Faced with a summer in school to complete this requirement, he decided not to continue. However, he was one English credit short of the graduation requirement he overslept on the day of an important exam due to his late-night musician's lifestyle.
Joel attended Hicksville High School, and was to have graduated in 1967. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, but abandoned the sport shortly after having his nose broken in a boxing match. As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so that he would be able to defend himself. He began piano lessons at an early age, and his interest in music instead of sports was the source for much teasing and bullying in his early years. His half-brother Alexander Joel is an acclaimed classical pianist and conductor in Europe, now living in New York.įrom an early age Joel had an intense interest in music especially classical music. His parents later divorced, and his father moved back to Eastern Europe. His mother, Rosalind Nyman, was born in England, to an agnostic Jewish family. His father, Howard Joel, was a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Germany, whose father Karl Amson Joel owned the fourth largest mail order company in Germany before being dispossessed by the Nazis. In truth, Joel lived on Meeting Lane in Hicksville, a town that has existed since 1648, near the Levittown border, in a section of town where Post-WW2, there were houses developed by Abe Levitt, known as Levitt Houses, thus forming nearby Levittown. Often he himself, along with many in the media, have confused this with him living in neighboring Levittown, NY (formed 1947). Joel first lived in the South Bronx, in New York City, but his family soon moved to Hicksville, Long Island. He has continued to tour occasionally (sometimes with Elton John) in addition to writing and recording classical music.
Joel's induction into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame (Class of 1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Class of 1999), and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (Class of 2006) has further solidified his status as one of America's leading music icons. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he has sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide and is the sixth best selling artist in the United States, according to the RIAA. He is one of the very few rock (or even pop) artists to have Top 10 hits in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Joel recorded many popular hit songs and albums from 1971 until he stopped recording pop/rock music in 1993. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man," in 1973, Joel has become a multi-million-selling recording artist. Billy Joel (born William Martin Joel on in Bronx, New York, USA) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer.