49 Fun Facts About Billy Joel

In which New York City borough was Billy Joel born in 1949?

The Bronx was home only briefly: the family soon moved out to Long Island, where his mother pushed him into piano lessons at the age of four.

Which combat sport did the teenage Billy Joel compete in as an amateur on Long Island?

Boxing: he fought as a welterweight on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit, and gave the sport up only after his nose was broken in the ring.

With drummer Jon Small, Billy Joel formed which heavy-rock duo in 1969?

Attila: the future balladeer spent 1970 playing organ in a heavy-metal duo that vowed to destroy the world with amplification, and the one album they made never charted.

What went wrong with Billy Joel's debut album Cold Spring Harbor?

It was mastered at too high a speed, so his voice came out pitched up like the Chipmunks; he says he flung his copy like a Frisbee, and a speed-corrected version waited until 1983.

A 1972 live radio performance of which Philadelphia favourite helped win Billy Joel his major-label deal?

Captain Jack, a seven-minute song about a suburban kid's drug dealer, was still unreleased, yet WMMR kept its concert tape in rotation for over a year as listeners phoned in to ask for it.

Under what stage name did Billy Joel play a Los Angeles piano bar for six months in 1972-73?

Bill Martin was just his first and middle names: he says he took the gig to pay rent while trying to get out of a bad record contract, and the bar's regulars became the cast of 'Piano Man'.

Besides the piano, which instrument does Billy Joel play on 'Piano Man'?

Harmonica: he plays the intro himself between piano lines. The single stalled at No. 25 in 1974, yet it became his signature song.

Which song did Billy Joel write as a sarcastic response to 'Piano Man' being cut down for radio?

The Entertainer complains in its lyric that a song gets cut down to 3:05 to fit radio, and the complaint itself became a Top 40 hit, reaching No. 34.

Which famous producer did Billy Joel's camp approach first to make his 1977 album The Stranger?

George Martin wanted session players instead of Joel's road band, by Joel's account, so Joel said no; he says Martin wrote after the album's success to admit he had been wrong.

Which producer made The Stranger with Billy Joel in 1977, beginning a partnership that lasted until 1986?

Phil Ramone, unlike the producers Joel had struggled with, was happy to record him with his touring band, and the pair made six studio albums in a row together.

Billy Joel's The Stranger overtook which album as Columbia Records' best-seller of the time?

Bridge over Troubled Water was Simon & Garfunkel's 1970 blockbuster; The Stranger outsold it for Columbia, though Joel says the label would probably have dropped him had the album flopped.

For whom did Billy Joel write the Grammy-winning ballad 'Just the Way You Are'?

His first wife Elizabeth Weber got it as a birthday present; Joel says he thought little of the ballad and nearly left it off the album until Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow urged him to keep it.

Which Billy Joel single became a hit after Catholic groups tried to get it banned from radio?

Only the Good Die Young was languishing until a Catholic college station banned it; Joel says kids then bought it in droves, and that he wrote asking the archdiocese to ban his next record too.

Which milestone in recorded-music history is Billy Joel's 52nd Street usually credited with?

First album commercially released on CD: it went on sale in Japan on October 1, 1982 in a first batch of about 50 CBS/Sony discs, and gets the credit because it carried the batch's first catalogue number.

Which single gave Billy Joel his first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1980?

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me was Joel's jab at a music press hyping new wave as something new, and it spent two weeks at No. 1 in July 1980.

Whose real-life home is Billy Joel about to stone on the cover of Glass Houses?

His own: the glass-walled waterfront house was Joel's Long Island home, and he said the raised rock was a riposte to critics who had him down as a mellow balladeer.

What delayed the recording of Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain in 1982?

A serious motorcycle accident: a car ran a red light and Joel was thrown over it, crushing his left thumb and dislocating his right wrist; he spent a month in hospital, playing piano as rehabilitation.

Which Pennsylvania city gives its name to Billy Joel's 1982 hit about shuttered factories?

Allentown began life as 'Levittown', after the Long Island suburb Joel knew as a boy; he moved the story to Pennsylvania's struggling steel country and tried 'Bethlehem' before settling on the final title.

An Innocent Man (1983) was Billy Joel's tribute to which musical era?

1950s and 60s R&B and doo-wop: newly divorced and dating again, Joel said he felt like a teenager, so he wrote in the styles he grew up on, including the nearly a cappella 'The Longest Time'.

Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' grew from a hotel-bar encounter with two supermodels and which singer?

Whitney Houston was there as a model, not yet a recording star: the three women gathered round Joel's piano on a Caribbean holiday, and his first draft of the song was titled 'Uptown Girls'.

Which album beat An Innocent Man to the Album of the Year Grammy?

Joel's Greatest Hits compilation the following year went on to double-diamond status, over 23 million units.

Billy Joel's 'Modern Woman' was on the soundtrack of which 1986 Bette Midler comedy?

Ruthless People got the song first: the single came out on the film's soundtrack as a teaser for Joel's album The Bridge, weeks before the album itself, and reached No. 10.

In which country did Billy Joel play six arena concerts in 1987, one of the first Western rock tours there?

The Soviet Union shows nearly came unstuck in Moscow, where Joel, angry at a film crew lighting up the crowd, overturned his electric piano and smashed a microphone stand mid-song.

Billy Joel voiced Dodger, a streetwise Jack Russell terrier, in which 1988 Disney film?

Oliver & Company cast Joel after he auditioned by telephone; he said he took the cartoon role so that his little girl, then nearly three, could see something of his she could relate to.

Whom did Billy Joel fire and sue for $90 million in 1989 after an audit of his finances?

His manager, who was also his former brother-in-law, went after the audit found major gaps in the books; Joel won a $2 million partial judgment in 1990 and later skewered him in 'The Great Wall of China'.

