In my opinion, and the opinion of other professional singers that I know, Billy has an excellent voice. There may be something about it that grates on you, but he hits the notes right on, has an excellent range and can do it live as well as in the studio.
Re: the OP
I can listen to Lenningrad and Alexa (from Storm Front) any number of times. They are well-written, emotionally involving and brilliantly produced–IMHO. They’re right up there with the BIG hits in my musical life.
:smack: Haha, my mistake. Yes that’s the song I was thinking of, I just had the name wrong. I think it’s because I remember my mom playing that song when I was little, before I even knew who Billy Joel was, and it just stuck in my memory as the “lunatic” song. 
I’m another fan. Last October, I drove up to Maine with a couple of friends to help one move the last of his stuff back here after a divorce. The other person and I would drive his SUV back while he drove the U-Haul full of stuff. I decided we needed road music, so I bought 2 CDs. One of them was The Stranger. As I pulled out of the dirt road he lived on and onto the back roads of Maine, with him and our other friend in front of me and his two cats in the back behind me, I pushed in the CD and started singing along to Anthony’s Song (Movin’ Out). I still can’t hear that song without thinking of that trip. My friend and I have agreed, however, that he must never hear The Stranger.
Back when I was a teenager, Billy Joel was the only artist my brothers and I all liked. He’s got the voice and the musicianship, even if he does get a little pretentious at times and always has. His has music kept me company on a walkman in Japan as well as sitting at my computer wasting time.
Other favorites?
Only the Good Die Young. Sometime, I have to have this played at a dance for a couple of friends of mine who got married a couple of years ago. She’s in her 60’s, he’s in his 70’s, and her name, of course, is “Virginia”!
Get It Right the First Time reminds me of the gentleman I’ve been dating for the past year and a half. 
Piano Man is one I’ve actually played in public back in high school and what I fantasized about my life becoming back once.
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant takes me back to when I was studying in Japan.
Allentown I can’t hear without thinking about a roommate my freshman year of college. The first time she heard the song was at a Billy Joel concert and she was thrilled because she was from Allentown.
Still in Saigon just because it haunts me.
I’m not wild about his older stuff, but I can listen to his music any time.
CJ
Okay, since you’re all here anyway, can I ask another Billy Joel lyrics question? From “Miami 2017”:
What burning churches is he referring to? I’ve tried googling and have come up blank. Can’t find references to a specific campaign to burn churches by either side in the Spanish Civil War (which, given how nasty the whole thing was, is rather remarkable), nor to a church-burning problem in Harlem during the same time period. What’s he talking about? 
The civil war that took place between 1977 (when the song was written) and 2017 (where the song is set).
The song’s extrapolates on actual events, but it doesn’t relate to anything specific. It’s an apocalyptic fantasy, Joel’s sole foray into science fiction; it tells of events that supposedly happen in the 40 years after it was written. Remember, this was written at a dark and crazy time in New York history, the “Ford to City - Drop Dead” days of the late 70’s when crime was on the rise, money was short and popular culture had just taken a sharp left turn into the insane. The way things were going, church burnings, mass riots and the federal government declaring war on NYC seemed like something that just might happen.
Incidentally, my favorite Billy Joel song is “Vienna”. My second favorite spot is shared by about 30 different contenders, but I have a special love for “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” “Stiletto” and “Famous Last Words.”
I’d also like to declare myself the Biggest Billy Joel Fan in the Middlle East, unless there are any challengers.
That’s another aspect of him I always marveled at, what a common denominator he is among fans of possibly different genres. When I was in school, you may have been a metal head, a Deadhead, a Top 40 fan, whatever-- everybody respected billy Joel to some degree.
Great memories, guys, thanks.
I really enjoyed 52nd Street and Glass Houses. I kinda lost interest after The Nylon Curtain, though.
Another Billy fan here. My favorite album is The Stranger, and my favorite song is Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.
I’ll ask here, 'cause I know I’ll get the right answer. Billy wrote and recorded Shameless before Garth picked it up and became a big hit for him (btw, is that Crystal Talifiero singing backup on the Garth version?). I swear I heard a version with both of them (Billy and Garth) singing it. Am I wrong?
My ultimate fantasy: Toby Keith performing a Billy song. :swoon: I think Big and Rich would do a good job with Only the Good Die Young.
Wow, so he’s almost as good as Phil Collins? 
Love, love, love Billy Joel! I have nearly every album on CD (not counting compilations I’m only missing the last two, 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert and Fantasies & Delusions), I have Live at Yankee Stadium and The Essential Video Collection on VHS, and I saw him perform with Elton John the first time they toured together. I also have The Best of Billy Joel Piano Solos sheet music, as well as the sheet music for the Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2, River of Dreams, and Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 albums (and an a cappella arrangement of “And So It Goes”). So you can see that I still play and listen to a lot of Billy Joel.
