Pianoman is the 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 (Live Your Life Be Free)" which narrowly missed a place in the UK Top 40, peaking at number 43.
Sammon 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, he has worked and recorded/remixed for 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 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 (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.