HBO trailer: https://short-link.me/188M0
1
Don't watch this if you're not a fan of Billy Joel.
This isn't quite hagiography, there are negative aspects of Joel that are talked about, however there's a desire to turn Billy Joel into something he is not, a credible rocker along the lines of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne, both of whom testify about the Long Island musician here.
Billy Joel stands apart. He is sui generis. And either you like him or you don't.
And a lot of the dyed-in-the-wool rockers do not.
It's not that he's from Long Island, after all Blue Oyster Cult and the Rascals started there, along with many more, but the fact is that his music derives not from the street, but Broadway. Joel is a piano player in a world dominated by the guitar. He may wear a leather jacket, but he's never dangerous. He may be angry, but you don't think he's going to punch you in the face. He's a suburbanite. And traditionally rock has been an inner city medium, or from hicksville, not Joel's hometown, but the boonies.
So you've got a lot of people who hate Billy Joel on principle. They believe he's not one of them. He may be alienated, but he isn't working a job on the line, he may have been influenced by the Beatles, but he put in years of dues practicing piano. Billy Joel was the guy who lived down the street in a broken home who you knew from school, but you never hung out with him, you never went over to his house, he didn't seem to be part of any group, but he was there. He didn't get called in to the principal's office. He was just there. If you grew up with Billy you were probably stunned that he became so big. Sure, you might have known he was in bands, but superstardom is not what is expected of Long Islanders, rather you stay with the tribe, fit in, get a job, get married, buy a house like...
The kids in "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant."
2
This is not an Alex Gibney documentary, there's no viewpoint, it's just an endless smorgasbord of what happened. No rock is left unturned. It's like there was only going to be one shot at the story of Billy's life and this was it. If you knew absolutely nothing about Billy Joel going in, you'd come out quite educated.
In ninety minutes, even two hours, great documentaries have an angle, a thread, they want to say something about the subject that has never been previously revealed. The makers sit separate from the subject. They're not intertwined. But "And So It Goes" resembles nothing so much as a PBS "American Masters," which Susan Lacy made before this. You're not going to watch it and get pissed off. This is not the Eagles doc with an exploration of the battles between Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner. Billy is an old man looking back on what once was. The emotions are absent. He even laughs at his old band Attila. Saying everybody was getting a record deal back then. NO, it was nearly impossible to get signed fifty-odd years ago. And although he makes fun of Attila's music today, you know he took it damn seriously back then, everybody did, it was life or death, either you made it or you didn't, nothing was done on a whim, sans success you starved.
Which Billy did. He was all in. Either this music thing was going to work or it wasn't.
You can learn some lessons from this doc.
Hard work and dedication. Billy was anxious about marrying Elizabeth not because he didn't love her, but because he could foresee stardom with endless time on the road and was that what a good husband did, leave their wife for the road?
Eventually Billy had children, but not until after his first wave of stardom. It would have interfered with the mission. And nothing could interfere with the mission. This is what almost no one gets. The one-mindedness. Nothing matters other than the career, NOTHING! And the constant chipping away, improving your chops, trying to figure out what will break you.
And then there's the issue of inspiration and songwriting. Billy comes up with the idea for "New York State of Mind" on a bus ride, and when he gets home he doesn't hang with Elizabeth like a good husband, doesn't sit on the couch and talk about his day, he immediately goes upstairs and channels the song. That's how it works. And it works for very few people.
3
There is very little here that students of Billy Joel's game won't know.
There is a full delineation of his relationship with Elizabeth. And that's great. Especially when she becomes his manager.
And there's Artie Ripp and the mastering error...
Like I said, the filmmakers wanted to include EVERYTHING! Whereas it might have been more interesting to dig deeper on a few things.
We get the story of each and every album. And they get it right, the turning point being "Just the Way You Are." And Billy had it right, he didn't want to put it on the album because it was schmaltzy and would define him, negatively to the rock crowd. It ultimately did. No one saw Billy as a rocker after that song.
But Billy's instincts are right throughout. After getting f*cked by doing it the man's way, he refuses to play the game and only does it his way. Won't make an album with George Martin without his band. Punts after recording with James William Guercio. If you can't say no... That's a problem with today's artists, they think they control their careers but they're constantly compromising, business people tell them they have to. It's subtle, but it's there. Are you willing to put it all on the line, with the chance of going into free fall and ending up out of the game? If not, you are not an artist, you are not for the ages.
One of the highlights of the doc is when Billy says he can't be too angry at Artie Ripp, because he gave him a chance when no one else would. Ripp got his foot in the door.
However, what really happened with the Family Productions legal situation... Rumor was always that Billy signed with Columbia and they didn't know he was already under contract. This could be untrue, but I would have liked to have heard more about the nitty-gritty of the ultimate settlement.