The CDs I tend to keep in the car are Cold Spring Harbor (I prefer that version of “She’s Got a Way”) and Songs in the Attic (one of the few live albums, by any artist, that I own).
I have two personal theme songs, and that’s one of them (the other is “Mr. Tanner” by Harry Chapin). “Baby Grand” doesn’t make me cry, but the closest I can come to making anyone understand how I feel about the piano is to make them listen to that song (likewise, “Mr. Tanner” is how I feel about singing).
Before I move on to the anecdotes, I have to say: I’ve been listening to Billy Joel since 1975 and haven’t stopped. I did in fact find an LP pressing of Cold Spring Harbor and using my fingertip, drag down the platter on my direct-drive turntable and try to listen to the songs as normal pitch. ( However, I do draw the line at The Hassles. Never heard any of that stuff. As the commercials say, " What Happens In Hicksville Stays In Hicksville". Despite the old song, he’s not from Oyster Bay, he’s from Hicksville. )
I can’t dare to name a fave tune. My first girlfriend played “Summer, Highland Falls” over and over and over again. Every time I hear that song I think of Sarah who I loved with that startling clarity that can only come with a first love. “Miami:2017” has always given me chills. After the September 11th attacks, that song tends to bring tears to my eyes. Most of the tracks from " Streetlife Serenade", " Turnstiles" and of course “Piano Man” still sit well in my headphones. Some of his later 1980’s stuff didn’t really turn me on, but there were some songs that showed that he still had his groove going on.
Now for the anecdotes. I first met Billy while working as a Production Assistand on the music video shoot for his song, " Tell Her About It". The Ed Sullivan Show sequences were shot at El Museo del Barrio, which is at 105th street and 5th Avenue in NYC. The actor playing Ed Sullivan made ( makes? ) his living playing Sullivan. I have a few very distinct memories from that shoot.
A part of that shoot took place in Brooklyn ( in Bensonhurts I believe ). We were on a typical commercial street- stores on the first floor, apartments one floor overhead. We had the entire block locked off so that we could have equipment and crew in a relatively safe space to work in. It was a beautiful warm summer night, and we shot overnight on that location for either one or two nights. Methinks just one. As a P.A., my job tended to take me all over the set. Unless “given” to a specific department for the duration, I moved around doing what people needed to be done at the moment. I was standing back near the Police Barricades at one point. Billy was on set. The street was filled with fans- huge huge numbers. To me, it felt like 5,000 but was likely no more than 1,500- 2,000 people. All of a sudden, guys on the other side of the barricades started to whistle and wolfcall towards me. ( trust me. the whistles weren’t aimed at me ). I turn around and find Christie Brinkley standing behind me. No entourage. No friends with her. No nothing. She showed up to hang out. She had a 35mm camera around her neck. I immediately thought of Security, and walked her over to my pal the Producer. He looked unnerved ( a rare look for this guy ). Apparently she truly just decided to pop in to visit her newly minted boyfriend. They’d met at some Carribean island shortly before the gig. The Producer looked at me, and looked at her, and said, “Christie, this is Cartoonverse. Until you leave set for the night, he will not leave your side.” She shook my hand and gave me that brilliant smile. He looked at me and said, " Don’t leave her side. No matter what errand someone yells your way, ignore it and stick by her. I have zero security for her tonight, this was unexpected". So…she starts asking me about exposure and photo things. She’d just bought her camera and was shooting stills of Billy as a way of learning to use it.
About 5 hours later, she left. The impression I was left with was of a smart, articulate, very much adoring lady who came to hang with her guy. She shook my hand, thanked me for being a good guy and keeping an eye on her, and walked to her limo and left. It was a very very experience for me, especially that early on in my career.
The next video was " Uptown Girl". By now Billy and Christie are such an item than the wrote a song about her/for her, and she figured prominently in the music video. This time out, there was appropriate security for her and for Billy. There is a Sunoco station at the southwest corner of Bowery and Bond Sts, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The entire video was shot there, over the space of two overnights. Enormous fun, actually.
The third video was the most interesting to me in terms of dealing with Billy. We shot at a few locations. The old Capital Theatre in Passaic, NJ as well as the much vererated Camera Mart Stages on West 54th street. ( Formerly the Fox Movietone Stages, and now Sony Music Stages ). While shooting at the Capitol Theatre, I was backstage doing whatevertheheck I was doing. I got up my nerve and asked to borrow a Polaroid camera. Somewhere I have a shot of me and Billy , arms around each other’s shoulders, hamming for the camera. He was backstage, not in his trailer. As I said,very much a regular guy. It’s really not an act. He just hands out, does his thing, etc. There was a crappy upright piano against the back wall of the place. As we’re all working, he did what I guess he’s been doing since he was a kid first taking piano lessons- sitting down and playing while people around him talked/partied/worked/whatevered. A rock star with a shy streak, I guess.
