The end of the video sees the pair riding off together on a motorcycle. The famous promo video featured Billy Joel as a grease monkey working in a gas station and supermodel Christie Brinkley as a high society girl. Going back to the various musical styles of his youth that included doo-wop, soul and R’n’B, Joel scored a run of hit singles on both sides of the Atlantic. In any case, he took home a Grammy Award for the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male in 1980.įollowing the relative commercial failure of 1982’s ‘The Nylon Curtain’, Billy Joel scored big with his next album, the international success story that was 1983’s ‘An Innocent Man’. 12 here in the UK, the single ‘It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me’ was Joel’s riposte to the changing times with the point of view that good pop music will always break through regardless of what’s fashionable. Going all the way to the top in the US singles charts and No. In truth, he was still coming from the same place that he always had. Responding to criticism that his piano-led material marked him down as a mere balladeer working in the realm of soft rock, Billy Joel’s next album, 1980’s ‘Glass Houses’, found him moving into a slightly harder-edged sound. Label CBS Format 7' Release Date 1983 Country UK Catalogue Number A3775 Picture Sleeve. 12, while the album scooped the award for Album of the Year at the 1979 Grammy Awards. Sell Music Stuff Shops eldorado Podcasts Log in Join.
The single, ‘My Life’, gave him his biggest UK hit to date when it peaked at No. WATCH: Billy Joel - 'Just the Way You Are' (Live 1977) The album went silver in the UK and the following year, Joel released his next album, ‘52nd Street’.
#UPTOWN GIRL BILLY JOEL RELEASE DATE CRACKED#
Containing the hit ‘Just The Way You Are’, Billy Joel cracked the UK Top 20. Though he was making some in-roads into the US charts, he was still an unknown quantity in the UK.Īll that was to change with the 1977 album, ‘The Stranger’. Geils Band and the Doobie Brothers, Joel released the albums ‘Streetlife Serenade’ and ‘Turnstiles’. It was released on September 29, 1983, on his ninth studio album An Innocent. Signing to Columbia Records, he released the album, ‘Piano Man’, in 1973 and the title song, based on his experiences as a lounge player, became his signature tune. Uptown Girl is a song written and performed by American musician Billy Joel. The following year, he attracted the attention of a number of record labels after a live recording of his song, ‘Captain Jack’, was broadcast by radio station WMMR in Philadelphia.
Joining British Invasion covers band The Echoes, Billy Joel also played piano on a number of recording sessions, including one for the Shangri-La’s ‘Leader Of The Pack’.īilly Joel moved to LA in 1972 where he played piano for six months at The Executive Room club under the name Bill Martin.
#UPTOWN GIRL BILLY JOEL RELEASE DATE TV#
On Australian TV in 2006, Billy Joel said: 'The song was originally called 'Uptown Girls' not 'Uptown Girl.'. He reworked the lyrics, and by the time he finished the song, it was about Brinkley. That all come to an end when he clapped eyes on The Beatles as part of the 73m Americans who watched their celebrated appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. She was 19.' Joel went on to explain that he and Elle parted ways when she went off to Europe, which is around the time he started dating Brinkley. It has sold 1.02 million copies as of 2013.He very nearly became a boxer and fought 22 bouts as a welterweight. The song was the 19th biggest-selling single of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, selling 975,000 copies. It peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and number one in the United Kingdom, staying at that position for five weeks it was the second biggest-selling single of 1983 in the United Kingdom behind only Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon", which Joel had knocked off the number one position on November 1, 1983. as previous single "Tell Her About It", it was still a big hit. According to numerous interviews with Joel, the song was initially written about his relationship with Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife, Brinkley (both women being two of the most famous supermodels of the 1980s)Īlthough "Uptown Girl" was not as successful in the U.S. The lyrics describe a working-class "downtown man" attempting to woo a wealthy "uptown girl."Īccording to an interview with Howard Stern, Joel had originally titled the song "Uptown Girls" and it was conceived on an occasion when he was surrounded by Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston and his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson. "Uptown Girl" was released on September 29, 1983, on his ninth studio album An Innocent Man (1983).