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Billy Joel was born on May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, and grew up in the neighborhood of Hicksville, New York.
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He started his piano lessons at the age of 4 and devoted his time to music, youth bands and boxing.
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His first band was called "The Echoes" and they played covers of the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. In 1970 he was part of the duo Attila, who released an album, the cover of which features Joel dressed as a barbarian and surrounded by pieces of raw meat.
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He moves to California, where he performs in music halls and hotels under the name of Bill Martin. In 1973 he achieved success with his album Piano Man.The song was inspired by the regulars he met while working at The Executive Room on Wilshore Boulevard.
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Joel and Weber were married on September 5, 1973, and he became their manager. The song "she is always a women" was inspired by her.
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Joel published The Stranger in 1977, an album that earned him a Grammy for Best Album of the Year, while Just The Way You Are, a song that appears on the album, would become a classic in his repertoire.
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In 1983 he released his album An Innocent Man which has a total of 9 songs, including "Uptown Girl" which was a total success!!!.
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In August 1987, in the early days of Glasnot in Russia, Billy Joel was the first American Rock and Roll star to tour the Soviet Union.
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In March 1997, he received the prestigious Ascap Founders Award. In May of that same year he was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Hofstra University.
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In October 2001 his album Fantasies & delusions, a collection of piano solos, appeared all over the world. In the same year, The essential Billy Joel appears, a double compilation featuring songs such as Honesty, New York state of mind, or Just the way you are, which he wrote as a promise of love for his first wife and representative Elizabeth. With him he won two Grammys
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In 2013, he received the Kennedy Center Honors, the nation's highest accolade for his influence on American culture through the arts.
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Billy Joel's last concert was in Mexico City on March 6, 2020
