Artist Analysis: A Case Study of Billy Joel

Running head: ARTIST ANALYSIS
ARTIST ANALYSIS: A CASE STUDY OF BILLY JOEL
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Author’s Note:

ARTIST ANALYSIS1
William Martin Joel or more popularly called by the name of Piano Man was born in
1949 in the city of New York, USA (Billyjoel.com, 2019). He is widely reputed as one of the
best American pianist, composer and Singer-Songwriter. More importantly, he is also one of the
best-selling musicians of all times while being the “sixth best-selling recording artist and the
third best-selling solo artist” in the nation of USA (Rollingstone.com, 2019). Some of the most
important musical pieces which cemented his legacy in the international music arena are “Piano
Man”, “Nobody Knows But Me”, “A Room Of Our Own”, “Prelude/Angry Young Man”, “River
Of Dreams” and others (Duchan, 2015). This paper undertakes a critical analysis of the artist
Billy Joel and his music in the particular context of the influences which were dominant on him,
the techniques used by him and others.
Bañagale and Duchan (2017) are of the viewpoint that the different influences like
upbringing, the work of past artists, religion, present life condition and others play a dominant
role on the musical compositions created by the artists. As discussed by Spicer (2017), the work
of an artist is never a singular piece of work rather the effective amelioration of the different
influences or for that matter the factors which are important from the perspective of the
concerned artist. In the particular context of the artist Billy Joel, it needs to be said that the work
of the past artists like Beethoven, Dave Brubeck, the Beatles, George Gershwin, Ray Charles,
Phil Spector, Fats Domino and others (Atkinson, 2018). For instance, it had been seen that the
majority of the piano compositions of Joel are inspired from the compositions of Beethoven and
the other artists related to the same genre of music (Duchan, 2015). On the other hand, it is seen
that the influence of artists like the Beatles, George Gershwin, Ray Charles, Phil Spector, Fats
Domino and others is perceptible within the framework of the different songs composed by him
(Spicer, 2017). He himself acknowledged the fact that one of the most important things which