Billy Joel
Born in the Bronx, New York, Joel was raised in Hicksville, New York. His father Howard (born Helmut) was originally from Germany, where his father (Billy Joel''s grandfather) Karl Amson Joel had owned a department store which he was forced to sell under value to avoid being dispossessed by the Nazis. The new owners turned this into a large mail order business in the 1950s (Neckermann). His mother, Rosalind Nyman, was born in England, to a Jewish family (Philip and Rebecca Nyman). His parents divorced in 1960, and his father moved back to Vienna, Austria. Billy has a sister, Judith Joel, and a half-brother Alexander Joel, who is an acclaimed classical pianist and conductor in Europe, now living in New York.
Joel''s father was an accomplished classical pianist. Billy reluctantly began piano lessons at an early age at his mother''s insistence, including with the noted American pianist Morton Estrin and musician/songwriter Timothy Ford. His interest in music instead of sports was the source of teasing and bullying in his early years. (He has said in interviews that his piano instructor also taught ballet. This led neighborhood bullies to mistakenly think he was learning to dance.) As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so that he would be able to defend himself. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time (winning twenty-two bouts), but abandoned the sport shortly after having his nose broken in his twenty-fourth boxing match.
Joel attended Hicksville High School, and he was supposed to graduate in 1967. However, he was one English credit short of the graduation requirement; he overslept on the day of an important exam due to his late-night musician''s lifestyle.[5] Faced with a summer in school to complete this requirement, he decided not to continue. He left high school without a diploma to begin a career in music. Despite the Vietnam War and the draft, Joel performed no military service - because he was the sole provider for his mother and sister, the selective service gave him a draft exemption.[citation needed] In 1992, the English credit requirement was waived by the Hicksville School Board and he received his diploma at Hicksville High''s graduation ceremony 25 years after he left the school.
Early career
Upon seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Joel decided to pursue a full-time musical career, and set about finding a local Long Island band to join. Eventually he found the Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. The Echoes became a popular New York attraction, convincing him to quit high school to become a professional musician. He began playing for the Echoes when he was 14 years old.[6]
Joel began playing recording sessions with the Echoes in 1965, when he was 16 years old. Joel played piano on several recordings Shadow Morton produced, including (as Joel claimed, denied by songwriter Ellie Greenwich) the Shangri-Las'' Leader of the Pack, as well as several records released through Kama Sutra Productions. During this time, the Echoes started to play numerous late-night shows.
Later in 1965, the Echoes changed their name to the Emeralds and then to the Lost Souls. For two years, he played sessions and performed with the Lost Souls. In 1967, he left that band to join the Hassles, a local Long Island band that had signed a contract with United Artists Records. Over the next year and a half, they released The Hassles in 1967 and Hour of the Wolf in 1968, and four singles, all of which failed commercially. Following The Hassles'' demise in 1969, he formed the duo Attila with Hassles drummer Jon Small. Attila released their eponymous debut album in July 1970 and disbanded the following October.
Most records have the recording company as the named owner of the recording. Billy Joel is one of a number of performers--such as Paul Simon, Johnny Rivers, Pink Floyd (from 1975''s Wish You Were Here onward), Queen, Genesis under the members'' individual names and/or the pseudonym Gelring Limited, and Neil Diamond--who have their name as the copyright owner on their recordings.
Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Joel signed his first solo record contract with Artie Ripp of Family Productions, and subsequently recorded his first solo album. Cold Spring Harbor (a reference to the Long Island town of the same name), was released in 1971. However, the album was mastered at the wrong speed, and the album was initially released with this error, resulting in Joel''s sounding a semitone too high. The onerous terms of the Family Productions contract also guaranteed him very little money from the sales of his albums.
Hits such as "She''s Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" were originally released on this album, though they did not gain much attention until released as live performances in 1981 on Songs in the Attic. Since then they have become big concert numbers. Cold Spring Harbor got a second chance on the charts in 1983, when Columbia reissued the album after slowing it down to the correct speed. The album reached # 158 in the US and # 95 in the UK nearly a year later. Cold Spring Harbor caught the attention of Merrilee Rush ("Angel of the Morning") and she recorded a femme version of "She’s Got A Way" "(He’s Got A Way)" for Scepter Records in 1971.
In addition, a Philadelphia radio station, WMMR-FM, started playing a tape of a new song of Joel''s, "Captain Jack," taken from a live concert. It became an underground hit on the East Coast. Herb Gordon, an executive of Columbia Records, heard Joel''s music and made his company aware of Joel''s talent. Joel signed a recording contract with Columbia in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles. He lived there for three years (and has since stated those three years were a big mistake), returning to New York City in 1975. While in California, he had a paying job in a piano bar (using the name Bill Martin), so his superhit "Piano Man" is seen as autobiographical.