William Martin Joel born May 9 1949 is an American musician singersongwriter and composer Commonly nicknamed the Piano Man after his first major hit and signature song of the same name as well as the similarly named 1973 album he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s having released 12 studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001 He is one of the bestselling music artists of all time as well as the seventhbestselling recording artist and the fourthbestselling solo artist in the United States with over 160 million records sold worldwide His 1985 compilation album Greatest Hits Vol 1 2 is one of the bestselling albums in the United States From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia