Billy the Kid...and the Enigma
Recently, the “Billy Joel Channel” reappeared on Sirius/XM radio. It has been a periodic, short term, spot for his songs, songs by others that he fancies, and stories about his songs. I have placed it on one of my presets for about a month, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it when I pop it on. Revisiting some of the more obscure songs that made me a fan early in his career and that I haven’t heard in a while has been fun.
At that time, I was a big-time fan. I was kind of weaned in by my college friend John Cound and a couple of others, who had the first few albums. I was only familiar with his big early hit, and still his most iconic song, “Piano Man”. That was on what is often listed as his first album of the same name. Actually, Cold Springs Harbor was his first and it almost derailed his career as it was recorded slightly too fast. Joel survived it, but it took Columbia Records power and lots of money to get Joel out of a ten-album contract with the small Family Productions label.
But the hit he had with “Piano Man” wasn’t followed up by any success for his next two albums, and it seemed like he might be a one-hit wonder. The funny thing for me is, the other songs on the album Piano Man, and quite a few on Streetlife Serenade and Turnstiles are in my mind better than his most famous songs. In fact, while I enjoy “Piano Man” but perhaps have been numbed to it by hearing it eleven million times, I like just about every other song on Piano Man better than the title track.
But I only discovered songs like “Travelin’ Prayer”, “The Entertainer”, “Captain Jack”, “Stop in Nevada”, “Prelude/Angry Young Man”, “I Loved These Days”, and “Miami 2017” just about the time that Joel was about to shoot to fame with the release of “The Stranger”.
This is how meteoric it was. A couple of the rabid Joel cult followers who lived in my dorm at KU urged me to accompany them to a concert at the Uptown Theatre (I think, it was a small venue, I know that). The Stranger had just been released, but hadn’t exploded yet, and the tour backing it was just starting. This was evidenced by the fact that the place was half full. By the end of the tour, they had added arena shows, one of which was Kemper Arena in October of 1978. Less than a year after I watched Billy Joel play a brilliant show in front of hundreds of us, he did the same to twenty times more. It’s the best compliment I can give to any artist. His passion, intensity and joy were every bit as much on display at the former as the latter.
This is where this little essay gets a bit more complicated. I very much liked The Stranger and the subsequent 52nd Street, but likely not as much as the millions who now made him a superstar. I think a bit of it was the youthful music thing where being the person who has to tell everybody how good someone is, rather than them being uber-famous is preferable. But even listening back, I really do like early Billy more.
That show in 1978 was the last time I saw him in concert. My fandom didn’t immediately fade, but kind of slowly eroded. I always liked seeing him on television, and had a soft spot for him when he would hit the headlines for a stupid transgression, but I had moved on.
The odds of it being resuscitated, or of me renewing some old magic with a visit to a show, certainly were lessened, when I met my second wife Jayne. She HATES Billy Joel. Doesn’t like his voice (she’s an opera singer by the way), even though she embraces unusual singers like Bob Dylan, Tm Petty and others. Joel actually has a pretty good voice, although I see peoples point when they say he just tries a little too hard.
Despite his success, it’s not as if he has been some kind of critic’s darling. When I started this piece, I hauled out an old edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide, a revised edition that came out in 1983, right at the height of his fame. Famous critic Dave Marsh starts his review of the Joel catalogue with this searing riposte about his early career, “This Long Island singer/songwriter and virtuoso keyboardist, earned an avid cult following by wasting his talent with self-dramatizing kitsch.”
Marsh actually then reverse engineers my thoughts. He regards the more popular Joel in The Stranger and subsequent offerings as superior and rates them fairly highly. I think this dichotomy is at the heart of the complications of Billy Joel. He DOES have a New York City bravado that many find appealing, and many find off-putting.
Joel tells a story on his radio channel about his lone encounter with childhood hero Leonard Bernstein. Joel was at a Broadway play when towards the end of the show Bernstein was exiting from his seats up front. Joel was a little further back and as he passed Bernstein leans in and says briskly in his ear, “Billy Joel!!!, you have GOT to write a Broadway show….let’s talk!!”. Bernstein would pass away before the conversation ever took place.
Bernstein had a point. There is very much something “Broadway big” about much of Joel’s musical persona. And, of course, he really has become “New York’s Musician” (let’s call Bruce Springsteen Jersey’s version in case that monicker made you quizzical). Joel set up a residency at Madison Square Garden in 2014 and has sold out a concert there monthly ever since, and has long since passed the record for the most shows performed in the historic arena.
Joel performed at Kauffman Stadium late last summer. I probably should have gone, but I didn’t. 40,000 people did. Joel has developed a new template of playing major league baseball parks on a regular basis. Of course, his Shea Stadium shows in 2008 were merged into a great concert video. I watched some of it a few months back, and should have also kept that around on my DVR, but as I wrote about in “Bette Davis...and the Song About Here Eyes”, I lost some of my enthusiasm when my wife flat refused to watch even one tune.
The thing is, I get it. I’m not going to stage a ferocious argument if someone posits that his stuff is overblown at times, a little too precious at others. His attempts to elevate toward Springsteen-style messages probably never quite came off.
Maybe this lyrical turn kind of sums up Billy Joel, the one that Dave Marsh says it kitschy, and millions think is cool. In “The Ballad of Billy the Kid”, Joel twists the lyric he has used about The Kid throughout the song “with a six-gun in his hand” to the autobiographical, “From a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island….came a boy with a six-pack in his hand”. I love the song, love the lyric. I also can see why someone would turn up their nose at it.
From Madison Square Garden to Wrigley Field to Fenway Park and beyond, Billy still packs ‘em in as he approaches 70. He openly embraces his greatest hits show. In Kansas City, he opened the evening by saying, “I’ve got nothing new for you….same old shit”, to the delight of all.
In listening the past month, I have heard songs long past the hits stage of his from Joel, and some are quite good. He gets the pleasure to record them for his own satisfaction, but knows what the long-time fan wants to hear when he plunks down the big cash.
I admire artists who do it either way. Mark Knopfler is my current favorite artist, who is set to tour again at age 72. I might see him in France AND Kansas City on the tour. The Dire Straits front man has left those days behind, not even showing up for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction this year, and he plays only 3-5 Dire Straits songs at any concert. He still sells out mid-size venues in America and larger ones all over the world, performing to fans who embrace the new material and craftmanship.
That just wouldn’t work for the outsized following of Joel. He still plays the piano flashily and well, and his songs that everyone can sing back to him are made for the settings that he inhabits. He also has always featured my favorite attribute in any artist or band, seeming to have as much fun as the audience.
I’m glad to have rekindled just a little bit my enjoyment of the musical enigma that is Billy Joel. He is “The Entertainer”, mostly for the better.