Lou Pearlman Indicted On Five Counts of Fraud

After his much-publicized capture in Bali and detainment in Guam, boy band impresario Lou Pearlman was finally indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida yesterday. Pearlman is accused of using fake accounting documents to secure millions of dollars in bank loans. Additionally, Florida investigators claim that Pearlman defrauded at least 1,000 independent investors out of more than $315 million; a handful of banks say he owes them more than $120 million. We're thinking these developments move Pearlman up the list of baddest Svengalis ever.

• 
  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