I guess you’d have to be a pretty big Billy Joel fan (as I am) to know this, or even to care really, but I’ve always wondered something about his first album, Cold Spring Harbor.
On the original LP (and on the CD, although they were able to fix it a little) his voice sounds like a chipmunk. Seriously, it’s really high, with lots of quick vibrato. Almost like Freddie Mercury on speed. I heard a story somewhere that the producer messed up and recorded the vocals at half speed or something so the result was Alvin singing “She’s Got a Way”.
But this doesn’t sound right for two reasons: One, isn’t that fixable? I mean, I know for one’s first album they’re not going to give him excess studio time but for God’s sake, if they want the record to sell then why would they release it like that? And two, I found an old recording of a live show back in 1971 or thereabouts at the Bottom Line in NYC, and he’s doing the same voice! It almost seemed like he was doing it on purpose.
On his very next album, Piano Man, his voice sounds pretty much like the normal Billy Joel voice except a little younger. I refuse to believe it changed that much in one year. Does anyone know the real story?
I don’t really know the story behind “Cold Spring Harbor,” but I always thought it was pretty good album…especially for a first attempt!
By the way, it never occured to me when I first listened to the album twenty years ago that it was recorded at the wrong speed…I always figured that he’d just recorded it when he was VERY young!
Here are some links about Cold Spring Harbor. Apparently, the “mastered at the wrong speed” story is true, but the problem was corrected (and other edits made to existing tracks) in the 1983 or 1984 Columbia re-release of the album.
To my ear, even the remastering doesn’t sound quite right. I have never heard the original, uncorrected version.
Hands up, everybody who has a copy of the Atilla album! You know, the one with the picture of Billy and Jon Small wearing furs and armor in a meat locker . . .
Wow, thanks a lot Aholibah! Those links were interesting, but it’s really shame they couldn’t fix it at the time. I agree with Scarlett67 though… the CD doesn’t sound that much better, and they cropped off a lot of the songs. “You Can Make Me Free” originally had a 5-minute instrumental playoff, for example.
And yes Scarlett, I have both the LP of CSH and the Atilla album (on CD)!
I have both Cold Spring Harbor – which I like, even with the odd quality the remastering gave it (and I had an original copy once, too) and the Attila album. I’ve never played more than three minutes of the latter, though; my brain kept seizing up.
When I was in college, my (redheaded) roommate liked to turn on her stereo and listen to the radio at moderate volume after she got back from the shower, while she got dressed. One morning while she was in the shower, I sneaked my Attila tape into her stereo and cued it up, then went back to bed. When she got back she hit the power button, expecting to hear WAPL. Instead, she got “WONDER WOMAN WITH YOUR LONG RED HAIR” blasting out of the speakers. She was good and awake that morning . . .
I have a CD that I bought of Cold Spring Harbor and I simply cannot listen to it. I have played piano for twenty years and I’d like to think I’ve developed a pretty good ear for musical pitch (what Cecil properly calls pitch memory). Cold Spring Harbor is unmistakably sharp and it drives me bugshit.
I like the songs, though. So I learned to play 'em instead.
Jon Small. Oh god, the stories I could tell. But, due to Internet Libel laws, I shall decline to indulge.
–shudder–
I worked on three of Billy’s music videos, all in the early 1980’s. Spent quite a few days in the company of Mr. Small.
As for Cold Spring Harbor, I remember when it was re-mastered and rereleased in the 1980’s, at the proper pitch. As for it still being up a few notches, I don’t remember being hit with a major difference in his voice and at the time, I listened to him more than anybody else except Yes.
