Billy Joel
Billy Joey is an American singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. Commonly nicknamed the “Piano Man”, he has been making music since the 1960s, releasing popular albums throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Joel was born in 1949 in The Bronx, New York, and grew up on Long Island, New York, both places that influenced his music. After dropping out of high school, Joel took part in two short-lived bands, The Hassles and Attila, before signing a record deal with Family Productions and kicking off a solo career in 1971 with his first release, Cold Spring Harbor. In 1972, Joel caught the attention of Columbia Records after a live radio performance of the song “Captain Jack” became popular in Philadelphia, prompting him to sign a new record deal with the company and release his second solo album, Piano Man, which contained his first hit single of the same name. After releasing two more albums, Streetlife Serenade and Turnstiles, Joel released his critical and commercial breakthrough album, The Stranger, in 1977; this album became Columbia’s best-selling release, selling over 10 million copies and spawning several hit singles, including “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” and “Just the Way You Are”. A year later, Joel’s album 52nd Street was his first album to peak at #1 on the Billboard 200 charts. Joel released his seventh studio album, Glass Houses, in an attempt to further establish himself as a rock and roll artist; this release featured It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me, Joel’s first single to top the Billboard Hot 100 charts, as well as Don’t Ask Me Why and Sometimes a Fantasy. His next album, The Nylon Curtain, was released in 1982, and stemmed from a desire from Joel to create more lyrically and melodically ambitious music. An Innocent Man, released in 1983, served as an homage to genres of music which Joel had grown up with in the 1950s, such as Rhythm and Blues and doo-wop. After releasing the albums The Bridge and Storm Front in 1986 and 1989 respectively, Joel released his twelfth and final solo album, River of Dreams, in 1993. He went on to release Fantasies and Delusions, a 2001 album featuring classical compositions composed by Joel and performed by British-Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo. Joel also provided voiceover work in 1988 for the 27th animated Disney film, Oliver & Company, in which he provided the voice of the character Dodger.
Across the 20 years of his solo career, Joel produced 33 Top 40 hits in the US, all of which he wrote himself, and three of which (“It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”, “Tell Her About It”, and “We Didn’t Start the Fire”) managed to top the charts. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner who has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards. With over 150 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the best-selling artists of all time as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the US.
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).
The Jackson Five
are an American family music group. Formed in 1964, the founding members were elder brothers Jackie, Tito and Jermaine. Younger brothers Marlon and Michael would join soon after. They participated in talent shows and performed in clubs on the Chitlin’ Circuit. They entered the professional music scene in 1967, signing with Steeltown Records and releasing two singles with the Steeltown label. In 1969, the group left Steeltown Records and signed with Motown.
The Jackson 5 was one of the first groups of black American performers to attain a crossover following, preceded by the Supremes, the Four Tops and the Temptations. They were also the first group to debut with four consecutive number one hits on the Hot 100 with the songs “I Want You Back”, “ABC”, “The Love You Save”, and “I’ll Be There”. Scoring 16 top forty singles on the Hot 100, after continuing with further hits such as “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Dancing Machine”, most of the group with the exception of Jermaine, left Motown for Epic Records in 1975. At that time, with brother Randy taking Jermaine’s place, they released five albums between 1976 and 1981, including the hit albums, Destiny (1978) and Triumph (1980), and the hit singles, “Enjoy Yourself”, “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” and “Can You Feel It”. In 1983, Jermaine reunited with the band to perform on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever and the group subsequently released the Victory album the following year. After the end of their tour to promote the album, Michael and Marlon Jackson promptly left the group. The remaining four released the poorly received 2300 Jackson Street album in 1989 before being dropped from their label.
Inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999, the Jacksons reunited in 2001 on Michael’s 30th anniversary television special.
John Lennon
was an English singer, songwriter, and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a much-celebrated songwriting partnership. Along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the group would ascend to worldwide fame during the 1960s.
He was born as John Winston Lennon in Liverpool, where he became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1957, he formed his first band, the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Lennon began to record as a solo artist before the band’s break-up in April 1970; two of those songs were “Give Peace a Chance” and “Instant Karma!” Lennon subsequently produced albums that included John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and songs such as “Working Class Hero”, “Imagine” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”. After he married Yoko Ono in 1969, he added “Ono” as one of his middle names. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the album Double Fantasy. He was shot and killed in the archway of his Manhattan apartment building three weeks after the album was released.
Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. Controversial through his political and peace activism, he moved from London to Manhattan in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him. Some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture.
