Billy Joel

She's Got a Way
She's got a way about her
I don't know what it is
But I know that I can't live without her
She's got a way of pleasin'
I don't know why it is
But there doesn't have to be a reason anywhere

Piano Man
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

New York State of Mind
Some folks like to get away,
Take a holiday from the neighborhood.
Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood.
But I'm takin' a Greyhound on the Hudson River line.
I'm in a New York state of mind.

Just the Way You Are
I don't want clever, conversation,
I never want to work that hard,
I just want someone, that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are.

She's Always a Woman
Oooh, she takes care of herself.
She can wait if she wants, she's ahead of her time.
Oooooh, and she never gives out, and she never gives in,
She just changes her mind.

Only the Good Die Young

Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

My Life
I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

Big Shot
Well, you went uptown ridin' in your limousine
With your fine Park Avenue clothes
You had the Dom Perignon in your hand
And the spoon up your nose
Ooh, and when you wake up in the mornin'
With your head on fire
And your eyes too bloody to see
Go on and cry in your coffee
But don't come bitchin' to me

Because you had to be a big shot, didn't cha
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't cha
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You know what everything's about
You had to have a white hot spotlight
You had to be a big shot last night

And they were all impressed with your Halston dress
And the people that you knew at Elaine's
And the story of your latest success
You kept 'em so entertained
But now you just don't remember
All the things you said
And you're not sure that you want to know
I'll give you one hint, honey
You sure did put on a show

Well, it's no big sin to stick your two cents in
If you know when to leave it alone
But you went over the line
You couldn't see it was time to go home
No, no, no, no, no, no

Honesty
I can find a lover.
I can find a friend.
I can have security until the bitter end.
Anyone can comfort me
With promises again.
I know, I know.

Until the Night

You May Be Right
You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
It's too late to fight
It's too late to change me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me

Don't Ask Me Why
You can say the human heart is only make believe
And I am only fighting fire with fire
But you are still a victim
Of the accidents you leave
As sure as I'm a victim of desire

Pressure

Goodnight Saigon
We met as soulmates
On Parris Island
We left as inmates
From an asylum
And we were sharp
As sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho to lay down our lives.

Tell Her About it

Uptown Girl

An Innocent Man
You know you only hurt yourself out of spite
I guess you'd rather be a martyr tonight
That's your decision
But I'm not below
Anybody I know
If there's a chance of resurrecting a love
I'm not above going back to the start
To find out where the heartache began

The Longest Time

Leave a Tender Moment Alone
w / Toots Thielemans

Keeping the Faith

You're Only Human (Second Wind)

A Matter of Trust
I know you're an emotional girl
It took a lot for you to not lose your faith in this world
I can't offer you proof
But you're going to face a moment of truth
It's hard when you're always afraid
You just recover when another belief is betrayed
So break my heart if you must
It's a matter of trust

Baby Grand
w / Ray Charles

This is the Time
Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that I survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

We Didn't Start the Fire

And So it Goes
I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

The River of Dreams

Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullabye
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me
Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabyes go on and on...
They never die
That's how you
And I
Will be

Hey Girl

Piano Man
w / Elton John

[Lyrics Archive]

William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American rock musician, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. He released his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973. According to the RIAA, Billy Joel is the sixth best-selling recording artist in the United States.

Joel had Top 10 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and has 33 Top 40 hits in the United States overall. He is also a five-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and has sold in excess of 150 million albums worldwide. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006). Joel "retired" from recording pop music in 1993 but continued to tour (sometimes with Elton John). In 2001, he released Fantasies & Delusions, a CD of classical compositions for piano. In 2007, he briefly returned to pop songwriting and recording with a single entitled "All My Life" -- written for his third wife Katie Lee Joel. Joel returned to touring in 2006 after a three-year hiatus from the road and has toured extensively ever since, covering many of the major world cities. In March 2009, Joel resumed his popular Face to Face tour with fellow piano man Elton John. The tour is expected to go on and off for two years and travel around the world. The two artists first paired up in 1994 but hadn't toured together since May 2003.


FYI

Billy Joel was born in the Bronx and raised in Hicksville, New York.

Joel's father was an accomplished classical pianist. Billy reluctantly began piano lessons at an early age, at his mother's insistence.
His interest in music, rather than sports, was the source of teasing and bullying in his early years. As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so that he would be able to defend himself. He boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning twenty-two bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after having his nose broken in his twenty-fourth boxing match.

