By the summer of 1977, Billy Joel was hanging on to his Columbia Records contract by a tiny thread. "Piano Man" may have been a fluke radio hit in 1973, but he'd never sold many albums and his prior effort, 1976's Turnstiles, peaked at a pathetic Number 122. "You have to imagine them sitting there with a
This article originally appeared on www.rollingstone.com: Billy Joel’s ‘The Stranger’ at 40: A Track-by-Track Guide