Columbia/Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, is commemorating forty years of Billy Joel's career as a solo recording artist with a pair of historic releases--a limited edition Billy Joel - The Complete Albums Collection boxed set and a two-disc Legacy Edition of 1973's Piano Man album (exclusively featuring a long-lost fabled radio concert from 1972)--each appealing to aficionados of the iconic American singer-songwriter-performer.

Billy Joel - The Complete Albums Collection brings together for the first time, in one elegantly designed box, the artist's complete catalog of 14 essential titles, from 1971's Cold Spring Harbor through 1979's Grammy-winning Album of The Year 52nd Street and 1981's live Songs In The Attic to 2001's Fantasies & Delusions, the first album of Billy's classical compositions. Each album has been recently remastered in 24 bit audio for this edition and comes in cardboard jackets replicating the original album covers and sleeves.

The Legacy Edition of Piano Man, Billy Joel's 1973 debut album on Columbia Records, includes the 10-song original album in its entirety, remastered for this release in addition to a second disc premiering the first-ever release of Billy's mythic performance at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studio on April 15, 1972 (a year prior to his signing with Columbia). Philadelphia Daily News music writer Jon Takiff, an eye-witness to the event, has penned a new essay on the Sigma Sound show for the Legacy Edition of Piano Man.

The release and failure of a flawed Cold Spring Harbor, his first solo album, on an indie label in 1971 prompted then-struggling musician Billy Joel to go to Los Angeles and cut-his-chops incognito in local piano bars as Bill Martin (chronicled in Piano Man's title track). Unbeknown to Billy, WMMR, a top-rated Philadelphia FM station, had begun spinning "Captain Jack," a live track from a Billy Joel show they'd recorded at Sigma Sound, and the station's phones were going off-the-hook. The "Captain Jack" live recording was turning into a bonafide underground FM anthem, opening the door for a New York audition, competing major label interest, and a Columbia Records contract for the song's author and performer.

The Legacy Edition of Piano Man makes available, for the first time ever, Billy's full performance at Sigma Sound, re-mixed from the original studio recording. The concert includes three Billy Joel songs - "Long, Long Time," "Josephine," and "Rosalinda"- which do not appear on any other albums by the artist and, of course, the performance of "Captain Jack" which launched one of the most remarkable careers in show business. The legendary Sigma Sound performance is available exclusively on the new Legacy Edition of Piano Man (and is not included on The Complete Albums Collection).