Billy Joel

From the Piano Man album in 1973 through Glass Houses in 1980, with a quick step back to 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor, each Billy Joel release was a marker in time in my Young Adulthood. Piano Man itself was wonderful, and was undoubtedly my introduction, but hearing Captain Jack and Ballad of Billy the Kid first on late-night radio then on my turntable hooked me, just as Bruce Springsteen had earlier the same year with Greetings from Asbury Park. (Living in Westchester County I felt equidistant from Billy’s Long Island and Bruce’s New Jersey.) Streetlife Serenade, Joel’s followup album, was a disappointment, as was Springsteen’s The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, but both hit it out of the park with their next records: Turnstiles and Born to Run. From their later successes I thought of both Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen as established stars from the start. It always surprises me when I hear people say they discovered Bruce from Born to Run (and, of course, the general amazement when he accordingly appeared simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek). Now, after watching And So It Goes, Part 1, the HBO documentary, I’m astonished at the lack of acceptance and success accorded Joel before The Stranger in 1977. One of the fun stories told in the movie is when The Stranger is played for the assembled executives of CBS Records to a muted reception. “I don’t see a single here,” says one. It happened to contain five of his biggest hits, including “Just the Way You Are,” an instant classic.

The more meaningful revelation for me in And So It Goes is the extent to which Joel’s songs grew out of his life experiences and emotions. Yes, we all knew that Uptown Girl was inspired by Christie Brinkley, even without the video, but who knew that so many of the love ballads were paeans to his first wife, Elizabeth Bennett, and when the relationship grew tense it produced Stiletto. When Cold Spring Harbor, a beautiful record, produced no financial rewards, Billy and Elizabeth moved to L.A., where he supported his family by, yes, playing piano bar. “And the waitress is practicing politics”–well, the waitress in the bar was Elizabeth! When L.A. doesn’t work out, the family moves back to New York, prompting the songs Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Summer Highland Falls, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway) and New York State of Mind. The next album, The Stranger, reeks of Long Island, typified by Scenes from An Italian Restaurant. Someone in the movie notes that while Bruce tells stories about other people in his songs, Billy’s songs are about himself.

The movie tells the story of Billy’s early years in flashback fragments, with portions, especially about his father, reserved for Part 2. He was raised on a shoestring budget by a single mother, and we are left to infer the emotional hangups left from his childhood. At the same time, he was given a remarkable music education, and Billy’s training in classical piano is one of the defining and unusual features of his personal rock’n’roll. The stories of his early bands are a hoot, and just like the Beatles and so many others, you realize that a lot of work goes into the “instant success” that rock stars have. The big wrinkle in Billy’s backstory is his falling in love with his bandmate’s wife. He marries her and Elizabeth ultimately takes over his management. She saves him from himself and makes Billy Joel a business as well as artistic success. Elizabeth Bennett (where have I heard that name before?) is the co-star of Part 1; it is her story arc that drives the narrative. When she checks out of Billy’s life after his motorcycle accident, Part 1 ends. We never see her again.

For me, The Stranger was the pinnacle of Joel’s music. Movin’ Out (which became the title of the Twyla Tharp dance-musical), Just the Way You Are, She’s Always A Woman, Only the Good Die Young, The Stranger and the iconic Scenes from an Italian Restaurant would be a career’s worth for most musicians. There was nothing comparable in 1978’s 52nd Street: the songs took on a harder edge, long gone was any youthful innocence. It was Joel’s first #1 album, but I never cared for its hits: Big Shot, My Life, Honesty. I attribute its success to the reputation Billy had built up from his earlier records: like me, everyone who had been hooked by one or more of his first five records bought into this one. Was he wearing out his gift? Were alcohol and drugs dulling his creativity? These trends continued through Glass Houses, the last record covered in Part 1. The movie plays You May Be Right as Billy’s admission that his life is going off the rails, although he must have written it before he crashed his motorcycle. It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me says it all and was worth the price of the record. In its pop purity and down-and-dirty persona it encapsulates the Billy Joel phenomenon and takes us back to where it all started: it’s still rock and roll.

And So It Goes, Part 2 covers the five remaining rock albums Joel recorded, from 1982 to 1993, plus an album of classical compositions. With one exception, the music  is dreary and covers no new ground. He had a hit with We Didn’t Start the Fire, but to me that was an unacknowledged rip-off of REM’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) from two years before. Innocent Man didn’t exactly cover new ground, as Joel was avowedly mimicking earlier styles, such as doo-wop and Four Seasons, but it was a breath of fresh air, perhaps inspired by his new romance with Brinkley. Our family watched the VHS tape over and over, and we sang The Longest Time at our daughter’s wedding reception. Joel shared the writing credit on This Night with Ludwig van Beethoven, and watching him play the Beethoven sonata on his piano was a reminder of how much Joel’s classical training and his piano skills (even after breaking his hand) contributed to his unique brand of rock and roll.

