Justin Timberlake, Lou Reed, Billy Joel and More Recruited for Rock Hall Inductions

Justin Timberlake, Lou Reed, Billy Joel and John Fogerty are among the artists that have been recruited to induct this year's class at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony on March 10th in New York. Timberlake, who is shooting the baseball film The Open Road in Louisiana, will fly to NYC to usher Madonna into the Hall, another in a long line of collaborations (he appears on the Material Girl's "Four Minutes to Save the World," the first single from her new album Hard Candy).

In other Hall of Fame news, the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed will induct Canadian singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, while Billy Joel will welcome John Mellencamp into the Hall. Additionally, Tom Hanks will introduce the Dave Clark Five, Fogerty will induct the Ventures, Ben Harper will welcome blues great Little Walter and Jerry Butler will induct the songwriting team and Philadelphia soul pioneers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

Related Stories:
• Mellencamp Asks McCain to Stop Using Tunes
• Madonna Emerges as Big Super Bowl Winner
• Madonna Named Cash Queen of Music After $72 Million Year

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

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.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter