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 (whilst he managed a record shop, and worked on several local yorkshire pirate radio stations) that were dance music piano anthems, including "that whitney tune" featuring samples from "i wanna dance with somebody (who loves me)"; 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.