As Part 2 delves into Billy’s second, third and fourth marriages, the defalcations of his next manager (Elizabeth’s brother, against her advice), his endless touring with Elton John to get out of debt, and the drying-up of his urge to make new music, the documentary returns to the level of standard biopic. The novelty is gone, and so is the magic. It’s a balding, fleshy Billy Joel who returns to Madison Square Garden to revive his old hits, to the great pleasure of those, like my wife and me, who grew up with the piano man as well as their offspring, who have since discovered him. And in the end, it’s still rock and roll to me.

Brian Wilson

The death earlier this month of Brian Wilson brought out a welcome reconsideration of the Beach Boys’ legacy. They were one of my two favorite groups of my high school days, 1961-64. The other was the Four Seasons. These were the yin and yang of those years in rock’n’roll: the Beach Boys were the West Coast–sun, surf, hot rods, California girls. The Four Seasons were the East Coast–urban grit, class difference, doomed love. Bright and happy versus dark and anguished. Needless to say, at 16 in a boys’ prep school, I tended toward the latter.

Surfin’ was released in 1961 and caught my attention well before the Boys hit it big the following year with Surfin’ Safari. The latter solidified a gimmick I loved: a surf song on one side of the record, a car song–in this case 409–on the other. I knew as little about cars as I did surfing, or surfin’, as they insisted, which only increased the attraction of their music: a world I didn’t know but could appreciate from afar (somewhat similar to my infatuation with Elvis). 1963 was their apogee, before being eclipsed by the Beatles and the British Invasion. Surfer Girl established their ballad bona fides, while Little Deuce Coupe carried on the hot-rod B-sides. The Beach Boys were still getting better, and Brian Wilson’s songwriting more sophisticated, in 1964, with WendyLittle Honda, When I Grow Up (To Be a Man) and I Get Around. I have an especially warm spot for Fun, Fun, Fun. I was singing along in my senior year dorm room one evening when the housemaster stopped by and “posted” me (the step beyond a demerit) for playing my radio after 8. I found the Beach Boys less interesting after high school. Two of their 1965 hits, Barbara Ann and Sloop John B., were retreads that appealed to the lowest common taste. They had one more great single in 1966, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, but that era is more notable for their so-called masterpiece, Good Vibrations, which I couldn’t stand then or now. Gone was the straight-ahead rock, as well as the world of cars and surf. I am quite fond of a 1972 album, Holland, which takes us back to California, but this is a coda to the Beach Boys’ era. (Yes, they had one more hit, Kokomo, 16 years later, but this was without Brian Wilson.)

The Four Seasons burst on the scene in 1962 with Sherry, a number one hit as was the even better follow-up, Big Girls Don’t Cry. Their third consecutive chart-topper, Walk Like A Man, accompanied me as I walked around campus junior year, and that summer they followed it with the double-sided hit, Candy Girl/Marlena. Nothing, however, prepared me for the power of Dawn (Go Away), which at one point I judged the greatest rock song of all time. In a rank injustice from which I never recovered, it didn’t make number one because it came out at the same time as I Wanna Hold Your Hand. My longstanding antipathy toward the Beatles partly stemmed from my dismay at their superseding the homegrown Four Seasons. Still in 1964, the Seasons came out with Ronnie, Rag Doll and Big Man In Town, each of which was publicly overshadowed by the onslaught of Beatles music. Their songs went downhill after ’64: Bye, Bye, Baby and Let’s Hang On in 1965 were becoming formulaic; and their final top ten number, C’mon Marianne in 1967, is relatively charmless. Without going into a deep analysis, you can see a similarity in subject in all Four Seasons hits. There’s a guy longing for a girl. Sometimes she’s too good, sometimes he is, usually there’s some impediment or misunderstanding, there’s never true love running smooth. And although it isn’t explicit, you feel the boy and girl are in an inner city, not on a farm. Again, it wasn’t exactly my high school world, except for the longing for romance and general teenage angst.

The Seventies

I had been reflecting on eulogizing the 1970s as the greatest decade for music in the Rock Era, or perhaps the last century, when I heard the very modern musician who records as St. Vincent tell James Corden that the inspiration for her new album was the period from 1970 to ’75.  Looking more closely at the decade’s discography, I realized that she was more astute than I. 

Until 1968 I collected singles on my Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was the spring of my senior year in college that a record-club offer lured me into purchasing my first three albums: Buffalo Springfield, Bee Gees’ First and The Percy Sledge Way. Then I was off to North Africa with the Peace Corps for two years. When I returned, there had been a revolution, not least in popular music, where FM stations with diverse playlists had superseded AM Top 40. Following Bob Dylan’s breakthrough example, songs could be any length, about any subject, sung by any voice. The music scene was about to explode with creativity, and I was ready to start buying records. Which I did.
When we moved from Minnesota in 2013 I donated my entire record collection, first to my friend Mike Bennes from the museum and the leftovers to the Deephaven Library, but the memory of each album cover lingers fondly. In the essay that follows I will focus on records I once owned, each listed in boldface followed by a favorite cut. Maybe it’s just a reflection of my taste, or that I was going to law school and had the time and need for music; but look at the names that follow and try to tell me that the early ‘70s wasn’t a Golden Age, if not the Golden Age, of rock’n’roll.

Singer/Songwriters
I don’t know when I bought The Circle Game (’68) by Tom Rush, whether it was before or after Africa, but it was the perfect transition from the Cambridge coffee-house folk scene of the Sixties to the Singer/Songwriter Era of the Seventies. On it, Rush sang three songs by Joni Mitchell, including the classic title number, two by James Taylor, one by Jackson Browne and two by Rush himself, including the haunting “No Regrets.” Although Rush never reached the same heights as a songwriter, the others soon came to define an era.

In fact, I could end any debate about the significance of the early ‘70s before it begins by simply listing the long-running artists who came to prominence then, notably Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Elton John, Neil Young, David Bowie, Van Morrison, James Taylor. Their styles and songs differed, but they all had in common that they wrote their own songs. The Tin Pan Alley era was over; the songwriting teams of Goffin/King, Holland/Dozier/Holland, Leiber/Stoller were passé. Dylan’s example prevailed: you wrote your own songs and sang them yourself.

Billy Joel’s Piano Man was released in ’73 and remains his masterpiece. In addition to the title track, “Captain Jack” and “Ballad of Billy the Kid” were instant classics. My love of this album caused me to look back and find Joel’s initial album, Cold Spring Harbor (’71 “She’s Got A Way”), which, in its innocence, was almost as good.

Jackson Browne was a precocious songwriter, known first to me as the co-writer, with Glenn Frey, of the Eagles’ first hit, “Take It Easy” (’72). I fell in love with his debut album, Jackson Browne [a/k/a Saturate Before Using](’72, “Doctor, My Eyes”), and have followed his work with pleasure ever since. For Everyman (’73 “These Days”) was a slight letdown, although it provides great concert material, but Late For the Sky (’74 “For A Dancer”) remains one of the all-time great records.

I knew Neil Young, vaguely, as a member of Buffalo Springfield, but his solo singer/songwriter career launched for good with After the Gold Rush (’70 “Southern Man”) and solidified with Harvest (’72 “Heart of Gold”). More than 40 albums later it’s still going.

I admit to not being a James Taylor groupie, but he was of a piece with the sensitive singer/songwriters of the day: Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, Carole King, David Crosby, et al. I was introduced to Sweet Baby James (’70) in Beirut and did buy One Man Dog (’72) and Walking Man (’74).

Gordon Lightfoot was already a singer/songwriter in the Sixties, but he hit his peak in the Seventies with three lovely albums: Sit Down, Young Stranger (’70 “If You Could Read My Mind”); Don Quixote (’72 “The Patriot’s Dream”) and Sundown (’74 “Carefree Highway”).

Because his career has gone on so long, it’s hard to think of Bruce Springsteen in this cohort. Also, for many fans their appreciation began with Born to Run and the simultaneous Time and Newsweek covers in 1975. I was, however, immediately taken with Greetings from Asbury Park (’73 “Blinded By the Light”), when the rock press, incidentally, was hailing him as “the next Bob Dylan,” presumably because of his jumbling lyrics.

And while Dylan himself made his name in the Sixties, he released seven records from ’70 to ’75, including New Morning (’70 “If Not for You”) and Blood On the Tracks (’75 “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”), which I have often considered my all-time favorite album.

The Brits
From my perch in North Africa I could tune in British radio and, consequently, caught singles by both Elton John (“Border Song”) and David Bowie (“Space Oddity”) probably before either was big in the States. When I got home I snapped up every Elton John album as they came out, more than one per year. Elton John (’70 “Your Song), Madman Across the Water (’71 “Tiny Dancer”) and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (’73 “Candle in the Wind”) were favorites.

David Bowie’s Hunky Dory (’71 “Changes”) so wowed me that I went to Carnegie Hall the next year when he toured Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (’72 “Starman”). Bowie had great songs in years that followed, but never as good an album.

