By the time Spencer Stanley was born in 2003 in East Lyme, Conn., it had already been 10 years since Billy Joel released his last full-length pop album, “River of Dreams.”
Now the enthusiastic 23-year-old is on a national tour leading The Billy Joel Legacy, a multi-media tribute to the Piano Man, which will take over Davenport’s Adler Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026 at 7 p.m.
The son of a musician and actress, he began singing, acting, and drumming at an early age before learning Joel's “Piano Man” and never looking back. Since then, he hasn't left the piano; writing hundreds of songs and developing a musical inspired by his family's migration to America in the 1950s.
“The first song I ever learned on the piano was ‘Piano Man’ (at age 7), and after that my dad taught me that first one, then I wanted nothing to do with him,” Stanley said in a WVIK interview Friday, Oct. 2. “So I did everything by ear, and I listened to Billy Joel and Elton John, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and all these influences that really, play a humongous part in my performance from night to night. But I have been consuming this guy's music. It's in my blood. Like, it's a part of me.”
His dad is a choir director, and music director for musicals, and his mom does directing and choreography. But Billy Joel is his father’s favorite pop artist to ever live, “and he passed that to me,” Stanley said.
In 2025, he graduated from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, having studied Musical Theater with a concentration in Composition and Music Direction.
His proudest accomplishments include performing at Carnegie Hall, the Goodspeed Opera House, and at venues across the country as the lead singer of the Billy Joel Legacy. Some of his favorite roles are Chad in “All Shook Up” (Mac-Haydn Theater) Anthony in “Sweeney Todd” (Black Rock Theater) and Nostradamus in “Something Rotten” (CCM).
He also received a Berkshire Critics Association Award for his performance as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in "Guys & Dolls," and was fortunate enough to be featured as a finalist in Taylor Louderman’s “Write Out Loud” contest, where one of his original songs was sung by a Broadway performer at 54 Below.
“I think my two favorite artists to ever live are Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder. So I pull a lot of R&B influences into -- Billy Joel is known for being an artist who wears all of his influences on his sleeve,” Stanley said. “So he's got Motown, rhythm and blues, blues as it is. I think what's been very attractive to me the more that I just immerse myself in his discography is that he has a lot of show tune influences, a lot of Tin Pan Alley stuff, a lot of Gershwin, Cole Porter influences that just fit my fingers really well.”
“The Stranger” a favorite record
His favorite Joel album is the 1977 classic, “The Stranger,” which spawned four Top 40 singles (“Movin’ Out,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Only the Good Die Young” and “She’s Always A Woman”).
“I have such a soft spot for every track in that album. Even ‘Everybody Has a Dream’ or ‘Get It Right the First Time.’ are like the two lesser-known songs in the album, but they're fantastic songs,” Stanley said. “I, of course, I just love everything on there. And it's a shame, I hate to say that the song ‘The Stranger’ is not in the show. It's really tough, but I love that album with my whole heart.”
Like Billy Joel did in Los Angeles at 23 and 24 (where he was inspired to write “Piano Man”), Stanley makes most of his income as a piano bar player.
“I do it in Connecticut as well where I'm from, but mostly in New York City, and that's just my greatest passion in the world,” he said. “I really, I don't care if there's 10 people or no one watching, like I just love sitting at the piano and doing my thing. I feel more comfortable there than anywhere in the world.”
Like the original “Piano Man,” he learned to play harmonica for the current tour, which he hadn’t before.
Stanley can understand why Joel confined his pop songwriting to about 20 years, through 1993’s “River of Dreams” (his 12th studio album) then stopped but continued to tour.
“I think he didn't want to dilute his discography,” he said. I don't think he meant it as an insult, but he— I think in an interview he said that he didn't want to— there's a lot of artists that have 50, 60 years of a discography, and towards the end, it's not the best music in the world. So I think he can stand firmly by the albums that he made and say, this is what I have to offer. And it's really— there's nothing like it.”
The Billy Joel Legacy: A Tribute Experience is more than a concert. Through live performances, cinematic multimedia, and captivating narration, audiences will journey through the defining moments of Billy Joel's life to discover the people, places, and experiences that inspired some of the greatest songs ever written.
He got hired for the tribute tour (which started in mid-September), after submitting an audition video after graduation.
“And part of my senior presentation after graduating college for agents was ‘New York State of Mind’,” Stanley said of the Joel 1976 classic. “And so I submitted that to the casting directors for this project, and I went for a callback in the city, and I did it for the directors and some producers. And now I am living my dream and performing my favorite artist's music across the country.”
He alternates the lead singing/playing role on tour with Ian Benjamin, who’s in his 30s, and they’re performing through Nov. 8 in California.
