"Piano Man" was Billy Joel

Billy Joel

William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...

's first major hit and his signature song

Signature song

A signature song is the one song that a popular and well-established singer or band is most closely identified with or best known for, even if they have had success with a variety of songs...

. "Piano Man" was released as a single in November 1st, 1973 and has been on several albums. The song peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart in April, 1974.
"Piano Man" is a fictionalized retelling of Joel's experience as a piano-lounge singer in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 at the Executive Lounge and Joel has stated that all of the characters depicted in the song were based on real people.