Billy Joel’s album (and single) ‘Piano Man’ celebrates 50th anniversary

Billy Joel’s career had a rough start. Unhappy with the recording of his first album, “Cold Spring Harbor,” the singer-songwriter from Hicksville sought a redo with his sophomore effort, “Piano Man,” which celebrates its 50th anniversary next week. The 10-track album would be the key to breaking Joel into the music business with the title track that stemmed from real-life experience giving him the hit he so desperately needed. 

“I was doing this gig while living in L.A. It was a loser bar on Wilshire Boulevard. Everybody would go to this bar after they lost at the track and I had to go entertain these people,” said Joel at a 2001 master class at the University of Pennsylvania about the origin of the song, “Piano Man.” “I got free drinks and was paid union scale, but they put tips in a brandy glass. I said, ‘I’m gonna get a song out of this’ and by God I did.”

HEADING WEST

After performing in bands The Hassles and Attila in New York, Joel moved to the West Coast in 1971 when he was signed to manager Artie Ripp’s label, Family Productions. His debut, “Cold Spring Harbor,” was considered a disappointment because it was mastered at the wrong speed making Joel sound like a chipmunk.

“This album really didn’t get distributed really well,” says Joel on the 2011 promotional video for “The Complete Album Collection” while holding up the record. “You don’t have to pay a lot of attention to this one. It’s the embryonic Billy Joel, I suppose.”

RADIO GOLD

While touring to promote the record, Joel played a live radio gig for WMMR in Philadelphia at Sigma Sound Studios in April 1972. During the set, he added a new song called “Captain Jack.” DJ Ed Sciaky made a tape of the recording and started incorporating it into his playlist eventually becoming the most requested song in the station’s history.

“The local promotion guy went back to…