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Billy Joel Research Paper

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At a Rolling Stone interview, Billy Joel once said, “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music”. William Martin Joel, also known as Billy Joel, was born into a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York on May 9, 1949. Although it was Billy Joel’s father, Howard who was a well known classical pianist, it was actually his mother who encouraged Billy Joel to pursue a hobby in studying piano, at a tender age of four. Surprisingly, at the age of sixteen, Joel had already participated in 3 bands. ("Billy Joel Biography." 27 Apr., https://www.biography.com/people/billy-joel-9354859. Accessed 27 Feb. 2018.). Even though Joel …show more content…

Growing up he was raised in a Christian home in Hicksville, Long Island. As a Jewish child growing up in an Italian neighborhood, people were anti semitic towards him, such as people would tant him and say “you’re going to grow up and have horns on your head”. As a naive young boy he believed this talk and “for months afterwards Joel would obsessively check his temples for signs of horns coming in” (shear, david, 2011). Although Joel was not raised in a Jewish home, a week after the violent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville in 2017, he wore a yellow Jewish star on his shirt, to a concert, to symbolize and mourn the many innocent Jews that were murdered by the Nazis. Joel wanted the neo-Nazis to fathom the fact that even he, a secular celebrity and multimillionaire, would still be a victim of the Holocaust, because he was Jewish. Back then, in 1941, the Nazis made the Jews wear the yellow star to stand out, while now Billy Joel choose to wear the star in public and said, “I am not hiding. I can't hide, come and get me” (Carroll, Andrew S., 29 Aug. 2017). The gesture of wearing the Jewish star might have also been on a personal level, he has acknowledged the fact that he is Jewish and is proud to be an offspring of a Holocaust survivor- his father. To conclude, as a child, Billy Joel had a hard life as a Jew,

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Joel watched The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan show, after seeing the show Joel dropped out of high school to start writing and performing songs. His first album was called “Cold Spring Harbor”. The album didn 't do as well as he had wanted (Biography.com Editors). When Joel first started making hit songs in the seventies and eighties his only competition was Elton John (Serpick). In the year 1992, Joel was accepted into the Songwriters Hall of

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