Piano Man by Billy Joel
Piano Man is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on November 9, 1973. Joel's first recording with Columbia Records, Piano Man emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album. However, the Family Productions print logo was used until 1986. The single "Piano Man", a fictionalized retelling of Joel's days as a lounge singer in Los Angeles, peaked at #25 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, and at #4 on the Adult Contemporary singles chart. "Travelin' Prayer" and "Worse Comes to Worst" peaked at #77 and #80, respectively, on the Pop Singles chart, while the album hit #27 on the Pop Albums chart. ("Travelin' Prayer" would later earn Dolly Parton a Grammy, when she covered it in 1999.)
Having established a burgeoning, Grammy-bedecked career as one of America's most successful singer-songwriters via <i>The Stranger</i> and <i>52nd Street</i>, then taken a darker, formulaic glimpse at the personal traumas that lie behind <i>The Nylon Curtain</i>, Billy Joel retreated to the charms of pre-Beatles' American pop here. Though solid Brill Building and R&B charms had always coursed through his best work, here Joel proudly wears them on his sleeve. Whether evoking the energetic verve of the Four Seasons on "Uptown Girl", channeling some Memphis soul into "Easy Money", or paying loving tribute to the street-corner doo-wop of "The Longest Time", Joel virtually abandons the angry angst that had become one of his songwriting trademarks. In its place is love for musical influences that spans the Beethoven-rooted chorus of "This Night" and effusive, Dion-esque pop of "Tell Her About It".