Joel attended Hicksville High School, and was expected to graduate in 1967. However, he was one English credit short of the graduation requirement; he overslept on the day of an important exam, owing to his late-night musician's lifestyle. Faced with a summer at school to complete this requirement, he decided not to continue. He left high school without a diploma to begin a career in music, later telling an interviewer he'd told the Hicksville Board of Education, "I'm not going to Columbia University, I'm going to Columbia Records." Columbia did, in fact, become the label that eventually signed him.

Despite the Vietnam War and the draft, Joel performed no military service — because he was the sole provider for his mother and sister, the selective service gave him a draft exemption.

In 1992, the English credit requirement was waived by the Hicksville School Board, and he received his diploma at Hicksville High's graduation ceremony 25 years after he had left.

Upon seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Joel decided to pursue a full-time musical career, and set about finding a local Long Island band to join. Eventually he found the Echoes, a group that specialized in British Invasion covers. The Echoes became a popular New York attraction, convincing him to leave high school to become a professional musician. He began playing for the Echoes when he was 14 years old. Joel began playing recording sessions with the Echoes in 1965, when he was 16 years old.

Whereas most records are owned by the recording company, Billy Joel is one of a number of performers — including Paul Simon, Johnny Rivers, Pink Floyd, Queen, Genesis, and Neil Diamond — who have their own name as the copyright owner on their recordings.

Joel signed a recording contract with Columbia in 1972 and moved to Los Angeles. He lived there for three years (and has since declared that those three years were a big mistake), returning to New York City in 1975. While in California, he had a paid job in a piano bar, The Executive Room on Wilshire Boulevard (using the name Bill Martin), so his superhit "Piano Man" is seen as autobiographical.

For his 1977 album The Stranger, Columbia Records united Joel with producer Phil Ramone. The album yielded four Top-25 hits on the Billboard Charts in the US: "Just the Way You Are" (#3), "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (#17), "Only the Good Die Young" (#24), and "She's Always a Woman" (#17). Album sales exceeded Columbia's previous top-selling album, Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, and was certified multi-platinum. His first-ever Top Ten album, it reached #2 on the charts.

The success of his piano-driven ballads like "Just the Way You Are," "She's Always a Woman" and "Honesty" never sat well with Joel, as many critics were quick to slap the "balladeer" tag on him.
With Glass Houses (1980), he attacked the new wave popularity with aplomb and delivered several harder-edged songs custom made for the live shows in arenas and stadiums he was now playing almost exclusively.

Following the success of An Innocent Man (1983), Joel had been approached to release an album of his most successful singles. This was not the first time this topic had come up, but Joel had initially considered "Greatest Hits" albums as marking the end of one's career. This time, he agreed, and Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2 was released in 1985 as a 4-sided album and 2-CD set, with the songs in sequence of when they were released. The new songs "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" and "The Night is Still Young" were recorded and released as singles to support the album; both reached the top 40, peaking at #9 and #34, respectively.
Greatest Hits was highly successful, selling over 20 million copies worldwide and becoming the top-selling double album of all time by a solo artist (and second overall after The Wall by Pink Floyd). It has since been certified diamond by the RIAA for over 20 million albums sold. To date it is the 6th best selling album in American music history according to the RIAA.

On January 7, 2006, Joel began a tour across the United States. Having not written, or at least released, any new songs in 13 years, he featured a sampling of songs from throughout his career, including major hits as well as obscure tunes like "Zanzibar" and "All for Leyna." His tour included an unprecedented 12 sold-out concerts over several months at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The singer's stint of 12 shows at Madison Square Garden broke a previous record set by New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, who played 10 sold-out shows at the same arena. The record earned Joel the first retired number (12) in the arena owned by a non-athlete. This honor has also been given to Joel at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia where a banner in the colors of the Philadelphia Flyers is hung honoring Joel's 46 Philadelphia sold-out shows. He also had a banner raised in his honor for being the highest grossing act in the history of the Times Union Center (formerly the Knickerbocker Arena and Pepsi Arena) in Albany, New York. This honor was given to him as part of the April 17, 2007 show he did there.

On February 7, 2008, Joel released the news at a Mets press conference that he would be playing the last concert at Shea Stadium, which will be demolished at the end of the 2008 baseball season. Originally there was only one show planned at Shea, but when 50,000 tickets for Joel's July 16 concert sold out in just 48 minutes, a second concert was added for July 18, and it sold out in just 46 minutes.

On March 10, 2008, Joel inducted his friend John Mellencamp into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. During his induction speech, Joel said:
"Don’t let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless, because no matter what they tell us - we know, this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country’s been hijacked. You know it and I know it. People are worried. People are scared, and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that’s out there to echo the discontent that’s out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. [Audience applauds] They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels the way that they do, in the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn’t matter if they hear it on a jukebox, in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial, because they ain’t gonna hear it on the radio anymore. They don’t care how they hear it, as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you’ve always been saying it all along. You’re right, John, this is still our country."