By 2012, Lennon’s solo album sales in the United States had exceeded 14 million units. He had 25 number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart as a writer, co-writer, or performer. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. In 1987, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Lennon was twice posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: first in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and again in 1994 as a solo artist
Jim Croce
was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and singles. His songs “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle” reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Croce did not take music seriously until he studied at Villanova, where he formed bands and performed at fraternity parties, coffee houses, and universities around Philadelphia, playing “anything that the people wanted to hear: blues, rock, a cappella, railroad music … anything.” Croce’s band was chosen for a foreign exchange tour of Africa, the Middle East, and Yugoslavia. He later said, “We just ate what the people ate, lived in the woods, and played our songs. Of course they didn’t speak English over there but if you mean what you’re singing, people understand.” On November 29, 1963, Croce met his future wife Ingrid Jacobson at the Philadelphia Convention Hall during a hootenanny, where he was judging a contest.
Croce released his first album, Facets, in 1966, with 500 copies pressed. The album had been financed with a $500 wedding gift from Croce’s parents, who set a condition that the money must be spent to make an album. They hoped that he would give up music after the album failed, and use his college education to pursue a “respectable” profession. However, the album proved a success, with every copy sold.
1960s
From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce performed with his wife as a duo. At first, their performances included songs by artists such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Arlo Guthrie, but in time they began writing their own music. During this time, Croce got his first long-term gig at a suburban bar and steakhouse in Lima, Pennsylvania, called The Riddle Paddock. His set list covered several genres, including blues, country, rock and roll, and folk.
Croce married his wife, Ingrid, in 1966, and converted to Judaism, as his wife was Jewish. He and Ingrid were married in a traditional Jewish ceremony. He enlisted in the Army National Guard that same year to avoid being drafted and deployed to Vietnam, and served on active duty for four months, leaving for duty a week after his honeymoon. Croce, who was not good with authority, had to go through basic training twice. He said he would be prepared if “there’s ever a war where we have to defend ourselves with mops.”
In 1968, the Croces were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City. The couple spent time in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx and recorded their first album with Capitol Records. During the next two years, they drove more than 300,000 miles (480,000 km), playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album Jim & Ingrid Croce.
Becoming disillusioned by the music business and New York City, they sold all but one guitar to pay the rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside, settling in an old farm in Lyndell, where playing for $25 a night ($158 in 2017 dollars) was not enough money to live on, and Croce was forced to take odd jobs such as driving trucks, construction work and teaching guitar to pay the bills while continuing to write songs, often about the characters he would meet at the local bars and truck stops and his experiences at work; these provided the material for such songs as “Big Wheel” and “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues.”
1970s
They returned to Philadelphia and Croce decided to be “serious” about becoming a productive member of society. “I’d worked construction crews, and I’d been a welder while I was in college. But I’d rather do other things than get burned.” His determination to be “serious” led to a job at a Philadelphia R&B AM radio station, WHAT, where he translated commercials into “soul.” “I’d sell airtime to Bronco’s Poolroom and then write the spot: “You wanna be cool, and you wanna shoot pool … dig it.”
In 1970, Croce met classically trained pianist-guitarist and singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey, through producer Joe Salviuolo. Salviuolo and Croce had been friends when they studied at Villanova University, and Salviuolo had met Muehleisen when he was teaching at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. Salviuolo brought Croce and Muehleisen together at the production office of Tommy West and Terry Cashman in New York City. Croce at first backed Muehleisen on guitar, but gradually their roles reversed, with Muehleisen adding a lead guitar to Croce’s music.
In 1972, Croce signed a three-record contract with ABC Records, releasing two albums, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim and Life and Times. The singles “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”, “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)”, and “Time in a Bottle” (written for his then-unborn son, A. J. Croce) all received airplay. Croce’s biggest single, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” reached Number 1 on the American charts in July 1973. Also that year, the Croce family moved to San Diego, California.
Croce began touring the United States with Muehleisen, performing in large coffee houses, on college campuses, and at folk festivals. However, his financial situation was still bad. The record company had fronted him the money to record his album, and much of what it earned went to pay back the advance. In February 1973, Croce and Muehleisen travelled to Europe, promoting the album in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Monte Carlo, Zurich, and Dublin, receiving positive reviews. Croce then began appearing on television, including his national debut on American Bandstand on August 12, 1972, The Tonight Show on August 14, 1972, The Dick Cavett Show on September 20/21 1972, The Helen Reddy Show airing July 19, 1973, and the newly launched The Midnight Special, which he co-hosted airing June 15.
From July 16 through August 4, 1973, Croce and Muehleisen returned to London and performed on The Old Grey Whistle Test where they sang “Lover’s Cross” and “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues” from their upcoming album “I Got a Name.” Croce finished recording the album I Got a Name just one week before his death. While on his tours, he grew increasingly homesick, and decided to take a break from music and settle with Ingrid and A.J. when his Life and Times tour ended. In a letter to Ingrid which arrived after his death, Croce told her he had decided to quit music and stick to writing short stories and movie scripts as a career, and withdraw from public life.
