William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist. Commonly known as Billy Joel and nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his first major hit and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released twelve studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time,[3] as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States,[4] with over 150 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the US.
Links to Peel[]
Peel was not a fan of the artist and never played any songs from the singer on his show. On the show of 30 March 1978 Paul Gambaccini sat in, but obviously did not have a playlist from John as he played, along with a Chris Rea track, a track by Joel.
In 1987, Peel reviewed a Billy Joel concert for the Observer newspaper and on his 31 July 1987 (BFBS) show, he mentioned it was one of the most awful things he'd ever seen:
"Last week I went to see Billy Joel at Wembley Arena, and he was utterly horrible: it was one of the most awful things I've ever been to in my life. I was enraged right from the start by the activities of gangs of American tourists outside, who put me in the wrong mood to start with: their sort of arrogance and waving gold credit cards around under the impression that this would gain them immediate access, probably to my seat. Once we got inside, he was terribly kind of twee and cute, and he was complaining about the amount of security that was there, and there were just three people in front of the stage keeping the audience at bay, as it were, and he was moaning on about this as though it was some kind of manifestation of everything that was wrong in Britain, that he had to have these three security blokes. Now you know, if he does a concert in somewhere like New York, he's probably got about 200 armed men between him and the spectators, and frankly, if I was one of the spectators, he'd need to have them there between me and him."
Shows Played[]
Billy Joel - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) -Official Audio-
- 1978
- 30 March 1978 (Paul Gambaccini): Movin' Out