles were a rock group in the 1960s, most notable for recording the first releases to feature Billy Joel. The group released two full-length albums (United Artists Records) and a number of singles. History The original line-up of the group consisted of vocalist John Dizek (September 25, 1948 – June 27, 2017), guitarist Richard McKenna, drummer Jon Small, and organist Harry Weber. In 1966 Weber was fired from the band due to excessive drug use (found dead a few years later on a railroad track) and was replaced by Howie Arthur Blauvelt and Billy Joel on bass and keyboards respectively. It is with this lineup that the band recorded their self-titled debut album in 1967. Blauvelt departed the band early in 1968 but returned later on in the year. Dizek departed the band in late 1968, at which point Joel took over on vocals. The band released their second album, ''Hour of the Wolf'', in 1969, before disbanding. Following the demise of The Hassles, Joel and Small formed the duo At ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the List of islands by population, 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about into the Atlantic Ocean and 23 miles wide at its most distant points. The island comprises four List of counties in New York, counties: Kings and Queens counties (the New York City Borough (New York City), boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, respectively) and Nassau County, New York, Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County occupies the eastern two thirds of the island. More than half of New York City's residents (58.4%) lived on Long Island as of 2020, in Brooklyn and in Queens. Culturally, many people in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York City borough of Queens, across the East River. The Bronx has a land area of and a population of 1,472,654 in the 2020 census. If each borough were ranked as a city, the Bronx would rank as the ninth-most-populous in the U.S. Of the five boroughs, it has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density.New York State Department of Health''Population, Land Area, and Population Density by County, New York State – 2010'' retrieved on August 8, 2015. It is the only borough of New York City not primarily on an island. With a population that is 54.8% Hispanic as of 2020, it is the only majority-Hispanic county in the Northeastern United States and the fourth-most-populous nationwide. The Bronx ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
List Of Best-selling Albums In The United States
This is a list of the best-selling albums in the United States based on RIAA certification and Nielsen SoundScan sales tracking. The criteria are that the album must have been published (including self-publishing by the artist), and the album must have achieved at least a diamond certification from the RIAA. The albums released prior to March 1991 should be included with their certified units only, as their Nielsen SoundScan sales are not complete. Since February 2016, album certifications include "on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent" units. Groupings are based on different benchmarks; the highest being for at least 20 million units, and the lowest being for multi-disc albums certified at least 10 times platinum and single-disc albums that have been certified at least 10 times platinum but with sales figures lower than 10,000,000. Albums are listed in order of units certified, or sales figures when available, by greatest to least. As a result of the RI ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Greatest Hits (Billy Joel Albums)
{{Short description, Compilation album by Billy Joel Billy Joel's ''Greatest Hits'' is a collection released in two sets, 12 years apart. The first set, consisting of two discs, titled ''Volume I'' and ''Volume II'', was released in 1985. The second, single disc titled ''Volume III'' was released in 1997. Additionally a four disc ''Complete Hits Collection'' was also released in 1997. * ''Greatest Hits – Volume I & Volume II'' (1985) * ''Greatest Hits Volume III (Billy Joel album)'' (1997) * '' The Complete Hits Collection: 1973–1997'' (1997) See also * Billy Joel discography This is the discography of American singer-songwriter Billy Joel. He has released 13 studio albums, seven live albums, 18 compilation albums, 10 video albums, 61 singles, three promotional singles and 45 music videos. Throughout his career, h ... Billy Joel compilation albums ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |