Billy Joel

NAME William Martin Joel. Nicknamed "The Piano Man," after his 1973 signature song of the same name. (1)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Billy Joel is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist, one of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 160 million records sold worldwide. He is the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States. His best-known songs include "Piano Man," "Just the Way You Are," "Uptown Girl," "We Didn't Start the Fire," and "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me." He has been nicknamed "The Piano Man" and is celebrated for his storytelling songwriting rooted in the working-class experience of New York.  (2)

BIRTH Born May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, New York City, USA.

FAMILY BACKGROUND Joel's father, Howard (born Helmut) Joel (1923–2011), was born in Nuremberg, Germany, into a Jewish family, the only child of Karl Amson Joel, a merchant and manufacturer. In 1928, Karl Joel set up a prosperous mail-order textile company, Joel Macht Fabrik, which within ten years had become the second largest of its type in Germany. Escaping the Nazi regime, Karl, his wife, and young son emigrated to Switzerland. Following laws that prevented Jews from owning property and businesses, in 1938 Karl was forced to sell his company to Josef Neckermann for a fraction of its true value. 

The family eventually reached the United States via Cuba, arriving there in early 1939 and staying for nearly two years before being admitted to the US. 

Howard became an engineer in America but always retained a love of music, and was an accomplished amateur classical pianist. 

Joel's mother, Rosalind (1922–2014), was born in Brooklyn to English-Jewish parents, Philip and Rebecca. Joel's parents met in 1942 while both taking part in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance at the City College of New York. 

They divorced in 1957, after which Howard returned to Europe — he had never liked the United States, considering its people uneducated and materialistic. He settled in Vienna, Austria, and later remarried. 

Joel has a half-brother, Alexander Joel, born in England, who became a classical conductor in Europe and served as chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 2001 to 2014. Joel also had a cousin, Judy, whom his parents adopted and who lived with the family. 

CHILDHOOD At age one, Joel moved with his family to the Levittown portion of Hicksville on Long Island, New York. Although his parents were Jewish, he did not grow up in the religion.

As a child, Joel was bullied, which led him to take up boxing. As a teenager, he competed on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit as a welterweight, winning 22 of his 26 fights before abandoning the sport after his nose was broken. (3)

Joel saw the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show and later recalled: "That one performance changed my life ... When I saw four guys who didn't look like they'd come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments ... I said: 'I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys. This is what I'm going to do — play in a rock band.'" (4)

EDUCATION Joel attended Hicksville High School but did not graduate with his class in 1967. He had been playing piano at a bar at night to help support himself, his mother, and his sister, and as a result had missed crucial classes due to excessive absences caused by oversleeping after late-night gigs. At the end of his senior year, he did not have enough credits to graduate. Rather than attend summer school to earn his diploma, he decided to launch his music career, famously telling school officials.

In 1992, Joel submitted essays to the school board in lieu of the missed coursework; they were accepted, and he was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High's annual graduation ceremony — 25 years after he had left the school.

CAREER RECORD 1965: Joined his first commercial band, The Echoes (later known as The Lost Souls), recording piano tracks on various demos. 

1967: Joined the Long Island blue-eyed soul group The Hassles, releasing two commercial albums that failed to chart successfully. 

1970: Formed a heavy metal duo called Attila with Hassles drummer Jon Small, releasing one self-titled album before disbanding due to an affair between Joel and Small's wife. 

1971: Released his debut solo studio album, Cold Spring Harbor, which suffered from a mastering error that sped up his vocals, leading to a commercial failure and severe contract disputes. 

1973: Signed with Columbia Records and released Piano Man. The title track, drawn from his experiences working under a pseudonym at an LA piano lounge, became his breakthrough signature hit. 

A 1973 promotional photo of Joel for Piano Man

1977: Released The Stranger, a critical breakthrough multi-platinum album containing hits like "Just the Way You Are" and "Moving Out (Anthony's Song)." 

1978: Released 52nd Street, his first album to hit number one on the US Album charts, winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. 

1980: Released Glass Houses, achieving a harder pop-rock sound and earning a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance. 

1982: Released The Nylon Curtain, a socially conscious album dealing with the decline of the American working class. 

1983: Released An Innocent Man, a tribute album to the doo-wop and vocal groups of his youth, featuring "Uptown Girl." 

1987: Became one of the first American rock acts to tour the Soviet Union under the Glasnost policy, releasing a live album of the concerts. 

1989: Scored a number-one hit with "We Didn't Start the Fire," a fast-paced historical recap of major world events from 1949 to 1989. 

1993: Released River of Dreams, his final traditional pop/rock studio album. 

1994: Launched the highly successful co-headlining "Face to Face" concert tours alongside fellow pianist Elton John, a partnership that lasted intermittently for sixteen years. 

2014: Established a historic monthly musical residency at Madison Square Garden in New York City, performing sold-out arena shows every month for a decade until concluding the run in July 2024. 

2024: Released "Turn the Lights Back On," his first original pop single with lyrics in seventeen years.

APPEARANCE Joel is of medium height and compact build. Sources differ on his exact stature; he has been variously reported as standing between approximately 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall. 

He has dark eyes and, in later life, silver-white hair. His stage presence is dominated by his piano playing rather than movement, though he was known in his prime for energetic performances. (5)

Joel performing in June 1994

FASHION Joel has favoured a casual, unpretentious personal style throughout his career. He is closely associated with his trademark Wayfarer sunglasses, which became so iconic that the character Dodger in the 1988 Disney film Oliver & Company — voiced by Joel — was designed to replicate his look, including those sunglasses. 

The cover of his 1980 album Glass Houses depicted him in a leather jacket, a deliberate riposte to critics who had labelled him a "mellow balladeer." 

Among motorcycling enthusiasts he is known for wearing a baseball cap bearing the eagle logo of the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Moto Guzzi. (6)

CHARACTER Joel has been described as a complex, driven, and sometimes volatile personality. He is widely regarded as having a strong sense of integrity about his art — for instance, retiring from pop songwriting for decades rather than produce work he felt was substandard. 

He is known for his directness and humour in interviews. During his 1987 Soviet tour, enraged by blinding stage lights, he famously flipped his electric piano and snapped a microphone stand — while continuing to sing. He later apologised for the incident. 

SPEAKING VOICE Joel possesses a highly distinct, fast-talking, casual New York accent that heavily features the vocal inflections and rhythms typical of working-class Long Island and the Bronx. 

His singing voice spans a wide range, and at his peak was known for its emotional expressiveness and versatility — moving from tender ballads to hard rock. As he aged, the upper registers became more demanding; by 2008 he acknowledged he no longer performed certain high-key songs because they "shredded" his vocal cords. Singer Pete Hewlett was brought in on his 1987 Soviet tour to cover the high notes on his most vocally challenging songs. 

SENSE OF HUMOUR Joel has consistently shown a sardonic wit. When told he needed to complete extra coursework to graduate from high school, he reportedly told school officials: "I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records, and you don't need a high school diploma over there." (7) 

His song "The Entertainer" (1974) was written as a sarcastic riposte to the radio industry's habit of cutting songs short: "If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05." 

RELATIONSHIPS Joel's love life has been turbulent and widely publicised. He has been married four times.

His first affair of note occurred when, still in the band Attila (1969–1970), he began a relationship with Elizabeth Weber, the wife of his bandmate and drummer Jon Small. Small and Joel's duo disbanded in October 1970 as a direct result. Joel and Elizabeth married in 1973. Elizabeth subsequently became his manager. Their marriage lasted until 1982. 

Joel met model Christie Brinkley in 1983 when she, along with Whitney Houston and Elle Macpherson, approached Joel while he was playing piano in the bar of a Caribbean hotel. His hit "Uptown Girl" had originally been inspired by this chance encounter. They married in 1985 and had a daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, born in December 1985. They separated in April 1994 and their divorce was finalised in August 1994. (7)

Joel's third marriage was to Katie Lee, a cookbook author and television personality, whom he married in 2004. She was some 33 years his junior. They divorced in 2009–2010. 

His fourth wife is Alexis Roderick, a former hedge fund manager, whom he married at his Long Island home in July 2015. They have two daughters together, Della and Remy. (8) 

MONEY AND FAME With over 160 million records sold worldwide, Joel is one of the world's best-selling music artists and the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States. His 1985 compilation Greatest Hits — Volume I & Volume II is one of the best-selling albums in US history, certified double diamond by the RIAA with over 23 million units sold. 

Joel has dominated the record for the most concerts performed at New York's Madison Square Garden, having given at least 150 shows there. 

His business affairs were not always smooth: in the late 1980s he sued his former manager Frank Weber for US$90 million, alleging fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, and was awarded US$2 million in a partial judgment. He later sued his former lawyer Allen Grubman for US$90 million; the case was settled out of court in 1993 for US$3 million paid by Sony America. 

FOOD AND DRINK Joel has been open about a long and difficult struggle with alcohol. Although he had stopped drinking by the time of his 2025 brain disorder diagnosis, he told interviewers that he initially wondered whether his drinking history might have contributed to the condition. In a candid 2025 interview on the Club Random podcast, when asked what caused his brain disorder, he replied: "Nobody knows. I thought it must be from drinking. But you don't drink." (9)

MUSIC CAREER Billy Joel’s rise to stardom was not, it must be said, a model of swift efficiency. Most future music legends spend their youth doing one of two things: practising obsessively or getting into trouble. Joel managed both. By the age of three he could already pick out Mozart tunes on the piano, which is a mildly alarming accomplishment for someone still young enough to regard trousers as an optional extra. At 14 he began formal lessons with respected pianist Morton Estrin and musician Timothy Ford, quickly showing that he possessed both talent and a stubborn determination to make use of it.

His first bands were the sort of groups that thrive briefly in suburban garages before disappearing into the mist of history. In 1965 he joined the Echoes, a Long Island outfit devoted to British Invasion covers. Two years later, after a name change to the Lost Souls, he departed for the Hassles, a band signed to United Artists. The Hassles released four singles and two albums, all of which sold with the enthusiasm of discounted turnips.

Undeterred, Joel and drummer Jon Small formed the hard-rock duo Attila in 1969. Their self-titled album arrived in 1970 and vanished almost immediately, though not before establishing itself as one of rock’s more curious footnotes. The partnership lasted only a few months, proving that not every great career begins with a great idea.

In 1971 Joel released his debut solo album, Cold Spring Harbor. Unfortunately, a mastering error caused the record to play at the wrong speed, making him sound as though he had inhaled helium before each vocal take. It was not a commercial triumph.

Fortune finally stirred in 1972 when a live performance broadcast on Philadelphia radio station WMMR featured Joel performing a dozen songs. One of them, “Captain Jack,” became the most requested track in the station’s history. Columbia Records president Clive Davis heard the buzz and signed him. Joel moved to Los Angeles and spent six months working anonymously in a Wilshire Boulevard piano bar under the name Bill Martin. The customers, thankfully, supplied ample material for a song called “Piano Man.”

Released in 1973, Piano Man sold modestly but contained the title track that would become his calling card and the song most audiences insist upon hearing before they will leave the building. The same year he married Elizabeth Weber, who would become both his wife and business manager.

His next album, Streetlife Serenade (1974), earned mixed reviews but contained future fan favourites such as “Los Angelenos” and the ragtime showcase “Root Beer Rag.” Two years later Turnstiles introduced the touring band that would help define his classic sound.

Everything changed in 1977 with The Stranger. Suddenly Joel was no longer a promising singer-songwriter but one of the biggest stars in America. The album produced a string of hits including “Just the Way You Are,” “Movin’ Out,” “Only the Good Die Young,” and “She’s Always a Woman.” “Just the Way You Are” won Grammys for both Record and Song of the Year, while the album became Columbia Records’ biggest seller, surpassing even Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water.

If The Stranger opened the door, 52nd Street kicked it off the hinges. Released in 1978, it became Joel’s first No. 1 album and sold more than seven million copies. It also achieved the peculiar distinction of becoming the first commercially released album on compact disc, meaning Billy Joel accidentally helped usher in the digital age. That same year he began a relationship with Madison Square Garden that would eventually produce more than 150 performances.

The years that followed brought a succession of blockbuster releases. Glass Houses (1980) spent six weeks atop the charts and delivered Joel’s first US No. 1 single, “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” A serious motorcycle accident in 1982 delayed work on The Nylon Curtain, but the album emerged later that year with thoughtful tracks such as “Allentown” and “Goodnight Saigon.” In 1983 he released An Innocent Man, a joyous tribute to the doo-wop and R&B sounds of his youth. It generated six Top 30 singles and lost the Grammy for Album of the Year only because it happened to be competing against Thriller, which was rather like entering a village baking contest against gravity.

By the mid-1980s Joel had become one of America’s defining pop stars. He participated in “We Are the World,” released the phenomenally successful Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2, married supermodel Christie Brinkley and welcomed daughter Alexa Ray Joel. The Bridge followed in 1986, and in 1987 he became one of the first major rock artists to tour the Soviet Union, giving concerts in Moscow and Leningrad that were broadcast live across the country. 

Below, Joel (second row, second from left) with other musicians for the recording of "We Are the World."

In 1989 Storm Front produced “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” a song that somehow transformed a list of historical references into a chart-topping hit. Behind the scenes, however, Joel was dealing with financial turmoil. After discovering major discrepancies in his accounts, he sued former manager and brother-in-law Frank Weber for $90 million.

