Ted Nugent Targets Detroit for 6,000th Concert

Guitarist, radical Republican and firearm fan Ted Nugent will celebrate his 6,000th concert with a July 4th performance in his hometown of Detroit. That's a lot of "Stranglehold." The bash is the centerpiece of the self-coined "Summer of Ted," a season that will also feature everyone's favorite NRA board member pimping an already-released DVD and book as well as making his feature film debut. Discussing why he chose to perform in Detroit as opposed to a place with better hunting or more fervent conservative beliefs, the Nuge said, "Michiganiacs demand maximum excellence — they are the ultimate demanding and discerning audience in the world. This show is going to be a mountain top that most musicians can only fantasize about." As for that movie role, Nugent will appear in the much anticipated Beer For My Horses, co-starring fellow musicians Toby Keith and Willie Nelson.

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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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