Death
On September 20, 1973, during Croce’s Life and Times tour and the day before his ABC single “I Got a Name” was released, Croce and five others were killed when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree during take-off from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Others killed in the crash were pilot Robert N. Elliott, musician Maury Muehleisen, comedian George Stevens, manager and booking agent Kenneth D. Cortese, and road manager Dennis Rast. An hour before, Croce had completed a concert at Northwestern State University’s Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches, and was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College; he was thirty years old.
Bee Gees
were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their lineup consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were successful for most of their decades of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognizable three-part tight harmonies; Robin’s clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry’s R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists.
Born on the Isle of Man to English parents, the Gibb brothers lived in Chorlton, Manchester, England, until the late 1950s. There, in 1955, they formed the Rattlesnakes. The family then moved to Redcliffe, in Queensland, Australia, and then to Cribb Island. After achieving their first chart success in Australia as the Bee Gees with “Spicks and Specks” (their 12th single), they returned to the UK in January 1967, when producer Robert Stigwood began promoting them to a worldwide audience.
The Bee Gees have sold more than 220 million records worldwide, making them one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; the presenter of the award to “Britain’s first family of harmony” was Brian Wilson, historical leader of The Beach Boys, another “family act” featuring three harmonizing brothers.The Bee Gees’ Hall of Fame citation says, “Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees.”
Following Maurice’s death in January 2003, at the age of 53, Barry and Robin retired the group’s name after 45 years of activity. In 2009, Robin announced that he and Barry had agreed the Bee Gees would re-form and perform again. Robin died in May 2012, aged 62, after a prolonged struggle with cancer and other health problems, leaving Barry as the only surviving member of the group’s final line-up.
Paul McCartney
were a British-American rock band formed in 1971 by former Beatle Paul McCartney with his wife Linda on keyboards, session drummer Denny Seiwell, and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine. Wings were noted for frequent personnel changes as well as commercial success, going through three lead guitarists and four drummers. However, the core trio of the McCartneys and Laine remained intact throughout the group’s existence.
Created following the McCartneys’ 1971 album Ram, the band’s first two albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway (the latter featuring guitarist Henry McCullough), were viewed as artistic disappointments beside Paul McCartney’s work with the Beatles. After the release of the title track of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, McCullough and Seiwell resigned from the band. The McCartney’s and Laine then released 1973’s Band on the Run, a commercial and critical success that spawned two top ten singles in “Jet” and the title track. Following that album, the band recruited guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton, only for Britton to quit shortly afterwards and be replaced by Joe English. With the new line-up, Wings released Venus and Mars, which included the US number one single “Listen to What the Man Said”, and undertook a highly successful world tour over 1975–76. Intended as more of a group effort, Wings at the Speed of Sound was issued midway through the tour and featured the hit singles “Silly Love Songs” and “Let ‘Em In”.
In 1977, the band earned their only UK number one single, with “Mull of Kintyre”, which became the then-best selling UK single in history. Wings experienced another line-up shuffle, however, with both McCulloch and English departing before the release of the group’s 1978 album London Town. The McCartneys and Laine again added new members, recruiting guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holley. The resulting album, Back to the Egg, was a relative flop, with its singles under-performing and the critical reception negative. During the supporting tour, Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for cannabis possession, putting the band on hold. Despite a final US number one, the live version of McCartney’s solo single “Coming Up”, after Laine departed from the band, Wings discontinued for good in 1981.
The Carpenters
were an American vocal and instrumental duo of Karen (1950–1983) and Richard Carpenter (b. 1946). They produced a distinct soft musical style, combining Karen’s contralto vocals with Richard’s arranging and composition skills. During their 14-year career, the Carpenters recorded ten albums, along with numerous singles and several television specials.
The siblings were born in New Haven, Connecticut, and moved to Downey, California, in 1963. Richard took piano lessons as a child, progressing to California State University, Long Beach, while Karen learned the drums. They first performed together as a duo in 1965 and formed the jazz-oriented Richard Carpenter Trio followed by the middle-of-the-road group Spectrum. Signing as Carpenters to A&M Records in 1969, they achieved major success the following year with the hit singles “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”. Subsequently, the duo’s brand of melodic pop produced a record-breaking run of hit recordings on the American Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, and they became leading sellers in the soft rock, easy listening and adult contemporary music genres. The Carpenters had three number-one singles and five number-two singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and fifteen number-one hits on the Adult Contemporary chart, in addition to twelve top-10 singles. They have sold more than 90 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The duo toured continually during the 1970s, which put them under increased strain; Richard took a year off in 1979 after he had become addicted to Quaaludes, while Karen suffered from anorexia nervosa.
Their career together ended in 1983 following Karen’s death from heart failure brought on by complications of anorexia. Extensive news coverage surrounding these circumstances increased public awareness of eating disorders. Though the Carpenters were criticized for their clean-cut and wholesome conservative image in the 1970s, their music has since been re-evaluated, attracting critical acclaim and continued commercial success.