Recognition continued to accumulate. Joel entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and released River of Dreams in 1993, after which he largely stepped away from making new pop albums. Instead, he devoted much of his energy to touring, particularly alongside Elton John. Their “Face to Face” concerts became one of the most successful partnerships in popular music, drawing enormous crowds and generating tens of millions of dollars.

The honours kept arriving. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by Ray Charles, topped the classical charts in 2001 with Fantasies & Delusions, entered the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006 and received Kennedy Center Honors in 2013.

After more than three decades without a new pop song, Joel surprised fans in 2024 with “Turn the Lights Back On,” a reflective ballad that sounded less like a comeback than a conversation resumed after a very long coffee break.

Then came an unexpected challenge. In May 2025 Joel revealed he had been diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, a rare neurological condition, and cancelled all remaining concert dates. His final performance before the announcement had taken place in February, when he suffered an onstage fall at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena.

Yet retirement has always seemed slightly incompatible with Billy Joel’s temperament. In January 2026 he returned unexpectedly to the stage for a surprise live appearance — proof that, after decades of false starts, triumphs, setbacks, reinventions and sold-out arenas, the Piano Man still wasn’t quite ready to stop playing.

MUSIC AND ARTS Joel's compositions are infused with references to classical music, though his work spans pop, rock, R&B, doo-wop, and new wave. His musical influences include Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, the Beatles, and classical composers. He has said that he is "a better organist than a pianist." (7) 

His 2001 album Fantasies & Delusions consisted entirely of classical pieces composed by him and performed by Hyung-ki Joo. The Broadway musical Movin' Out, built around his songs, was a major hit and included pieces from his classical album as interludes. 

LITERATURE Though Joel famously skipped high school English exams, his lyrics are praised for their narrative storytelling style. 

He wrote an autobiography titled The Book of Joel in 2011 but withdrew it before publication, stating he realized he preferred looking forward rather than dwelling on the past.

NATURE Joel has had a lifelong connection to Long Island's coastal environment. His song "The Downeaster Alexa" from Storm Front (1989) was written to highlight the plight of Long Island fishermen struggling to make ends meet. (1)

PETS Joel is a dedicated rescue dog advocate. He has adopted at least four rescue dogs over the years, publicly championing adoption over buying from pet shops. He owned at least one pug named Sabrina in the mid-2000s. He later adopted a pug named Rosie, rescued from a puppy mill via the North Shore Animal League America on Long Island, who became a beloved family pet and featured on his social media pages. Rosie died in 2022. 

In November 2023, after eighteen months without a dog, Joel and his family adopted Bucky, a grey French Bulldog who had been found in a San Diego shelter with a severe case of mange and nursed back to health by the rescue organisation Roadogs. Joel announced the adoption on Instagram, writing: "He was at a shelter in San Diego with a bad case of mange — Roadogs rescued him and nursed him back to health and now he is part of our family." (10)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS As a teenager, Joel was a competitive amateur boxer on the Golden Gloves circuit, winning 22 of his 26 bouts as a welterweight before abandoning the sport after his nose was broken. (3)

Joel is an avid and knowledgeable motorcyclist, accumulating and customising bikes since the 1970s. He owns a collection of more than 70 vintage and custom motorcycles, which he keeps at a garage in Oyster Bay, Long Island. He has a particular fondness for Italian manufacturer Moto Guzzi, and is regarded by motorcycling trade magazines as a genuine expert rather than a celebrity hobbyist. (6) 

SCIENCE AND MATHS Joel has expressed a strong intellectual interest in history and socio-political timelines rather than the hard sciences, utilizing chronological cultural events to construct the entirety of his hit "We Didn't Start the Fire."

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Joel has described himself as a Jewish atheist, noting that he was not raised in any religious tradition despite his Jewish heritage on both sides of his family. He has said: "I was not brought up Jewish in any religious way. My circumcision was as Jewish as they got." He did, however, attend a Roman Catholic church with friends as a child, and was baptised in a Church of Christ in Hicksville at age 11. (11)

POLITICS Joel's political sensibilities have generally been left-leaning, though he rarely endorsed specific candidates. "Allentown" (1982) addressed unemployment and the decline of industrial America during the Reagan era, and Joel has spoken of his anger at the erosion of the American Dream under Reagan-era politics. 

In 1987, Joel undertook his landmark Soviet tour at his own personal financial cost of over US$1 million, citing goodwill and cultural exchange as his motivation. 

SCANDAL In 1970, Joel wrote a suicide note and attempted to commit suicide by drinking furniture polish, stating it looked "tastier than bleach." He later transformed his suicide note into a song, "Tomorrow Is Today," which appeared on his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor (1971). (12)

Joel's affair with Elizabeth Weber — the wife of his bandmate Jon Small — effectively destroyed the band Attila and caused lasting controversy. 