I also would have liked to have seen more about Billy's history, growing up. At first you think they miss it, but it comes back in the middle, which is contrary to typical, linear construction, and antithetical to the linearity of this film, but it is there. But I would have liked to know more about the dad. They didn't mention his retreat back to the old country. And we don't really get an investigation of what's going through Billy's head. Oh sure, he whips off some comments, but if I was talking to Billy I wouldn't go back over the well-trodden history of the albums, but try to get further into his state of mind. Whether he felt separate from society. How he handled failure. Who Billy Joel is.
Bob Dylan obfuscates, because he doesn't want you to know who he really is. Dylan has also gone on record that he does not reveal his hopes and dreams because people won't take them seriously, they'll laugh at them.
Bruce Springsteen had an intense father and dedicated himself to playing in unsigned bands on the Jersey Shore.
Jackson Browne had success as a songwriter before he was twenty, with "These Days."
Billy was professional early. The Hassles had albums. NO ONE had albums back then. Certainly not Bruce Springsteen, nor even Jackson Browne.
As for Paul McCartney saying the song he wished he'd written most was "Just the Way You Are"...
Give me a break. If I was with McCartney right now and I asked him what songs he'd wished he had written he might mention "Just the Way You Are," but he'd probably come up with a slew of numbers. Maybe Gilbert & Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Little Richard... I'm sure McCartney likes the Joel tune, but it is moments like this that make you wince, that are completely superfluous. Why has this become a feature of music documentaries. If the subject is great they don't need people testifying, certainly not those who are not in his musical wheelhouse, like Jackson and the Boss here.
4
Billy Joel is New York.
Leslie West was New York. Felix Cavaliere too.
But Billy sang about his environs. He evidenced his environment. You could not take the east coast out of Billy. If you grew up there, you understand. And if you grew up on the east coast, where everything is so close together, you see your stars differently. They're accessible, reachable, they're more like you, you can identify. They might be heroes, but you can see their roots, their connection to you.
Billy was MUCH bigger on the east coast until "Glass Houses." Just like Meat Loaf. They never even played "Paradise by the Dashboard Light' in Los Angeles, NEVER EVER!
No one in the west cared about Oyster Bay, hadn't even heard of it.
The west is all about freedom, room to move. Nobody's in your face like back east. And this is touched upon in the doc. How everybody is friendly in L.A. but they're not really your friend. How in New York you punch your friends in the shoulder to say hi, put them down as a sign of affection. The east is rough and tumble, nothing is held back, you're constantly in the maelstrom. Whereas the west is more about the environment, laid back.
So what is it like to live in your head and live in the east? That should have been explored more.
Now I didn't even like "Piano Man." It was an endless number on AM radio. Some unknown guy singing this waltz, an inferior "Taxi." Yes, Billy could be seen as a wannabe Harry Chapin, whom nobody saw as rock and roll. A story song guy.
And the follow-up "The Entertainer"? From the outside it looked like Billy was repeating the formula, singing about being a performer. No wonder it didn't succeed.
And then Billy was in the wilderness, until "The Stranger." Which still didn't get a ton of FM play in L.A.
Nor did 52nd Street." I'm not saying no one owned them, but if you didn't, you could be completely unfamiliar with them, other than the aforementioned "Just the Way You Are," that was EVERYWHERE!
However, contradicting the above paragraph just a little bit..."My Life," which was never even mentioned in the doc, did get some FM play and penetrated the public consciousness in a way what had come before had not. "My Life" may not have sounded like classic rock and roll, but the message was:
"I don't care anymore this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone"
This is the ESSENCE of rock and roll. The alienated other on his or her own path. Beneath the patina of entertainment, the jaunty melody, there's encouragement to the rest of us who don't fit in and are going our own way, if Billy can succeed, we can too.
Yes, us.
Not those working in the factory. Not those working on their cars. Not the blue collar, but the alienated middle class boomers who rebelled against their parents in the sixties and went their own way.
"My Life" probably inspired me to buy "Glass Houses."
And "Glass Houses" inspired me to see Billy at the Forum, but even more it inspired me to buy the next album, "Songs In the Attic," upon release.
5
"I've seen the lights go down on Broadway
I saw the Empire State laid low
And life went on beyond the Palisades
They all bought Cadillacs and left there long ago
They held a concert out in Brooklyn
To watch the Island bridges blow
They turned our power down
And drove us underground
But we went right on with the show"
All you had to do was drop the needle. There was crowd noise, a synthesizer note, a whoop up and down the scale on said synthesizer and then Billy started to tinkle the ivories and sing...
This was positively rock and roll. This was the power of a live show. This was everything the previous Billy Joel albums were not.
"Miami 2017" was unknown to almost everybody. Only the hardest of hard core Billy Joel fans were aware of it, from Billy's self-produced album "Turnstiles."
That's the one with "New York State of Mind." But that number did not become a classic until YEARS later. Kind of like the Eagles' "Desperado." Neither were Top 40 hits, they percolated in the marketplace and their presence and impact grew and grew...
"Miami 2017"... Not only is it intense, there are all the city references, the east coast references.
Cadillacs were an east coast thing, foreign automobiles ruled on the west coast, in L.A. you drove a Mercedes.