Which Foreigner guitarist co-produced Billy Joel's Storm Front (1989)?

Mick Jones was hired because Joel wanted a new sound after nearly a decade with the same producer; Joel also let go two long-serving band members, and the album went to No. 1.

Which single gave Billy Joel his third Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 in 1989?

We Didn't Start the Fire was Joel's reply to a 21-year-old who told him nothing happened in the 1950s; it starts in 1949, the year he was born, and runs through 40 years of headlines.

Billy Joel's 'The Downeaster Alexa' was written about the struggles of whom?

Long Island fishermen: Joel sings as one of them, struggling to keep his boat and make ends meet, and he named the song's vessel after the boat he sailed himself, the Alexa.

Who painted the cover art for Billy Joel's River of Dreams (1993)?

Christie Brinkley, then Joel's wife, painted a scene from each song and is seen at her easel in the title track's video; within a year the couple had announced their separation.

With which artist did Billy Joel play the long-running 'Face to Face' tours from 1994?

Elton John and Joel shared the stage at two pianos, playing their own hits, singing each other's songs and duetting; the tours kept returning until a final show in Albany in 2010.

Which country star took Billy Joel's 'Shameless' to No. 1 on the country chart in 1991?

Garth Brooks found the song on a disc from a mail-order CD club and turned Joel's Hendrix-inspired rocker into a country chart-topper; Joel later thanked him for taking it to fans who had never heard his music.

Seeing which act on The Ed Sullivan Show made the teenage Billy Joel decide on a career in music?

The Beatles: Joel said that four guys who played their own songs and did not look like products of the Hollywood star mill made him think 'I am these guys', and he set about finding a band.

Billy Joel's 2001 album Fantasies & Delusions consists of what?

Classical pieces played by Richard Joo: Joel wrote them but felt he lacked the technique to play them properly, so a pianist found through his conductor half-brother recorded them, and the album topped the classical chart.

Which New York ballpark did Billy Joel close with two concerts in July 2008, before it was demolished?

Shea Stadium's last song was 'Let It Be': Paul McCartney, who had played a record-breaking stadium concert there in 1965, walked on to close Joel's final night.

How often did Billy Joel play Madison Square Garden during his residency that began in January 2014?

Once a month, for as long as tickets kept selling: the open-ended run went on for ten years, and Joel said he was 'flabbergasted that it lasted as long as it did'.

Madison Square Garden honoured Billy Joel in 2013 by naming him its first music what?

Franchise: the Garden put Joel on the same footing as the Knicks and Rangers, and the residency that followed ended in July 2024 with his 150th lifetime show at the arena.

What was the title of the 2024 single that marked Billy Joel's return to writing pop songs?

Turn the Lights Back On: Joel said he had 'turned the lights off' on songwriting because it had stopped being fun, then finished this piano ballad with producer Freddy Wexler.

In May 2025 Billy Joel cancelled all his concerts after being diagnosed with what condition?

Normal pressure hydrocephalus is a build-up of fluid in the brain; Joel's team said recent concerts had made it worse, causing problems with his hearing, vision and balance.

Which honour did the Library of Congress give Billy Joel in 2014, as its sixth recipient?

The Gershwin Prize for Popular Song was a milestone, Joel said, because George Gershwin had been a personal inspiration throughout his career; a tribute concert in Washington followed that November.

Katie Lee, whom Billy Joel married in 2004, is known for what profession?

Chef and food writer: Katie Lee was 23 and Joel 55 when they married, and in 2007 he wrote the single 'All My Life' for her; the couple split after five years.

Which 1976 album was the first Billy Joel produced himself, with his regular touring band?

Turnstiles was half-finished in Colorado with hired players when Joel scrapped the tapes, parted with his producer, went home to New York and cut it again with the band he toured with.

In which European city did Billy Joel's German-born father Howard settle after his parents divorced in 1957?

Vienna: Joel tracked his father down there in his twenties, and a walk on which his father defended an old woman sweeping the street as someone still useful gave him the song 'Vienna'.

Which Billy Joel song tells the story of high-school sweethearts Brenda and Eddie?

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant grew out of a separate song about Brenda and Eddie, which Joel wrapped in other fragments; one of the restaurants he had in mind sat across the street from Carnegie Hall.

Which Joel album won the Album of the Year Grammy, his only win in that category?

52nd Street took its title from the Manhattan street where Joel recorded it, a block from his label's headquarters and once the heart of New York jazz; it was also his first album to reach No. 1.

Joel's daughter Alexa Ray was given her middle name in honour of which musician?

Ray Charles was one of Joel's idols: within a year of her birth the two recorded the duet 'Baby Grand', and in 1999 Charles inducted Joel into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Billy Joel says he played piano as a teenager on a demo of which 1964 Shadow Morton production?

Leader of the Pack: Joel says he played the piano part note for note at a session without the singers, but as a teenager outside the musicians' union he never knew whether his take reached the finished record.

Which Long Island group did Billy Joel join in 1967 after leaving the Echoes?

The Hassles had a United Artists deal but no luck: their two albums and four singles all flopped, and Joel walked out with the drummer to try heavy metal instead.

Which Billy Joel song gave its title to the 2002 Broadway dance musical built on his catalogue?

Movin' Out: choreographer Twyla Tharp turned his songs into a story told entirely in dance, with a pianist singing from a platform above the stage; it ran until 2005 and won Joel a Tony for orchestration.

Which R&B duo did Billy Joel induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992?

Sam & Dave, the 'Soul Man' duo, are among the acts Joel names as an influence; Dave Prater had died in a car crash in 1988, so Sam Moore gave the acceptance speech.