Beginning in 1994, Joel toured extensively with Elton John on a series of "Face to Face" tours, making them the longest running and most successful concert tandem in pop music history. During these shows, the two have played each other's songs and performed duets. They grossed over US $46 million in just 24 dates in their sold out 2003 tour.

More Billy Joel

Elton John

RELEASES: 29 studio albums / 4 live albums / 17 compilation albums / 128 singles / 5 soundtracks / 3 tribute & cover albums

Your Song

Levon

Tiny Dancer

Rocket Man

Honky Cat

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

Crocodile Rock

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Benny and the Jets

Daniel

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Philadelphia Freedom

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

Island Girl

Pinball Wizard (see The Who)

Don't Go Breaking My Heart
(w/Kiki Dee)

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

Song for Guy

Mama Can't Buy You Love

Little Jeannie

Empty Garden
(dedicated to John Lennon)

I'm Still Standing

I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues

Sad Songs (Say So Much)

Nikita

I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That

Sacrifice

The One

Runaway Train

Can You Feel the Love Tonight
(Lion King)

Believe

Candle in the Wind
(Princess Diana's funeral)

Something About the Way You Look Tonight

Blessed

Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist.

In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s. He has sold over 200 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits including seven consecutive No. 1 U.S. albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won five Grammy awards and one Academy Award. His success has had a profound impact on popular music and has contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #49 on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

Some of the characteristics of John's musical talent include an ability to quickly craft melodies for the lyrics of songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, his former rich tenor (now baritone) voice, his classical and gospel-influenced piano, the aggressive orchestral arrangements of Paul Buckmaster among others and the on-stage showmanship, especially evident during the 1970s.

John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s, and was knighted in 1998. He entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005 and continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements. On 9 April 2008, John held a benefit concert for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, raising $2.5 million. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list on which are present Hot 100's top 100 artists and Elton John reached #3, preceded by Madonna and The Beatles.

FYI

When John began to seriously consider a career in music, his father tried to steer him toward a more conventional career such as banking. He has stated that his wild stage costumes and performances were his way of letting go after such a restrictive childhood.

John remembers being immediately hooked on rock and roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956.

John started playing the piano at the age of three, and within a year, his mother heard him picking out "The Skater's Waltz" by ear. It wasn’t long before the boy was being pressed into service as a performer at parties and family gatherings. He began taking piano lessons at the age of seven. He showed great musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, and gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. One of his instructors reports that, when he entered the Academy, she played a four-page piece by Handel, which he promptly played back like a "gramophone record."

In 1964, Dwight and his friends formed a band called Bluesology. By day, he ran errands for a music publishing company; he divided his nights between solo gigs at a London hotel bar and working with Bluesology. By the mid-1960s, Bluesology was backing touring American soul and R&B musicians like The Isley Brothers and Patti LaBelle and The Bluebelles. In 1966, the band became musician Long John Baldry's supporting band and began touring cabarets in England.

Dwight answered an advertisement in the New Musical Express placed by Ray Williams, then the A&R manager for Liberty Records. At their first meeting, Williams gave Dwight a stack of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad. Dwight wrote music for the lyrics, and then mailed it to Taupin, and thus began a partnership that continues to this day. In 1967, what would become the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song, "Scarecrow", was recorded; when the two first met, six months later, Dwight was going by the name "Elton John", in homage to Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.

(1968-70) Taupin would write a batch of lyrics in under an hour and give it to John, who would write music for them in half an hour, disposing of the lyrics if he couldn't come up with anything quickly. During this period, John also played on sessions for other artists including playing piano on The Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".

Elton John was released in the spring of 1970 and established the formula for subsequent albums: gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads. After the second single "Your Song" made the U.S. Top Ten, the album followed suit. John's first American concert took place at The Troubadour in Los Angeles (his introduction was provided by Neil Diamond). Kicking over his piano bench Jerry Lee Lewis-style and performing handstands on the keyboards, John left the critics raving, and drew praise from fellow artists such as Quincy Jones and Bob Dylan.

(1970) A frenetic pace of releasing two albums a year was now established.

Dee Murray (bassist), Nigel Olsson (drummer), and Davey Johnstone (guitar and backing vocals) came together with John and Taupin's writing, John's flamboyant performance style, and producer Gus Dudgeon to create a hit-making chemistry for the next five Elton John albums. Known for their instrumental playing, the members of the band were also strong backing vocalists who worked out and recorded many of their vocal harmonies themselves, usually in John's absence.

