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Billy Joel's documentary digs deep into past but he's 'not finished yet'
Billy Joel's documentary digs deep into past but he's 'not finished yet'
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Billy Joel's wife gives health update after singer cancels tour
Billy Joel has canceled all upcoming tour dates after revealing he's been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a rare brain condition.
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NEW YORK – Billy Joel describes "And So It Goes" as his most definitive song.
Fitting, then, that the sparse, pensive piano ballad that was never a huge hit but embodies Joel's world-weary vibe would title his new documentary, "Billy Joel: And So It Goes."
The first 2 ½-hours of the two-part film premiered at opening night of the 24th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival on June 4. The Beacon Theatre crowd included not only festival co-founder Robert De Niro and producer Tom Hanks, but actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Mariska Hargitay and Joel's peak recording era band members Liberty DeVitto (drums), Richie Cannata (saxophone) and Russell Javors (guitar).
The documentary is slated to hit HBO in July. Its second half, covering Joel's "An Innocent Man" period in 1983 through his record-breaking Madison Square Garden residency that ended last year, is about the same length as the front half shown at the festival.
There is no shirking thoroughness here.
While Joel, 76, was initially expected to attend the screening, his recently disclosed issues with normal pressure hydrocephalus nixed those plans.
Joel's health struggles, which led to the cancellation of all of his stadium-filling concerts this year, made some of his commentary as filmed by directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin all the more poignant.
At the start of the film, Joel marvels at the Long Island estate he gaped at as a kid while "New York State of Mind" plays in the background. In his voiceover, he talks about how he used to wonder about the residents of the stately mansion.
"I own that house now. It's not finished yet," he continues in a tone both matter-of-fact and awed. "But neither am I."
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Billy Joel almost ended his life twice
The film adeptly combines recent sit-downs with Joel – always at a piano, often with a cigar in one hand – with requisite photos and film of his earliest days as a shaggy musician with a prominent mustache and heavy bangs over lidded eyes.
Whether harmonizing like the Beatles in The Lost Souls, grooving with The Hassles or forming what musical partner Jon Small calls "probably one of the worst bands ever" in Attila (the album cover featured Small and Joel dressed as Huns and surrounded by hanging slabs of meat), Joel formed an extensive musical foundation.
But with any great artist comes great emotional turmoil, and Joel's metastasized in the form of love toward Elizabeth Weber, who happened to be Small's wife.
"I got punched in the nose, which is what I deserved," Joel says in the film of Small's reaction to their affair.
Weber also appears extensively in the documentary, clear-eyed and definitive about the roles she played in Joel's life, essentially igniting a 45-year-career with one decision.
But before he could get swindled by producer Artie Ripp, record his production-marred (thanks to Ripp) debut, "Cold Spring Harbor" in 1971 and embark on a Los Angeles adventure with Weber and her son, Sean, Joel attempted to take his life, twice.
His sister, Judy Molinari, recalls getting him sleeping pills to help with insomnia. Joel ingested the entire bottle and was in a coma for days. He awakened with the grimly sardonic thought, "I can't even do this right."
So he made a second attempt, drinking a bottle of furniture polish. It was Small, his estranged friend, who took him to the hospital. Joel, whose mother likely suffered from bipolar disorder as discussed in the film, soon checked into a mental observation hospital and left "chagrined" a couple of weeks later, realizing his emotional tumult didn't equal the "real problems" of the other patients.
Bruce Springsteen says Billy Joel has better songs
Joel's growth as a songwriter and performer (footage of his early concerts in dank clubs, tie loosened around his collar and cigarette tapping into an ashtray atop his piano are a delight) is heralded as he moves through career obstacles with a combination of grit, talent and luck.
Musical peers, including Jackson Browne, Garth Brooks, Nas, John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, pop in sparingly to offer commentary about Joel's evolution and longevity.
"He was a bridge and tunnel artist. As am I," Springsteen says with a grin. "But Billy is more identified with New York and that Tin Pan Alley influence is why his songs are better than mine."
Joel's sound was almost irrevocably altered when it came time to record his fourth studio album, "Turnstiles." The album that produced fan-adored album tracks "Prelude/Angry Young Man" and "Summer, Highland Falls" as well as concert staples "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)" and "New York State of Mind," was recorded at Caribou Ranch in Colorado with members of Elton John's band.
"It sounded horrible," Joel says.
So he fired John's group and assembled a street-savvy New York crew of musicians, including DeVitto, Cannata and Javors and appointed Weber, then his wife, his manager.
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Without the influence of Weber, Joel might never have elevated from scrappy club singer in sneakers and a blazer to worldwide musical titan.
After recording "The Stranger" in 1977, Joel and Weber sat in a room full of record label suits only to be told, "It's nice," but the execs couldn't identify an obvious hit single among the album tracks.
Weber asserted herself and told the label they could choose the first single from the album if she had authority to choose the second.
"Movin' Out," a quintessential Joel song stocked with Italian-American-New-York imagery, came first.
Weber, who divorced Joel in 1982, partially because of his worrisome drinking, chose "Just The Way You Are," a song Joel disliked then as much as he's said he does now.
The gooey, Grammy-winning ballad was "the turning point of my career," Joel says.
It's also the song Paul McCartney wishes he had written, as the Beatle and longtime Joel pal reasserts in the documentary.
Billy Joel knows life isn't about happy endings
As the film tapers to a close, Joel is steering his boat – the Alexa, named for his daughter with ex-wife Christie Brinkley – with a cigar in his mouth and his eyes focused on the water of Oyster Bay.
He reflects on the good fortune that resulted from his tireless recording and touring not with the gloating air of a multi-millionaire, but with realism.
"I realize life doesn't always have a happy ending," he says.
Or as the song says, "Every time I've held a rose, it seems I only felt the thorns / And so it goes, and so it goes."
