Billy Joel ranks among rock and roll's most talented musicians and accomplished songwriters. His classical training and reverence for Broadway musicals have been counterpointed by his early grounding in the Long Island bar-band scene and his love of rhythm & blues, resulting in an enthusiastic yet musically sophisticated approach to rock and roll. His diverse influences include Beethoven, the Beatles, Dave Brubeck, George Gershwin, Phil Spector, Ray Charles and Fats Domino, whom Joel inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986. From romantic balladry to hard-rocking material, with elements of jazz, pop and soul thrown into the mix, Joel has applied his skills in a diversity of settings. He is the pop crooner of "Piano Man" and the jazz-tinged romantic of "Just the Way You Are." Yet he's also capable of harder-rocking fare (Glass Houses), production-heavy pop with a Sixties influence (The Nylon Curtain) and vocal-group soul and doo-wop (An Innocent Man).