Warren Zevon is one of the artists nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, and a fellow Hall of Famer may have been partly responsible for his recognition. The Los Angeles Times reports that Billy Joel, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999, wrote a letter to the nominating committee campaigning for Zevon's recognition.

“I just wanted to put in my two cents of supporting Warren Zevon to be included,” Joel tells the paper. “If anyone deserved to be, he did. He was a real original, and I don’t know if that’s appreciated enough.”

Joel says he didn’t think Zevon “got the attention he deserved,” explaining, “Well, he was a piano player, and we all tend to get lumped into this thing of ‘They’re not real rock guys’ — which I don’t think is fair, but I understand why it happens. Piano is perceived to be this middle-of-the-road instrument only played by dorks.”

Joel says seeing Zevon play proved that thought wrong, noting, “He was kind of breaking the piano to pieces, little by little, which I thought was an interesting style." He added, “He banged it, and he banged it good. Even without amplifiers, he was getting the most volume he could get out of that thing.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.