The tour received good reviews but Joel remained unhappy with the quality of his performance and, especially, the quality of the album. Following the release of the album, Joel went on a small live tour, during which he would frequently delve into standup comedy. Due to an error in the mastering of the album, Cold Spring Harbor was released a couple of tape speeds too fast the album remained in that bastardized form until 1984. Joel refashioned himself as a sensitive singer/songwriter for his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, which was released in November of 1971. Under the terms of the contract, Joel signed to the label for life the pianist was unaware of the clause at the time, but it would come back to haunt him - Family Productions received royalties from every album Joel sold until the late '80s. Joel returned to playing music in 1971, signing a deal with Family Productions. Following his failed suicide attempt, Joel checked himself into Meadowbrook Hospital, where he received psychiatric treatment for depression. However, Joel entered a severe bout of depression, culminating with him drinking a bottle of furniture polish in an attempt to end his life. While the group was still together, Joel began a romance with Small's wife, Elizabeth she would eventually leave the drummer to marry the pianist.Īfter Attila's embarrassing failure, Joel wrote rock criticism for a magazine called Changes and played on commercial jingles, including a Chubby Checker spot for Bachman Pretzels. Epic released Attila early in 1970 and it was an immediate bomb and the duo broke up. On the cover of the band's eponymous album, both Joel and Small were dressed as barbarians in an interview on the back of the album, Joel claimed to forget the name of his previous band and stated that he only "sweated" two things - perfecting his sound and the war in Southeast Asia. In Attila, Joel played his organ through a variety of effects pedals, creating a heavy psychedelic hard rock album completely without guitars. Joel and the band's drummer, Jon Small, formed an organ-and-drums duo called Attila.
Over the next year and a half, the Hassles released two albums and four singles, all of which failed commercially. In 1967, he left the band to join the Hassles, a local Long Island rock & roll band that had signed a contract with United Artists Records. For two years, he played sessions and performed with the Lost Souls. Later in 1965, the Echoes changed their name twice - once to the Emeralds and finally to the Lost Souls. During this time, the Echoes started to play numerous late-night shows. Joel played piano on several recordings George "Shadow" Morton produced - including the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" - as well as several records released through Kama Sutra Productions. While still a member of the Echoes, Joel began playing recording sessions in 1965, when he was just 16 years old.
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The Echoes became a popular New York attraction, convincing him to quit high school to become a professional musician. Eventually, he found the Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. Upon seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Joel decided to pursue a full-time musical career and set about finding a local Long Island band to join.
For the early years of his adolescence, he divided his time between studying piano and fighting. He fought a total of 22 fights as a teenager, and during one of the fights, he broke his nose. As he approached his adolescence, Joel started to rebel, joining teenage street gangs and boxing as welterweight. The Stranger, released in 1977, was the album that catapulted him to superstardom, spawning four Top 40 singles including "Just the Way You Are," which won the 1978 Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.īorn in the Bronx, Joel was raised in the Long Island suburb of Hicksville, where he learned to play piano as a child. His fusion of these two distinct eras made him a superstar, as he racked up an impressive string of multi-platinum albums and hit singles. In the latter half of the '70s, Billy Joel emerged as one of the most popular singer/songwriters of the era, with music that consistently demonstrated an affection and facility for Beatlesque hooks as well as Tin Pan Alley and Broadway melodies.