(1973) John formed his own MCA-distributed label Rocket Records and signed acts to it — notably Neil Sedaka ("Bad Blood", on which he sang background vocals) and Kiki Dee — in which he took personal interest. Instead of releasing his own records on Rocket, he opted for $8 million offered by MCA. When the contract was signed in 1974, MCA reportedly took out a $25 million insurance policy on John's life.

In 1974 a collaboration with John Lennon took place.

Pete Townshend of The Who asked John to play a character called the "Local Lad" in the film of the rock opera Tommy, and to perform a song named "Pinball Wizard".

The 1975 release of Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy signaled the end of the Elton John Band, as an unhappy and overworked John dismissed Olsson and Murray, two people who had contributed much of the band's signature sound and who had helped build his live following since the beginning.

Commercially, John owed much of his success during the mid-1970s to his concert performances. He filled arenas and stadiums worldwide, and was arguably the hottest act in the rock world. John was an unlikely rock idol to begin with, as he was short of stature at 5'7" (1.70 m), chubby, and gradually losing his hair. But he made up for it with impassioned performances and over-the-top fashion sense. Also known for his glasses (he started wearing them as a youth to copy his idol Buddy Holly), his flamboyant stage wardrobe now included ostrich feathers, $5,000 spectacles that spelled his name in lights, and dressing up like the Statue of Liberty, Donald Duck, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart among others at his concerts made them a success and created interest for his music.

In an interview with Rolling Stone that year (1976) entitled "Elton's Frank Talk", a stressed John stated that he was bisexual.

Besides being the most commercially successful period, 1970 - 1976 is also held in the most regard critically.

John's career took a hit after 1976. In November 1977 John announced he was retiring from performing; Taupin began collaborating with others. John secluded himself in any of his three mansions, appearing publicly only to attend the matches of Watford, an English football team of whom he was a lifelong devotee, and that he later bought. Some speculated that John's retreat from stardom was prompted by adverse reactions to the Rolling Stone article.

Elton reported that Philadelphia soul producer Thom Bell was the first person to give him voice lessons; Bell encouraged John to sing in a lower register.

On 13 September 1980, John performed a free concert to an estimated 400,000 fans on The Great Lawn in Central Park in New York City, with Olsson and Murray back in the Elton John Band, and within hearing distance of his friend John Lennon's apartment building. Elton sang and dedicated "Imagine" to his friend, Lennon, at this concert. Three months later Lennon would be murdered in front of that same building. John mourned the loss in his 1982 hit "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)", from his Jump Up! album. He performed the tribute at a sold-out Madison Square Garden show in August 1982, joined on stage by Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, Elton John's godchild.

The 1980s were years of personal upheaval for John. In 1984 he surprised many by marrying sound engineer Renate Blauel. In 1986 he lost his voice while touring Australia and shortly thereafter underwent throat surgery. Several non-cancerous polyps were removed from his vocal cords, and John lost his famous falsetto, and he sang with a new voice. John continued recording prolifically, but years of cocaine and alcohol abuse, initiated in earnest around the time of Rock of the Westies' 1975 release, were beginning to take their toll. In 1987 he won a libel case against The Sun who had written about his allegedly having underaged sex; afterwards he said, "You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can't sing — but you can't tell lies about me."

In 1988, John performed five sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, giving him 26 for his career, breaking the Grateful Dead's house record. But that year also marked the end of an era. Netting over $20 million, 2,000 items of John's memorabilia were auctioned off at Sotheby's in London, as John bade symbolic farewell to his excessive theatrical persona. (Among the items withheld from the auction were the tens of thousands of records John had been carefully collecting and cataloguing throughout his life.) In later interviews, he deemed 1989 the worst period of his life, comparing his mental and physical deterioration to Elvis Presley's last years.

The 1991 film documentary Two Rooms described the unusual writing style that John and Bernie Taupin use, which involves Taupin writing the lyrics on his own, and John then putting them to music, with the two never in the same room during the process.

In 1992 he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, intending to direct 90 percent of the funds it raised to direct care, and 10 percent to AIDS prevention education. He also announced his intention to donate all future royalties from sales of his singles in the U.S. and UK to AIDS research.

Along with Tim Rice, John wrote the songs for the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King. (Rice was reportedly stunned by the rapidity with which John was able to set his words to music.) The Lion King went on to become the highest-grossing traditionally-animated feature of all time, with the songs playing a key part. Three of the five songs nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song that year were John and Rice songs from The Lion King, with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" winning. (John acknowledged his domestic partner, Canadian film-maker David Furnish, at the ceremonies.) In versions sung by John, both that and "Circle of Life" became big hits, while the other songs such as "Hakuna Matata" achieved popularity with all ages as well. "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" would also win John the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. After the release of the soundtrack, the album remained at the top of Billboard's charts for nine weeks. On 10 November 1999, the RIAA announced that the album The Lion King had sold 15 million copies and therefore was certified as a diamond record with room to spare.

