Pianoman

Who is Pianoman?

Pianoman is an alias of dance music producer, James Sammon from Bradford, West Yorkshire who got to number 6 in the UK Singles Chart with the hit single "Blurred" in June 1996. His follow-up to "Blurred" released on 3 Beat Records was from a Belinda Carlisle sample of "Live Your Life Be Free", entitled "Party People" and narrowly missed a place in the UK Top 40.

James used the assistance of music production engineers for the majority of the tracks that he produced. As well as his own commercial releases and remixes Sammon has worked and recorded / remixed musicians such as Ian Brown, Craig David and Donna Air. Pianoman has had many other guises, the most successful being Bass Boyz which was signed to Polydor and reached the number 74 in September 1996, with ""Gunz and Pianos".

The track "Blurred" can be found on many compilation albums including Now That's What I Call Music! 34.

The name Pianoman was first popularized by the Billy Joel song "Piano Man", but this was not the reason for Sammon's use of the name, due to the many records he released during the 1990s that were dance music piano anthems, including "That Whitney Tune" featuring samples from "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", a Bolton record shop owner would call Sammon 'Pianoman' whenever they met. This would lead to the use of that name for his future releases, and become his best known moniker.