Piano Man is a rock album by Billy Joel, released in 1973.
Piano Man, Joel's second album and his first with Columbia Records, emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album. However, the Family Productions print logo was still used until 1986.
The album was strongly influenced by Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection and has a western theme in much of the music and lyrics. Lyrically, this is most noticeable in "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", musically in "Captain Jack", "Stop in Nevada", and instrumentally in "Travelin' Prayer."
The single "Piano Man", a fictionalized retelling of Joel's days as a lounge singer in Los Angeles, peaked at #25 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, and at #4 on the Adult Contemporary singles chart. "Travelin' Prayer" and "Worse Comes to Worst" peaked at #77 and #80, respectively, on the Pop Singles chart, while the album hit #27 on the Pop Albums chart. ("Travelin' Prayer" would later earn Dolly Parton a Grammy, when she covered it in 1999.)