Cher
Cher is an American singer and actress. Commonly referred to by the media as the Goddess of Pop, she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. She is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances during her six-decade-long career.
Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher after their song “I Got You Babe” reached number one on the American and British charts. By the end of 1967, they had sold 40 million records worldwide and had become, according to Time magazine, rock’s “it” couple. She began her solo career simultaneously, releasing in 1966 her first million-seller song, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”. She became a television personality in the 1970s with her shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, and Cher. She emerged as a fashion trendsetter by wearing elaborate outfits on her television shows.
While working on television, Cher established herself as a solo artist with the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping singles “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”, “Half-Breed”, and “Dark Lady”. After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, she launched a comeback in 1979 with the disco album Take Me Home and earned $300,000 a week for her 1980–1982 concert residency in Las Vegas.
In 1982, Cher made her Broadway debut in the play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in its film adaptation. She subsequently earned critical acclaim for her performances in films such as Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985), and Moonstruck (1987), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She then revived her musical career by recording the rock-inflected albums Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989), and Love Hurts (1991), all of which yielded successful singles such as “I Found Someone”, “If I Could Turn Back Time” and “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)”.
Cher reached a new commercial peak in 1998 with the album Believe, whose title track became the biggest-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK. It features the pioneering use of Auto-Tune, also known as the “Cher effect”. Her 2002–2005 Living Proof: The Farewell Tour became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time, earning $250 million. In 2008, she signed a $180 million deal to headline the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for three years. In 2018, Cher returned to film for her first on-screen role since 2010’s Burlesque, starring in the musical romantic comedy film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Inspired by the film, the album Dancing Queen (2018) debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, tying with 2013’s Closer to the Truth for Cher’s highest-charting solo album in the U.S.
Cher has won a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a special CFDA Fashion Award, and a Kennedy Center Honors prize, among several other honors. She has sold 100 million records worldwide to date, becoming one of the best-selling music artists in history. She is the only artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in six consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2010s.
The Eagles
are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. The founding members were Glenn Frey (guitars, vocals), Don Henley (drums, vocals), Bernie Leadon (guitars, vocals) and Randy Meisner (bass guitar, vocals). With five number-one singles, six Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, and six number-one albums, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and Hotel California, were ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the United States according to the Recording Industry Association of America. By 2006, both albums were among the top three best-selling albums in the United States. Hotel California is ranked 37th in Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and the band was ranked number 75 on the magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
The Eagles are one of the world’s best-selling bands in history, having sold more than 150 million records—100 million in the U.S. alone. Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) is the number one selling album in the US with more than 38 million sales streams and Hotel California is the third best selling album with more than 26 million sales and streams. Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) was the best selling album of the 20th century in the U.S. They are the fifth-highest-selling music act and the highest-selling American band in U.S. history.
The band released their debut album, Eagles, in 1972, which spawned three top 40 singles: “Take It Easy”, “Witchy Woman”, and “Peaceful Easy Feeling”. Their next album, Desperado (1973), was less successful than the first, only reaching number 41 on the charts; neither of its singles reached the top 40. However, the album does contain what would go on to be two of the band’s most popular tracks: “Desperado” and “Tequila Sunrise”. The band released On the Border in 1974, adding guitarist Don Felder as the fifth member midway through the recording of the album. The album generated two top 40 singles: “Already Gone” and their first number one, “Best of My Love”.
Their 1975 album One of These Nights included three top 10 singles: “One of These Nights”, “Lyin’ Eyes”, and “Take It to the Limit”, the first hitting the top of the charts. Guitarist and vocalist Joe Walsh also joined the band in 1975 replacing Leadon. The Eagles continued that success and hit their commercial peak in late 1976 with the release of Hotel California, which would go on to sell more than 16 million copies in the U.S. alone and more than 32 million copies worldwide. The album yielded two number-one singles, “New Kid in Town” and “Hotel California”. Meisner left the band in 1977 and was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit. They released their last studio album for nearly 28 years in 1979 with The Long Run, which spawned three top 10 singles: “Heartache Tonight”, “The Long Run”, and “I Can’t Tell You Why”, the lead single being another chart-topping hit.
The Eagles disbanded in July 1980 but reunited in 1994 for the album Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and new studio tracks. They toured consistently and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2007, the Eagles released Long Road Out of Eden, their first full studio album in 28 years and their sixth number-one album. The next year they launched the Long Road Out of Eden Tour in support of the album. In 2013, they began the extended History of the Eagles Tour in conjunction with the band’s documentary release, History of the Eagles.
Following the death of Frey in January 2016, Henley stated in several interviews that he did not think the band would perform again. However, the Eagles continued performing in 2017 with guest musicians Deacon Frey (son of Glenn) and Vince Gill.