This was when Brooklyn was still a place you wanted to get out of.
The Palisades? Other than Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park," most of the country knew nothing about the New Jersey side of the Hudson.
The Island? Which Island? LONG ISLAND! Today the Hamptons are hip, they were still country outposts back then, not the glamorous hotbeds of today.
And then straight into "Summer Highland Falls," which sounded like summer in the Catskills, if you've ever been there. A respite from the city. The sun, the air, the water...
But you knew this album was something different when the record inched into "Streetlife Serenader." This was nothing like the somewhat lame studio recording, this version was all-out, it had gravitas.
This is when I realized Billy Joel was the real deal.
6
Billy ultimately went on tour with Elton John. Which I never got. Because I always saw Elton as being the bigger star. Elton was iconic. Billy Joel was just another guy from Long Island. Elton was larger than life, Billy was little different from you and me. And Elton had a string of hits in different genres with absolute classics.
But today they're seen as equal.
How did that happen?
Well, Elton burned out in the seventies, "Blue Moves" was the last hurrah, and it took him a while to find himself again.
Whereas Billy continued to have hits and figured out MTV. Once he gained traction, Billy's career was never soft. He continued motoring, put out albums with peak after peak, he was aging but he was right there alongside the youngsters on music television, not compromising himself to make it. He didn't get plastic surgery. He didn't act like a young 'un, he didn't let the images overwhelm him, it was just him, and it worked.
Eventually it dried up. In the nineties Billy said he would write songs no more. There'd be news, but Billy was not front of mind.
But then we hit this century and as Billy eased himself back in, with college speaking appearances, not needing the adulation of the crowd, he ultimately became the last man standing. Not only did he have this songbook, HE COULD STILL SING IT!
Go to a Billy Joel show today and it's not radically different from the seventies. His voice is still intact. He doesn't sing every night, to save it, but when he opens his mouth, it's there.
And almost no one else's pipes are still the same.
Furthermore, Billy let himself age. Is fine with going bald. And makes fun of himself. By not needing to keep up the image, the image has only grown. It's about Billy and his songs. Not only has he survived, he's TRIUMPHED!
Now one thing Felice pointed out about the difference between Billy and Elton is that Billy wrote those words. Kudos.
But the bottom line is if you live long enough, public opinion comes around. It's the work that remains and sustains. Or doesn't.
Most boomer acts, even household names, are playing to dwindling audiences. But Billy? He still sells out every gig.
And people are not going for nostalgia, to close their eyes and think of where they were when this song was a hit, they go for the SONGS!
And Billy can still sing the songs straight. He might be wealthy, but he's still the same guy inside. Just a guy from Hicksville.
And he says this in the doc, how he does not feel like a star.
But this still might not endear him to you. You still might not be open to Billy Joel.
However if you are...
I advise watching this documentary. It's far from the best one about a musician ever made. But, once again, Billy is not exotic. Not a guy beaten by his dad who lived in poverty and built a guitar in the garage. No, Billy is a suburbanite. As for poverty... You couldn't be that poor and live in Hicksville and have a home, and it was much easier to make it back then on a limited income, albeit not easy.
Billy is one of us. And when we go to see him it feels like that.
And some of the tracks are dated, but so are we. If you're a boomer you can't be an angry young man. As for being an angry old man, sure, they exist, but even gang members go straight. If you live long enough, the rough edges get shorn away. You realize we're more similar than dissimilar.
But that does not mean the system isn't stacked against you. That does not mean you feel you fit in. Somewhere deep inside you still have hopes and dreams, optimism, and these are kindled into a fire when you hear the right songs. Billy Joel's songs turn up the heat. They don't set your mind free like life in Los Angeles, rather your eyes are wide open walking the street of Manhattan.
Or maybe Long Island.
Captain Jack may not get you high anymore. You may not go to your special island. But you remember those days. Of behavior and choices. Not life or death, but low-paying work or a career. Of deciding to get married or not. Of realizing you've become your parents...
There are stories in Billy Joel's music, but it's the melodies that put them over the top, the energy in the production.
You hear Billy talk in this documentary...
We're used to old rockers, oftentimes still with long hair, barely getting it out with soft slow voices. Billy is still alive, if not presently exactly well. He's the kind of grandpa you look up to. He may not get you high, but he'll tell you all about it, give your underaged ass a swig from the bottle as he talks about the potential downsides.
You see Billy aged but never really grew up. He's got all the success, but he can see he's not really a big shot. That's an act and it didn't work.
He's just William Martin Joel from the Island.
Like Jenny from the block if she never went on TV, got plastic surgery and focused so much on how she looked, and if she still lived in the Bronx.
There is nothing exotic about Billy Joel. And he won over Christie Brinkley on his personality, not his looks. He's everyman, if everyman is a white guy from the suburbs.
Many of us are.
Some are still trying to act dangerous.
Others have come down off our thrones and realized our roots are who we are, public school and single family dwellings on a plot of land.
But it's still rock and roll to us.
And always will be.
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