John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1994. He and Bernie Taupin had previously been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992. John was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. John has also been awarded the honour of Knight Bachelor. This award entitles him to use the prefix "Sir".

In early September, Taupin altered the lyrics of "Candle in the Wind" for a special version mourning the death of Diana, and John performed it at her funeral in Westminster Abbey. A recorded version, "Candle in the Wind 1997", then became the fastest- and biggest-selling single of all time, eventually going on to sell 5 million copies in the United Kingdom , 11 million in the U.S., and around 33 million worldwide, with the proceeds of approximately £55 million going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. It would later win John the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, an achievement he has yet to repeat. He hasn't performed the song since Princess Diana's funeral, as John stated it would only be played once to lend it significance and make it special.

In the musical theatre world, addition to a 1998 adaptation of The Lion King for Broadway, John also composed music for a Disney production of Aida in 1999 with lyricist Tim Rice, for which they received the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.

The single, "Electricity", which John wrote for the 2005 West End production of Billy Elliot the Musical, benefited from some clever marketing. Over 75% of the sales were downloads, thanks to an Elton John competition where fans could send a text message including an answer to a question and then receive a download of the track. "Electricity" remains one of his biggest solo hits of the 2000s.

John's string of UK #1 duets continued later that year (2006) when the Scissor Sisters released "I Don't Feel Like Dancin' ", which John co-wrote. Recorded in Las Vegas, it featured John on piano and was included on their album Ta-Dah. "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" became the fourth best selling single in the UK in 2006 and it stayed in the UK top 40 for 27 weeks.

On 26 March, 2007, John's back catalog - almost 500 songs from 32 albums - became available for legal download. "I knew that the entire catalog - not just the hits - needed care and attention to be released in this way," he said in a statement. "Now that it's happening, I'm pleased for the fans' sake."

In interviews, John has listed a number of other projects of his in various stages, including an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He also told Rolling Stone magazine that he plans for his next record to be in the R&B/hip-hop genre. "I want to work with Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Eminem and just see what happens. It may be a disaster, it could be fantastic, but you don't know until you try." John claims to be a big fan of Blackstreet's 1996 hit, No Diggity. He is currently working on the upcoming album.

Other memorable concert projects in the decade have so far included Face-to-Face tours with fellow pianist Billy Joel which have been a fan favourite throughout the world since the mid-1990s.

In October 2003, John announced that he had signed an exclusive agreement to perform 75 shows over three years at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. The show, entitled The Red Piano, was a multimedia concert featuring massive props and video montages created by David LaChapelle. Effectively, he and Celine Dion share performances at Caesar's Palace throughout the year - while one performs, one rests. The first of these shows took place on 13 February 2004. On 21 June 2008, he performed his 200th show in Caesars Palace.

In a September 2008 interview with GQ magazine, Elton John said: "I’m going on the road again with Billy Joel again next year" -- confirming that the two piano-playing legends would be reuniting for more Face to Face concerts in 2009.

In 2007, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated John's wealth to be £225 million and ranked him as the 319th richest British person.

John does not have any children, but does have ten godchildren as of March 2006. Besides the aforementioned Sean Ono Lennon, these include Elizabeth Hurley's son Damian Charles and David and Victoria Beckham's sons Brooklyn and Romeo.

Within the music industry, John is sometimes known as "Sharon", a nickname originally given to him by good friend Rod Stewart. In return, Elton calls Rod "Phyllis."

Aside from his main home, 'Woodside' at Old Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, John splits his time in his various residences in Atlanta, Nice, Holland Park in London and Venice.

John is an art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

During a 2000 court case, in which John sued both his former manager John Reid, the CEO of Reid's company and accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, he admitted spending £30 million in just under two years — an average of £1.5 million a month, the High Court in London heard. The singer's lavish lifestyle saw him spend more than £9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers between January 1996 and September 1997. John accused the pair of being negligent, and PwC of failing in their duties. After losing the case, he faced an £8 million bill for legal fees.

Every year since 2004, he has opened a shop, selling his second hand clothes. Called "Elton's Closet" the sale this year of 10,000 items was expected to raise $400,000.

Elton John said he would ban religion. In 2006 he told the Observer newspaper's Music Monthly Magazine:

“	From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.