He was playing The Police. I couldn’t believe it. Roxanne, and so on. I went over and asked if he liked them and he said, hell yeah, I was listening to their album on the way in. I asked if he’d gone to see them, and he said he was arranging comp tickets for their tour, but hadn’t seen or met them as of yet. But he professed great admiration for the music they wrote, and kept noodling around with their songs. He also played some other stuff. I asked him if it was true he’d opened for “YES” once. ( my fave band ). He laughed and said oh yeah = I did a small set at the Coliseum. ( Nassau Coliseum, not overly far from where he lived then, out on Long Island ). He said he was literally leaving the place when they started their show and he turned around, went back and sat through the concert. Said he’d not listened to them much till then but enjoyed their show a lot. I never figured out which “YES” tour that was…
We shot in the Camera Mart Stages for a day or two, and had a blast in there. Then we went out on the ocean, to do just a few shots. He was lipsynching to playback, as a helicopter came screaming in and around the ship. It was some kind of huge garbage scow. God, it reeked. They’d found some small room for him to use, but as far as we could tell he never went there. Instead he hung with the crew in the galley, playing cards with us and being quite a regular fellow. He’d fallen off of his motorcycle recently and injured his wrist pretty badly. Not a good thing for a piano player. I asked him if it was going to stop him from playing the opening of “Prelude/Angry Young Man” and he gave me a nod because he saw that I knew that that particular song would be brutal for him to play- and said he had to avoid that kind of fast work for at least a few months.
I don’t go following the gossip columns so I’ve no idea where he is or who he is living with or anything. Can’t say I care, but the time I spent watching him work and speaking one on one with him was immensely enjoyable to me. Definitely a good guy.
Right in around there somewhere, I think it would have been autum of 1983, he played the Spectrum in Philly. AAAAAAAAAAAAMAZING concert.
Cartooniverse
Cartooniverse, you are now my favorite doper, bar none. I’m not worthy to post in the same thread you inhabit. The closest I have ever come to BJ is that my voice coach’s mom used to babysit him back in NY (and he, my coach, sat next to Christie at a benifit dinner once). You rawk. Thanks for posting.
Hey, Teacher, no fair copying off my paper!
I can’t find answers to either of your questions, but I did happen upon a site which mentions (scroll down to “page 2”) that Crystal Taliaferro has worked as a “performer with John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, and Billie Joel”. No mention of Garth, but I strongly suspect the list is nowhere near inclusive.
The song Laura strikes a chord with me, as my brother went through a period in his life when an all-too-real-life version of the title character was constantly calling him up and “pass[ing] on her painful information”. Also, Stop in Nevada reminds me of a friend who “headed out to California” about a year after I met her when we worked together at an amusement park in Ohio. Wonder what Diane’s doing now…
-Beaming- Gosh. Um.
Suffice to say you made my day…er…night…er…yeah.
A quote for us all :
" For we are always what our situations hand us- it’s either sadness or euphoria."
~~ Summer, Highland Falls.
Huge Billy Joel fan checking in.
Wish I had time to participate more fully, but let me just say one thing: Having Billy Joel say in concert, “Someone wrote me a letter . . . and so we’re going to do this song,” and proceed to play “Vienna,” which I had told him in said letter was my personal anthem and why, was pretty much the highlight of my life to date.
When he and Elton John came to the Pepsi Arena a couple of years ago I thought I’d finally get the chance to see him, but the tickets were a whopping $176!!! And no, that was not for two people.
What’s a Billy J song you formerly weren’t crazy about, now love?
Two Thousand Years (found it ponderous years ago, now I think it’s wonderful)
“New York State Of Mind”.
I first heard it in 1976 on an album by Mark/Almond and loved it to pieces. Many years later I heard Billy’s version and it was like “ye gods, what is wrong with this picture???!” I’m getting to where I can hear it without cringing, but I have to put on the Mark/Almond version immediately afterward, because I experienced it first and to me, that’s the way it’s supposed to go.
If memory serves, it’s on their album ‘Other People’s Rooms’. (The CD/digital version of the track is on Rhino’s Mark-Almond Band Compilation).
I’m partial to The Mark-Almond Band version, not cuz I heard it first - but because of the segue into a pretty good remake of their FM hit, The City.
Actually, it’s on “To The Heart.” I didn’t know it had been reissued on a CD compilation. I’ll have to look for it. Thanks for letting me know.