In the late 1980s, financial scandals engulfed Joel's business circle. His manager and former brother-in-law Frank Weber was found to have committed major accounting fraud, leading to a US$90 million lawsuit. Joel was awarded US$2 million in a partial judgment. A subsequent US$90 million lawsuit against his former lawyer Allen Grubman was settled out of court. (1)

MILITARY RECORD None. Joel did not serve in the military.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS In April 1982, Joel was involved in a serious motorcycle accident on Long Island when he hit a car that had run a red light. The bone in his left thumb was crushed and his other wrist dislocated. 

Joel has spoken openly about a history of alcohol dependency, which he has described as a long-term struggle. 

In February 2025, Joel fell backwards onstage during a concert at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut while performing "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," after spinning and tossing his microphone stand into the audience. In May 2025, Joel's team announced that he had been diagnosed with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), a rare brain condition caused by a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain, which can affect hearing, vision, balance, and cognitive function. Doctors advised him that performing had aggravated his condition, and he cancelled 17 concerts. By July 2025, Joel reported feeling "good" and had begun physical therapy. In January 2026, he made a surprise return to live performance, his first since the diagnosis. (13) (14)

HOMES Joel grew up in Levittown/Hicksville, Long Island, New York.  After signing to Columbia Records in 1972 he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for three years, including a period working under a pseudonym at a Wilshire Boulevard piano bar. 

He later returned to the New York area and has maintained homes on Long Island, including a property in Oyster Bay where he keeps his motorcycle collection. He married his fourth wife, Alexis Roderick, at his Long Island residence in 2015. 

TRAVEL Joel has toured globally throughout his career. In 1979, he participated in the historic Havana Jam festival in Cuba alongside Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, and Stephen Stills. In 1987, he undertook a landmark tour of the Soviet Union — the first fully staged rock show of its kind in the country — giving concerts in Moscow and Leningrad to combined audiences possibly exceeding 100,000. The tour was the first live rock radio broadcast in Soviet history, and Joel lost over US$1 million of his own money funding it. 

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Joel provided the voice of Dodger — a streetwise Jack Russell Terrier based on Dickens's Artful Dodger — in the 1988 Disney animated film Oliver & Company, also performing the character's song "Why Should I Worry?" The character's design was modelled on Joel's own appearance, including his trademark Wayfarer sunglasses. 

He contributed songs to several film soundtracks, including Easy Money (1983), Ruthless People (1986), A League of Their Own (1992), and Honeymoon in Vegas (1992).

An extended version of his song "Big Man on Mulberry Street" featured in a 1986 episode of the TV series Moonlighting. 

The theme to the TV sitcom Bosom Buddies was Gary Bennett's cover of Joel's "My Life." 

Joel's concerts at Madison Square Garden were captured in the documentary The Last Play at Shea (2010). 

He has appeared as a guest on countless television talk shows, including The Howard Stern Show, The Late Show with Steven Colbert and The Late Show with David Letterman.

ACHIEVEMENTS Over 160 million records sold worldwide; fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States 

33 Top 40 hits in the US, including three Billboard Hot 100 number ones: "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," "Tell Her About It," and "We Didn't Start the Fire" 

Five Grammy Awards from 23 nominations, including Album of the Year for 52nd Street (1978)

52nd Street (1978) was the first commercial album released on compact disc 

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1992 

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999, by Ray Charles.

Honoured at the Kennedy Center Honors, 2013 

Dominates the all-time record for most concerts performed at Madison Square Garden — at least 150 shows 

"Face to Face" tours with Elton John became the longest-running and most successful concert partnership in pop music history 

Sources: (1) Wikipedia – Billy Joel (2) This Day In Music – Billy Joel (3) Ranker – 22 Interesting Facts About Billy Joel (4) CBS News (5) Britannica – Billy Joel (6) Piaggio Group – Billy Joel Loves Moto Guzzi (7) Bordowitz, Hank. *Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man*. New York: Billboard Books, 2005. (8) Biography.com – Billy Joel: Ex-Wives and Song Inspirations (9) BBC News – Billy Joel Feels 'Good' After Brain Disorder Diagnosis (10) KIRO 7 – Billy Joel Welcomes Rescue Dog Named Bucky to Family (11) Bego, Mark. *Billy Joel: The Biography*. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007. (12) Encyclopaedia of Trivia – Suicide (13) New York Post – Billy Joel's First Live Performance Since Brain Disorder Diagnosis (14) BBC News – Billy Joel Feels 'Good' After Brain Disorder Diagnosis