More Elton John

David Bowie

David at 17 years old

Space Oddity

Changes

Ziggy Stardust

Five Years

Rebel Rebel

Fame

Heroes
(Bing Crosby Special)

Heroes
(Top of the Pops)

Ashes to Ashes

Under Pressure
w/Queen

Wild is the Wind

Let's Dance

China Girl

Modern Love

Blue Jean

This is Not America

Jump They Say

Hallo Spaceboy
w/ Pet Shop Boys

Little Wonder

I'm Afraid of Americans
ft. Nine Inch Nails

Wake Up
w/ Arcade Fire

David Bowie, born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of rock music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians. Bowie is also known for his distinctive baritone voice.

Although he released an album and numerous singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the Apollo program-inspired "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK singles chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomized a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low – the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. Arguably his most experimental works to date, the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK Top Five.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topper "Under Pressure", but consolidated his commercial – and, until then, most profitable – sound in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love".

In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time.

FYI

When Bowie was fifteen years old, his friend, George Underwood, wearing a ring on his finger, punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. Bowie was forced to stay out of school for eight months so that doctors could conduct operations to repair his potentially blinded eye. Doctors could not fully repair the damage, leaving his pupil permanently dilated. As a result of the injury, Bowie has faulty depth perception. Bowie has stated that although he can see with his injured eye, his colour vision was mostly lost and a brownish tone is constantly present. Each iris has the same blue colour, but since the pupil of the injured eye is wide open, the hue of that eye is commonly mistaken to be different. Despite the fight, Underwood and Bowie remained good friends, and Underwood went on to do the artwork for Bowie's earlier albums.

During the early 1960s, Bowie was performing either under his own name or the stage name "Davie Jones", and briefly even as "Davy Jones", creating confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees. To avoid this, in 1966 he chose "Bowie" for his stage name, after the Alamo hero Jim Bowie and his famous Bowie knife.

Influenced by the dramatic arts, he studied with Lindsay Kemp (in the 60s) — from avant-garde theatre and mime to Commedia dell'arte — and much of his subsequent work would involve the creation of characters or personae to present to the world.

Bowie further explored his androgynous persona in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust.
The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red hair and wild outfits.

Around the same time (1972) Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout Max's Kansas City: former Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough Transformer was produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson; and Iggy Pop, whose band, The Stooges, signed with Bowie's management, MainMan Productions, to record their third album, Raw Power. Though he was not present for the tracking of the album, Bowie later performed its much-debated mix. Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed's Transformer, and Iggy's The Idiot.

1975's Young Americans was Bowie's definitive exploration of Philly soul—though he himself referred to the sound ironically as "plastic soul." It contained his first #1 hit in the US, "Fame", co-written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals). One of the backing vocalists on the album is a young Luther Vandross, who also co-wrote some of the material for Young Americans.

Another violently paranoid appearance on ABC's The Dick Cavett Show (1974, 5 December) seemed to confirm rumours of Bowie's heavy cocaine use at this time.

Station to Station (1976) featured a darker version of his soul persona, called "The Thin White Duke". Visually the figure was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the character Bowie portrayed in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
By this time, Bowie had become heavily dependent on drugs, particularly cocaine. His sanity—by his own later admission—became twisted from cocaine: he overdosed several times during the year. Additionally, Bowie was withering physically after having lost an alarming amount of weight.

In 1980, Bowie did an about-face, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, Heroes, and Lodger while expanding upon them with chart success. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the #1 hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The imagery Bowie used in the song's music video gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement and, with many of the followers of this phase being devotees, Bowie visited the London club "Blitz" — the main New Romantic hangout — to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the video, renowned as being one of the most innovative of all time.

By 1980 Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, curbed the drug abuse of the "Thin White Duke" era, and radically changed his concept of the way music should be written.

In 1981, Queen released "Under Pressure", co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third UK #1 single.

Bowie scored his first truly commercial blockbuster with Let's Dance in 1983, a slick dance album co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers. The title track went to #1 in the United States and United Kingdom. The album also featured the singles "Modern Love" and "China Girl", the latter causing something of a stir due to its suggestive promotional video.

1984's Tonight bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit "Blue Jean" whose complete video - the 21-minute short film "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" - reflected Bowie's long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short Form Music Video.

Bowie's final solo album of the 80s was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his two earlier albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. Although a commercial success, it drew some of the harshest criticism of Bowie's career, condemned by some critics as a "faceless" piece of product. Bowie himself later described it as "my nadir" and "an awful album".

In August 1988, Bowie portrayed Pontius Pilate in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ.

In September 1995, Bowie began the Outside Tour . In a move that was equally lauded and ridiculed by Bowie fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch Nails as the tour partner; Trent Reznor also contributed a remix of the Outside song "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" for its single release.