“The thing I love about this band and this group is that we treat the Billy role, we treat it as like a chair,” Stanley said. “Ian brings things to it that I could never do, and I think vice versa. He's in his mid-30s, and I have so much to learn in terms of crowd work because he is one of the greatest piano men there are. I mean, that's what he does for a living, and he really knows how to work a crowd. And we each bring different things to the role, which I think is really exciting, and it's never the same performance every single night.”
“We're not trying to impersonate anything, but I try to capture Billy's energy on stage the best that I can,” he added. “These people in Davenport are in for a treat in terms of just seeing how crazy I am. Like, the way I run across the stage and jump on things and work with the crowd, and I'll never be able to emulate Billy's energy. I'm certainly not trying to. And I think it's exciting that a youthful person is bringing something to this role and to this music that is timeless.”
Of the 20 songs in the show, Stanley said his favorite is the hard-rocking “Big Shot,” from 1978’s “52nd Street.”
“The band is just like, we have this like simultaneous pulse throughout the entire song, and I'm getting up from the piano and kicking the bench back and like slamming on the keys,” Stanley said. “So I particularly love that I can do a song like that or ‘It’s Still Rock and Roll’ and then sing a song like ‘Vienna’ or just the ballads and having the opportunity to hit both of those polar opposites is such a joy.”
Connecting with multi-generational audiences
“The music of Billy Joel has an incredible ability to connect with audiences across generations,” says show creator and director Dean Elliott. “Whether you grew up with these songs or you're hearing them for the first time, they tell stories that feel deeply personal. We wanted audiences to experience the journey behind the music and celebrate one of the greatest songbooks ever written.”
Audiences will sing along to beloved classics including "Piano Man," "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," "New York State of Mind," "Uptown Girl," "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," "Vienna," "We Didn't Start the Fire," and many more. Enhanced by multimedia projections, the production celebrates the songs that defined generations while revealing the stories that made them timeless.
Joel has sold more than 160 million records worldwide, won six Grammy Awards, and been inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
The event is not just a concert, but incorporates narration throughout talking about his life, stories about the creation of songs, photos and video, Stanley said. “But it truly is an immersive experience in that sense. that we use all those different elements,” he said. “It's not just a concert.”
“Even though this music has always been in my blood, I kind of got to like revisit it again for the first time. So that was really a gift to remind myself like truly why I'm doing what I'm doing,” Stanley said. “He is my artistic torch. Like, I think revisiting it as a songwriter especially, I think like I knew the tunes my entire life, but looking at the lyrics again, having to memorize all of these songs, because they're always in the brain but not every single word.
"I had an appreciation for the poet that he was, and it still amazes me to this day that he didn't graduate high school and didn't pass English— was the class he didn't pass. Which is so funny because he just has a way with words that no one else could ever match.”
He really appreciates the line in “Only the Good Die Young,” where Joel sings: “You said your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation. She didn't care for me, but did she ever say a prayer for me?”
“That's just so smart. He's so quippy as well as being like a heady poet,” Stanley said, noting doing a tribute show like this is so important now because Joel cannot tour, at 77, just having had brain surgery to treat normal pressure hydrocephalus. He was diagnosed with that in 2025, leading to problems with his hearing, vision, and balance, and cancelling all his upcoming planned concerts.
“I think Billy's music has stood the test of time because he pulls from so many influences that are at the core of America's cultural zeitgeist,” Stanley said. “He has an album like ‘An Innocent Man’ that is plays homage to doo-wop. And he has had a revival on social media. Songs like ‘Vienna’ and ‘Zanzibar’ have gone crazy viral. Because I also think because there's such— people now are craving authenticity, and Billy Joel says exactly who he is in his music.
“Young people might listen to this lyric and they're like, whoa, that like touched something in me,” he added. “And I think it really resonates with younger audiences. And I think that is why the people need to see this, hear this music and see a show like this.”
On tour, the audience often sings along, of course including “Piano Man,” Stanley said.
“We try to get the audience to sing as much as humanly possible. Especially in ‘Piano Man,’ there may or may not be a verse that the audience gets to sing all by themselves,” he said.
Stanley got to see Joel in concert in 2024, in one of his last Madison Square Garden residency shows. Joel played MSG 150 times over his career, the most of any artist at the fabled venue.
“I was amazed at what he was doing away from the piano, honestly. Like still rock and rolling,” he said. “Seeing him live, like, there's nothing like it. I'd been waiting for that moment my entire life. And seeing him do it in person was just unlike anything I've ever seen.”
Tickets for “The Billy Joel Legacy” concert are $57.85, $71.25 and $81.50, available at the Adler Theatre box office (136 E. 3rd St., Davenport) or online HERE.
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