Billy Joel: Piano Man Legacy Edition (Columbia Legacy)
Billy Joel didn't exactly come out of nowhere with 1973's Piano Man -- it just seemed that way because of the deep obscurity into which his previous projects had so quickly fallen. His Rascals wanna-be band The Hassles never took off (the name does seem like kind of a jinx), his organ/drums duo Attila bombed, and then his November 1971 solo debut Cold Spring Harbor was cursed with faulty mastering that left his vocals sounding squeaky. Famously, he escaped these setbacks -- and contract problems (he was waiting for Columbia's lawyers to get him out of his old contract) -- by leaving his native New York and heading to Los Angeles, where under the pseudonym Bill Martin (his first and middle names) he worked at a piano bar, an experience he portrayed in the title track of this album, now reissued with an additional disc.
Billy Joel didn't exactly come out of nowhere with 1973's Piano Man -- it just seemed that way because of the deep obscurity into which his previous projects had so quickly fallen. His Rascals wanna-be band The Hassles never took off (the name does seem like kind of a jinx), his organ/drums duo Attila bombed, and then his November 1971 solo debut Cold Spring Harbor was cursed with faulty mastering that left his vocals sounding squeaky. Famously, he escaped these setbacks -- and contract problems (he was waiting for Columbia's lawyers to get him out of his old contract) -- by leaving his native New York and heading to Los Angeles, where under the pseudonym Bill Martin (his first and middle names) he worked at a piano bar, an experience he portrayed in the title track of this album, now reissued with an additional disc.
- 11/10/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
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