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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:40:37 GMT
William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States.[4] His compilation album Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2 is the third best-selling album in the United States by discs shipped.[5]
Joel had Top 40 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, achieving 33 Top 40 hits in the United States, all of which he wrote himself. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner who has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards throughout his career. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time.[6]
Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006). In 2001, Joel received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors, the nation's highest honor for influencing American culture through the arts. Except for the 2007 songs "All My Life" and "Christmas in Fallujah", Joel stopped writing and releasing pop/rock material after 1993's River of Dreams. However, he continues to tour, and he plays songs from all eras of his solo career in his concerts.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:43:28 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:44:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:44:48 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:45:25 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:46:47 GMT
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Post by KILL BEN 2015 on Mar 2, 2015 10:49:00 GMT
THAT'S WHAT BILLY JOEL LOOKS LIKE?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:49:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:50:00 GMT
THAT'S WHAT BILLY JOEL LOOKS LIKE?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:50:38 GMT
Joel was born in the Bronx on May 9, 1949[1][7] and raised in the suburb of Hicksville, New York.[8]
Billy's father, Howard (born Helmuth) Joel, a classical pianist, was born in Germany, the son of a Jewish merchant and manufacturer, Karl Amson Joel. Howard emigrated to Switzerland and later to the United States (via Cuba, as immigration quotas for German Jews prevented direct immigration at the time) to escape the Nazi regime.[8] Joel's mother, Rosalind, was born in England to Jewish parents, Philip and Rebecca Nyman. Rosalind and Howard Joel divorced in 1957. Howard Joel moved to Vienna. Billy Joel has a sister, Judith, and a half-brother, Alexander Joel, a classical conductor in Europe, currently chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig.[9]
Billy reluctantly began piano lessons at an early age, at his mother's insistence, his teachers including the noted American pianist Morton Estrin[10] and musician Timothy Ford; As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so he could defend himself.[11] He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning twenty-two bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after his nose was broken in his twenty-fourth boxing match.[12]
Joel attended Hicksville High School until 1967, but he did not graduate with his class. He had been playing at a piano bar to help his mother make ends meet, which interfered with his attendance; specifically, he missed a crucial English exam, as he had been playing a late-night gig at a piano bar the evening before.[13] Though Joel was a comparatively strong student, at the end of his senior year, he did not have enough credits to graduate. Rather than attend summer school to earn his diploma, Joel decided to begin a career in music: "I told them, 'To hell with it. If I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records, and you don't need a high school diploma over there'."[14] Joel eventually signed with Columbia. In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board and was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High's annual graduation ceremony, 25 years after leaving.[15]
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Post by KILL BEN 2015 on Mar 2, 2015 10:52:43 GMT
lol what a individual
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:53:03 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:54:03 GMT
OH NO ANDERSON COOPER IS TAKING OVER
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:55:21 GMT
Cooper was born in New York City, the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, designer, writer, and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. His maternal grandparents were millionaire equestrian Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and socialite Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and his maternal great-great-great-grandfather was Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.[4] He is also a descendant, through his mother, of Civil War brevet Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, who was with General William T. Sherman on his march through Georgia.
Cooper's media experience began early. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper's Bazaar.[5][6] At the age of three, Cooper was a guest on The Tonight Show on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother.[7] At the age of nine, he appeared on To Tell the Truth as an impostor.[8] From age 10 to 13, Cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy's.[9]
Cooper's father suffered a series of heart attacks while undergoing open-heart surgery, and died January 5, 1978, at the age of 50. Cooper considers his father's book Families to be "sort of a guide on...how he would have wanted me to live my life and the choices he would have wanted me to make. And so I feel very connected to him."[9]
Cooper's older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, committed suicide on July 22, 1988, at age 23, by jumping from the 14th-floor terrace of Vanderbilt's New York City penthouse apartment. Gloria Vanderbilt later wrote about her son's death in the book A Mother's Story, in which she expresses her belief that the suicide was caused by a psychotic episode induced by an allergy to the anti-asthma prescription drug salbutamol. Anderson cites Carter's suicide for sparking his interest in journalism. "Loss is a theme that I think a lot about, and it's something in my work that I dwell on. I think when you experience any kind of loss, especially the kind I did, you have questions about survival: Why do some people thrive in situations that others can’t tolerate? Would I be able to survive and get on in the world on my own?"[9]
Cooper was educated at the Dalton School, a co-educational independent school in New York City. At age 17, after graduating from the Dalton School a semester early, Cooper travelled around Africa for several months on a "survival trip". He contracted malaria on the trip and was hospitalized in Kenya. Describing the experience, Cooper wrote "Africa was a place to forget and be forgotten in."[9][10][11] Cooper went on to attend Yale University, where he resided in Trumbull College, and was inducted into the Manuscript Society, majoring in political science and graduated in 1989.[12]
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 10:57:02 GMT
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