David Clark brings his tribute show Yellow Brick Joel to Coral Springs celebrating the music of Billy Joel

Coral Springs, Florida – David Clark still remembers the exact moment that music shifted for him. He was 10 years old in 1977, a young piano student already several years into lessons, when Billy Joel’s The Stranger hit the airwaves. For Clark, it was nothing short of a revelation.

“I didn’t want to read music,” Clark said. “I didn’t want to read the dots on a page. So I’d go by ear and I’d listen to him – to what he did.” That moment set the trajectory of his musical journey, steering him away from traditional sheet music and toward an intuitive, ear-driven approach that would shape his career for decades.

Fans of classic piano-driven rock will have a chance to experience Clark’s passion firsthand when his nationally touring tribute show, Yellow Brick Joel, comes to the Coral Springs Center for the Arts on Friday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 p.m. The concert celebrates the music of Billy Joel and, more recently, Elton John, capturing the spirit of two of rock’s most enduring icons.

Clark, a native of Long Island, recalls Joel as more than a musical inspiration — he was a local phenomenon. Living just minutes from Nassau Coliseum, where Joel frequently performed, Clark grew up surrounded by the energy and culture that defined Joel’s Long Island roots.

“He was my musical influence,” Clark said. “He was my musical role model, no doubt about it.”

He laughs as he describes the cultural nuances of growing up in Joel’s shadow. “It’s definitely a Long Island thing,” Clark said. “We have that Long Island sort of wise assery, that drawl, that kind of wise guy thing.” That mix of humor, grit, and musicality, Clark says, has informed his own performances ever since.

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For decades, Clark’s career in music took a different path. He spent 40 years running a wedding and events entertainment business in New York, booking bands, DJs, and musicians for weddings, corporate events, and private parties. “I crushed that,” he said, acknowledging the hard work and dedication required to make a business thrive in a competitive industry.

Yet the pull of Joel’s music remained strong. In 2011, Clark launched a Billy Joel tribute as a side project — a hobby alongside his primary business. “It started off as a handful of events and a handful of concerts per year,” he said.

Over time, what began as a casual endeavor began to grow. By 2021, the project’s popularity had accelerated. “Over the past three years, it’s become super massive,” Clark said. “It just exploded.” He attributes the surge in part to the nationwide rise of tribute shows, which audiences have embraced for their nostalgic appeal and live energy. “People want to come to these things,” he said. “People love these shows.”

Eventually, the success of the tribute project prompted a major career shift. Clark made the decision to step away from weddings entirely. “I feel weird about a guy in his 50s playing at a wedding for a bride who’s 28,” he explained. “I didn’t want to be that guy.” In 2024, he played his final wedding and committed fully to touring with Yellow Brick Joel.

Today, Clark leads the show as it tours across the country, with frequent stops in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia, and New England. The show later evolved to incorporate Elton John’s music, inspired by Joel and John’s legendary “Face to Face” tours in the 1990s and 2000s.

“It didn’t start out as a Billy Elton thing,” Clark said. “It started out for me as just a straight-up Billy Joel show and evolved into this.”

Clark shares the stage with Bill Connors, an Elton John tribute artist from Savannah, Georgia. The concert alternates between solo performances and collaborative pieces, culminating in what Clark describes as a “blazing head-to-head thing” that highlights the best of both musical worlds.

The audience is often made up of fans Clark’s age, nostalgic for the music of their youth, but he frequently sees younger generations in attendance. “It’s nice to see a 9-year-old know all the words to ‘My Life,’” he said. “I like that.” For him, witnessing the music resonate across age groups is a testament to the enduring appeal of Joel and John.

At this stage in his life, Clark says the experience carries a deeper meaning than he ever anticipated. “It’s this weird sort of like coming full circle in my life and in my career,” he said. “These songs are important to me. This music is culturally important to me.”

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Performing night after night, for audiences across the country, Clark has found a sense of purpose and fulfillment that extends beyond entertainment. “It means everything to me,” he said, reflecting on a journey that began with a 10-year-old boy listening intently to Joel’s piano riffs and has now led to sold-out shows and nationwide acclaim.

For the residents of Coral Springs, the opportunity to experience Clark’s homage to Billy Joel and Elton John is a rare treat. With a mix of nostalgia, virtuosity, and local flair, Yellow Brick Joel promises to deliver a performance that both honors the past and energizes the present.

From the streets of Long Island to stages across the nation, David Clark’s story is one of passion, perseverance, and the transformative power of music. On Feb. 27, Coral Springs audiences will see firsthand how a lifelong devotion to piano, pop, and rock can culminate in a show that is as entertaining as it is culturally resonant.

For Clark, and for the fans who have followed him from the early days of his tribute project, it’s more than a concert. It’s a celebration of the music that shaped a generation, a love letter to two iconic artists, and a full-circle moment in a remarkable musical journey.