Once again the calendar has flipped a page and another year, and in this case another decade begins. With the new year comes a lot of resolutions to accomplish great things. Sometimes we succeed at endeavors, and then there are times we give up and settle into our own routine. However, there was a lot of planning to get to this point for Weekly Music Commentary. Yes, I wanted to feature an artist who would set the tone for the new year and decade, and also one who gave us much in the past. I had the good fortune of choosing an artist who is on his way to perform here in South Florida later in the week. Get ready readers, this week we feature the great Billy Joel.
When I started to listen to Billy Joel music in preparation for this week, I thought about the adjectives that could be used to describe such an iconic entertainer. There were literally hundreds of words, some of which you will read throughout this post. I even thought about including a few in the title, but I decided upon something very simple. “Life, Music and Billy Joel”. It just seems to sum up so much about the man and the artist. It even speaks to us, the music fans, who have enjoyed Billy Joel music for many years.
For now, we will go back to the beginning for Billy Joel. Let us take a look at his start and some of the things that happened to make him Billy Joel.
William Martin Joel was born in the Bronx on May 9, 1949. When he was one year old, his family moved to the Long Island suburb of Hicksville, New York, in the Town of Oyster Bay, where he and his younger sister Judy were raised in a section of Levitt homes.
Joel’s father, Howard (born Helmut) Joel, a classical pianist and businessman, was born in Nuremberg, Germany, to a Jewish family, the son of a merchant and manufacturer, Karl Amson Joel. Helmut was also educated in Switzerland. His father had created a highly successful mail order textile business, Joel Macht Fabrik. To escape the Nazi regime, Helmut’s family emigrated to Switzerland. His father was forced to sell his business at a fraction of its value in order to emigrate. The family reached the United States via Cuba, because immigration quotas for German Jews prevented direct immigration at the time. In the United States, Helmut/Howard Joel became an engineer but always loved music. Joel’s mother, Rosalind, was born in Brooklyn to Jewish parents, Philip and Rebecca Nyman, who had immigrated from England; his maternal family originated from Maidstone in Kent.
After Rosalind and Howard Joel divorced in 1957, Howard returned to Europe, as he had never liked the United States, considering the people uneducated and materialistic. He settled in Vienna, Austria, and later remarried. Billy Joel has a half-brother, Alexander Joel, born to his father in Europe, who became a classical conductor there. Alexander Joel was the chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 2001 to 2014.
Billy Joel took piano lessons as a child upon his mother’s insistence. He continued with his education through high school, but did not graduate with his class. He had been playing at a piano bar to help his mother make ends meet, which interfered with his attendance; specifically, he missed a crucial English exam, after playing a late-night gig at a piano bar the evening before. Although Joel was a comparatively strong student, at the end of his senior year he did not have enough credits to graduate. Rather than attend summer school to earn his diploma, Joel decided to begin a career in music: “I told them, ‘To hell with it. If I’m not going to Columbia University, I’m going to Columbia Records, and you don’t need a high school diploma over there’.” In 1992, he submitted essays to the school board in lieu of the missed exam; they were accepted and he was awarded his diploma at Hicksville High’s annual graduation ceremony 25 years after leaving.
Billy Joel stated that one of the major influences for him to start playing rock music, was a performance by The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. In an interview regarding that performance, Joel stated, “That one performance changed my life … Up to that moment I’d never considered playing rock as a career. And when I saw four guys who didn’t look like they’d come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon’s face – and he looked like he was always saying: ‘F— you!’ – I said: ‘I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys.’ This is what I’m going to do – play in a rock band’.
Billy Joel has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released twelve studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 150 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the U.S.
Even though Billy Joel has enjoyed a very successful musical career, he has experienced many ups and downs in his personal life. Now in his fourth marriage, Joel seems to have finally settled down a little now at seventy years old. The singer/songwriter battled depression for many years, even surviving a suicide attempt in 1970. In 2002, Joel entered Silver Hill Hospital, a substance abuse and psychiatric center in New Canaan, Connecticut. In March 2005, he checked into the Betty Ford Center, where he spent 30 days for the treatment of alcohol abuse. Oh yes, I guess one cannot forget the various auto accidents while driving intoxicated. With an understanding and forgiving fan base, Billy Joel remains one of the most popular artists on tour today.
As I stated earlier, I really listened to a lot of Billy Joel music to prepare for this post. Of course, it brought back some great memories for me. When I listened to “My Life”, I thought about the television show Bosom Buddies, starring a young Tom Hanks. It was one of the first sitcoms that I regularly watched as a youngster. Then when “Just The Way You Are” played, it brought back memories of my father who was in a band that played the song. He loved that song, and he made me appreciate what made it a great song very early in my musical awareness. Of course there are many more songs and memories, and I’m sure many of you reading also enjoy your own recollection of Billy Joel’s songs. That’s another of the elements that make Billy Joel concerts special.
As Billy Joel makes his way to South Florida, I’m not alone in enjoying much of what he has done in the way of hit music. Of course, when he comes to town, he brings a large catalog of songs, filled with memories….and life.