Billy Joel became an American trailblazer in the Soviet Union when he played a half dozen shows in Moscow and Leningrad in the summer of 1987.
The prior year, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost to his nation which loosened restrictions on criticizing the government, learning about problematic Russian history, and allowed for news and media to reach the people.
“He was a fan of Elvis Presley, he liked rock ’n’ roll,” Jim Brown, the producer of the Soviet rock documentary said of Gorbachev. “He felt rock was for young people and that young people wanted rock ’n’ roll.”
The Piano Man wasn’t the first American artist to rock on Soviet soil, that honor goes to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who was sent over in 1979 by the scheming President Jimmy Carter who thought the music would help bring peace to the (cold) warring countries.
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