I didn’t connect with early Van Morrison (specifically his critically acclaimed Astral Weeks), but still consider Moondance (’70 “Crazy Love”) one of the five best albums ever made. None of the five albums that followed in the next three years approached that height, but I spent time with His Band and the Street Choir (’71 “Domino”) and St. Dominic’s Preview (’72).

In contrast, I was mesmerized by everything put out by Cat Stevens in these years, and there was a lot. Mona Bone Jakon (’70 “Lady D’Arbanville”) was followed by the great Tea for the Tillerman (’70 “Father and Son”), then Teaser and the Firecat (’71 “Moonshadow”).

Single Disc-ers
While the above artists had multiple discs in my collection, others spoke to me through only one record.

Lou Reed’s Transformer (’72) was his most (only?) accessible album and featured his signature song, “Walk on the Wild Side.” Don McLean’s Tapestry (’70 “Castles in the Air”) was sweet and soulful, preceding “American Pie.” After departing CSN&Y, Graham Nash brought out Songs for Beginners (’71 “Military Madness”). In a different genre, although just as much a singer/songwriter, Stevie Wonder hooked me with Innervisions (’73 “Living for the City”).

Women
A subset of Singer/Songwriters for an obvious, or maybe no obvious, reason:

Joni Mitchell’s Blue (’71 “Carey”) is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest albums of all time. Carole King’s Tapestry (’71 “It’s Too Late”) ranks not far behind. In that same year Carly Simon released Anticipation (’71), a year before her classic “You’re So Vain.” Much later and very different but at the edge of this era, Patti Smith’s Horses (’75) blew me away on record and in person at Lincoln Center.

Progressive Rock
Picking up, perhaps, from Sgt. Pepper’s “A Day in the Life,” British groups explored symphony backing, extended tracks and general studio grandiloquence. The Moody Blues, my favorites, broke through with A Question of Balance (’70) and peaked in Every Good Boy Deserves Favor (’71 “The Story in Your Eyes”). Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick (’72) filled both record sides with one continuous piece of music. The Yes Album (’71 “I’ve Seen All Good People”) was made up of songs that could go on forever. John Barleycorn Must Die (’70) by Traffic was a prelude to The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys (’71) with its almost 12-minute title cut. The culmination of the genre, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (’73 “Us and Them”), famously and deservedly spent 736 weeks on the Billboard chart.

Rock Groups
While individual artists were putting their stamp on the era, there were still the more traditional ensembles of guitars, drums and keyboard that, while not unique, gave depth to this era of rock.

Let’s start with Who’s Next (’71) by the Who, which featured two of the all-time great rock anthems: “Won’t Be Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley.” The Eagles established country rock with their first two albums: Eagles (’72 “Peaceful Easy Feeling”) and Desperado (’73 “Tequila Sunrise”). In the same genre, New Riders of the Purple Sage recounted The Adventures of Panama Red (’73 “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy”). Fleetwood Mac came on the scene with Bare Trees (’72 “Sentimental Lady). The Kinks charmed me with their idiosyncratic numbers, from Lola Versus the Powerman (‘70 “Strangers”) to Everybody’s In Show-Biz (’72 “Celluloid Heroes”) and Preservation Act I (’73). The Morning After (’71 “Looking For A Love”) introduced me to the J. Geils Band.

What I Missed
Despite buying a lot of records and having pretty broad taste, there were important albums I didn’t collect that should be mentioned in evaluating the greatness of this musical period. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (’71) is the most recent Greatest Album in Rolling Stone’s decennial poll. Led Zeppelin IV (’71) featured “Stairway to Heaven,” arguably the greatest rock song. The same year saw Sly & the Family Stone’s “There’s A Riot Goin’ On” (’71 “Family Affair”). The Rolling Stones put out their highest-rated album, “Exile on Main St.” (’72 “Tumbling Dice”). The title track of John Lennon’s “Imagine” (’71) is one of the greatest songs ever. And who knows what else I missed or am missing.

In Conclusion
It’s not just that so many powerful, lyrical, memorable voices came to public attention in these pivotal years (1970-73, in particular). For the most part, these voices, while they continued putting out records, never reached the same heights. Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Elton John, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens and these others seem timeless in retrospect, but in fact their magic all stems from around 1971. Fifty years later, I feel I was there when they arrived, and we’ve been companions ever since.

Top Ten Albums
Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
Moondance, Van Morrison
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
Piano Man, Billy Joel
Late for the Sky, Jackson Browne
Blue, Joni Mitchell
Who’s Next, The Who
Horses, Patti Smith
Tea for the Tillerman, Cat Stevens
Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd