Brian Wilson to Headline Newport Folk Festival

The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson has added a pair of U.S. live dates as he gears up for the September 2nd release of That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative). First, Wilson will visit New York's Coney Island on July 17th for the 30th Annual Seaside Summer Concert Series. Two weeks later, the singer will join Trey Anastasio, Cat Power, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and many more at this year's Newport Folk Festival on August 1st, where he'll headline the fest's opening night. Wilson's U.S. visit will also find him performing at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom in June and doing a three-night run at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl. That Lucky Old Sun, a collaboration between Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, first made its debut in September 2007 at London's Royal Festival Hall. The album also reunites Wilson with Capitol Records, the original home of the Beach Boys.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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