Billy Joel has been added to the lineup of the 2024 Grammy Awards, set for Feb. 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Three days before that, Columbia Records will release Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On,” the veteran performer’s first new pop song in nearly two decades.
Joel is the seventh performer announced to perform on the Grammy telecast, following Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Travis Scott, Luke Combs and Burna Boy. Joel is the first of the announced performers who isn’t a current Grammy nominee.
Joel is, however, a five-time Grammy winner. He won each of the Big Three awards in a two-year span in 1979-80 – album of the year for 52nd Street and record and song of the year for “Just the Way You Are.” Joel also received a Grammy Legend Award in 1991.
Rodrigo famously name-dropped Joel in her 2022 hit “Déjà Vu” – “I’ll bet that she knows Billy Joel/’Cause you played her ‘Uptown Girl,’” a reference to Joel’s 1983 smash. It is unknown if the Grammy telecast producers will arrange any kind of interaction between the two stars, but it seems too good an opportunity to pass up.
Joel, who has scored 33 top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, co-wrote “Turn the Lights Back On” with Freddy Wexler, Arthur Bacon and Wayne Hector. Wexler also produced it. It’s Joel’s first song released with words since 2007’s “All My Life,” a lush ballad Joel wrote for his then wife, Katie Lee.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee is on the tail end of his record-breaking 10-year residency at Madison Square Garden. Joel has played the historic New York City arena once a month since January 2014, and will wrap with his 150th show in July. He continues to tour outside of the residency, including a sold-out stadium show in Tokyo on Thursday (Jan. 25).
Additional performers for the Grammy telecast will be announced.
Trevor Noah will host the Grammys for the fourth consecutive year. He, too, is a Grammy nominee. He is up for best comedy album for I Wish You Would. He’s the first Grammy host to be nominated for a Grammy that same year since Queen Latifah in 2005. Noah won a Primetime Emmy last week for outstanding talk series for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.
The 66th annual Grammy Awards will be held on Sunday, Feb. 4 from 8 to 11:30 p.m. live ET/5 to 8:30 p.m. live PT on CBS, and will stream live and on-demand on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs).
The telecast will be produced by Fulwell 73 Productions for the Recording Academy for the fourth consecutive year. Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins are executive producers.