On 17 January 1996, Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eleventh annual induction ceremony.

Receiving some of the strongest critical response since Let's Dance was Earthling (1997), which incorporated experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass and included a single released over the Internet, called "Telling Lies"; other singles included "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking". There was a corresponding world tour, which was fairly successful.

Bowie's track in the Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls, "I'm Afraid of Americans" was remixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The video's heavy rotation (also featuring Reznor) contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100.

In 2003, a report in the Sunday Express named Bowie as the second-richest entertainer in the UK (behind Sir Paul McCartney), with an estimated fortune of £510 million. However, the 2005 Sunday Times Rich List credited him with a little over £100 million.

In September 2003, Bowie released a new album, Reality, and announced a world tour. 'A Reality Tour' was the best-selling tour of the following year. However, it was cut short after Bowie suffered chest pain while performing on stage at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany, on 25 June 2004. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked artery; an emergency angioplasty was performed at St. Georg Hospital in Hamburg by Dr Karl Heinz Kuck. He was discharged in early July 2004 and continued to spend time recovering. Bowie later admitted he had suffered a minor heart attack, resulting from years of heavy smoking and touring. The tour was cancelled for the time being, with hopes that he would go back on tour by August, though this did not materialise. He recuperated back in New York City.

David Bowie finally returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, alongside Arcade Fire, for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, his first gig since the heart attack. Bowie has shown interest in the Montreal band since he was seen at one of their shows in New York City nearly a year earlier. Bowie had requested the band to perform at the show, and together they performed the Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up" from their album Funeral, as well as Bowie's own "Five Years" and "Life on Mars?".

On 8 February 2006, David Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In a 2002 interview with Blender, he was posed with this question: "You once said that saying you were bisexual was 'the biggest mistake I ever made'. Do you still believe that?" His response:

Interesting. [Long pause] I don’t think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that [bisexuality] became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.

More David Bowie

Chaka Khan

Tell Me Something Good
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P23WCKgZGgo

Sweet Thing
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqzIArLPDDA

Do You Love What You Feel?
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg1OSK1nXDc

Hollywood
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2vrcrbPm7Q

Once You Get Started
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldRl9UqJEV8

Little Boy Blue
Rufus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4n8QLXOBUc

I'm Every Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnXRI1Ce19Q

Clouds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CTf8OAZqv8

What Cha' Gonna Do For Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLCJkmgOp4

Night In Tunisia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emR8gVhntEI

Ain't Nobody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeKFA-IWTp0

I Feel For You
no audio avail. on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgE4qOxW8kU

Through The Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNLQ_hvWQh4

I'll Be Good To You
w/Ray Charles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rDHFXdUPLQ

Love You All My Lifetime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdZR5Vw-okk&feature=related

It Ain't All Good
w/De La Soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhFHn5wB3s

What's Going On
w/The Funk Brothers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZTRUpALajc

The National Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfff2H-jY8&feature=related

Walk With Me Lord
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICxKhtC_TY

I'm Still Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezsndnHTixM&feature=related

The End of a Love Affair
w/Herbie Hancock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9PSpZOnXTo&feature=related

Hey Big Spender
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3FWJCgWGk

Reading Rainbow theme song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABOVPcTMrWQ



FYI

Chaka Khan (born March 23, 1953) is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American singer known for hit songs such as "I'm Every Woman", "I Feel For You" and "Through the Fire". She also sung the theme song for the hit children's TV show, Reading Rainbow.

She was first featured as a member of the funk band Rufus before beginning her solo career.

Though regarded as an R&B singer, she has performed numerous musical genres including funk, disco, jazz, ballads, hip hop, adult contemporary, pop and blues standards.
Her contributions to funk and soul music in her early career earned her the title of the "Queen of Funk Soul"

Kahn is known for her perfectly pitched contralto vocals.

Chaka Khan was born Yvette Marie Stevens. She adopted the African name "Chaka" while working as a volunteer on the Black Panthers' Free Breakfast for Children program in Chicago.

At the age of 11 she formed her first group, the Crystalettes.

Chaka's fortunes changed when she teamed with ex-American Breed member Kevin Murphy and Andre Fischer to form Rufus. In the meantime, she married bass guitarist Hassan Khan.

By decade's (70s) end, Rufus was among the most successful funk groups, rivaling the popularity of Earth Wind & Fire & The Commodores, among others.
With the help of Stevie Wonder, Rufus broke into both the pop music and R&B charts in 1974 with the gold-selling hit "Tell Me Something Good".

Rufus earned eight platinum albums and three gold singles before Khan went solo full time in 1980.

On December 3, 2004, Chaka Khan received an honorary doctorate degree from Berklee College of Music. She is also active in the autism community, as she has family members who have been diagnosed with this condition.

For more on Chaka Khan: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaka_Khan

Barry White

Walkin' In the Rain With the One I Love
Love Unlimited
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJtQbajGElk

Love's Theme
Love Unlimited Orchestra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3S6UVS2JDE&feature=related

I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN38uI2oKkA

I've Got So Much To Give
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXur958KRAQ

Can't Get Enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXvHRnGe940

You're the First, the Last, My Everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS2Fve72AZg

Never, Never Gonna Give You Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4_M5PcJQmU

The Secret Garden
various artists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE0WmzYjchs

All Around the World
w/Lisa Stansfield
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR_kO6gbIMo

Practice What You Preach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbIp-KO11QE


Barry Eugene White (born Barrence Eugene Carter, September 12, 1944(1944-09-12) – July 4, 2003) was an American record producer, songwriter and singer.
A multiple Grammy Award-winner known for his deep bass voice and romantic image, White's greatest success came in the 1970s with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring hit soul and disco songs. Worldwide, White had many gold and platinum albums and singles, with combined sales of over 100 million, according to critics Ed Hogan and Wade Kergan.

White was born in Galveston, Texas and grew up in the high-crime areas of South Central Los Angeles, where he joined a gang at the age of 10. At 17, he was jailed for four months for stealing $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires.

While in prison, White listened to Elvis Presley singing "It's Now or Never" on the radio, an experience he later credited with changing the course of his life.
After his release, he left gang life and began a musical career at the dawn of the 1960s in singing groups before going out on his own in the middle of the decade.
He was responsible in 1963 for arranging "Harlem Shuffle" for Bob & Earl, which became a hit in the UK in 1969.

In August 1969, he got his break producing a girl group called Love Unlimited. Formed in imitation of the legendary Motown girl group The Supremes, the group members honed their talents with White for the next two years until they all signed contracts with 20th Century Records.
White produced, wrote and arranged the classic soul ballad "Walking in the Rain (With The One I Love)", which hit the Top 20 of the pop charts. The group would score more hits throughout the '70s and White eventually married the lead singer of the group, Glodean James.

While working on a few demos for a male singer, the record label suggested White step out in front of the microphone, to which he reluctantly agreed.
His first solo chart hit, 1973's "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby", rose to #1 R&B and #3 Pop. That same year, the Love Unlimited Orchestra's recording of White's composition "Love's Theme" reached #1 Pop in 1974, one of only two instrumental recordings ever to do so. Some regard "Love's Theme" as the first disco hit ever.

Other chart hits by White include "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" (1973), "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" (1974) and "You're the First, the Last, My Everything" (1974).

Although White's success on the pop charts slowed down as the disco era came to an end, he maintained a loyal following throughout his career. In the 1990s, he mounted an effective comeback with the albums The Icon Is Love (1994), whose biggest hit, "Practice What You Preach" reached the top of the charts.
In addition, his music was often featured on the sitcom Ally McBeal and he appeared on the show twice.

Barry White had been ill with chronically high blood pressure for some time, which resulted in kidney failure in the autumn of 2002. He suffered a stroke in May 2003, after which he was forced to retire from public life.
On 4 July, 2003, he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from renal failure. White was cremated, and his ashes were scattered by his family off the California coast.

On 20 September, 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony held in New York.

White's recordings featured a distinctive sound that combined orchestral instrumentation (string section, woodwinds, horns, harpsichords, etc.) with a steady drumbeat and as many as five electric guitars. His arrangements were influential on the emerging sound of disco music in the early 1970s.
A distinctive feature of White's music was the steamy spoken introductions and interludes that appeared in many of his songs.

Over the course of his career White occasionally did work as a voice actor.
He was featured in several episodes of The Simpsons.
White had been offered the chance to play the voice of Chef in the cartoon series South Park (who had been modeled after White), but declined; as a devout Christian, White was uncomfortable with South Park's often irreverent humor. The part was eventually played by Isaac Hayes.

(Wikipedia)

Ray Charles

Georgia on My Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnaUP2n9swk

Ring of Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhGZdSkX6IM

America The Beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOHoN-8ibsY

Till There Was You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7FB7yKmW0Q

A Song For You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXGc0OoZEsM

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his stage name Ray Charles, was an American pianist and singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues. He brought a soulful sound to country music, pop standards, and a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes called the "definitive version of the song, an American anthem — a classic, just as the man who sung it."

Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in the business" and in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Charles #10 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

(Wikipedia)