Billy Joel is such a great singer-songwriter from the 70's-90's. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The whole "Stranger" album is great & one of my favorites. It had the songs "Just The Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Only The Good Die Young", "She's Always A Woman", "Vienna", "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". I prefer the studio version.
Glad you mentioned his piano playing ability, there are so many of his live performances that are all great, over 40+ years of live concerts, no miming or hiding behind other musicians. His band from 1975 through 1993 was almost unchanged and live were practically studio quality every night!
One amazing piano detail from the video Harri chose is that this Long Island concert was soon after Joel's motorcycle accident that injured his hands. Harri noticed that Joel played with two fingers at times. It's hard to see here because the corner frame is so small, but you can find the video on Billy Joel's official website. You would notice that his fingers are taped, and every now and then he shakes out one hand. He said in interviews that he was actually glad to feel pain because he figured that meant healing was happening. But he probably was playing in pain that whole concert. Such an awesome performer!.
Yes, Harry, that's what this song's about. You have it completely correct. People usually hide their true selves whenever they meet others for the first time. Then there are others who will never do that. These people are honest with every person they meet. I know I'm one of them. This is part of how my DNA was formed in 1966. That's the year I was conceived.
This was the first big concert I ever went to back in 1977 when I was 18. One of the early dates with my girlfriend at the time that has now been my darling wife for 42 years. Have seen him in concert three other times over the years, but will always remember that first concert with great fondness.
This was Billy’s breakout album and first time produced by the great Phil Ramone. Billy told a story about the recording of this song. Billy whistled through the opening part they said , I think there should be some instrument here but I can’t come up with the right one. Phil then replies , “ you just did”.
Sophomore year of high school this album came out and I wore it out, Then I wore out the cassette tape. This song is relevant to finding yourself in a world of relationships that are not always interested in your benefit.
You know Harri, being a musician, I have always been music first and not as much about the lyrics. One thing that is great about your reactions is your breakdown of the song. It isn't only about us introducing you to a song you might not have heard before, but also for us to discover the message or meaning along with you. Well done Harri! Good pick Jami A. Love Billy Joel.
Billy is a musical genius. I’m going to see him in 2 weeks here in Las Vegas. I’m from Long Island and have been listening to him from when starting. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant is incredible. It’s like 2 songs in one. It was written Christianos restaurant that my brother in law was the chef.
As a teenager in the 70s, I learned about life through the songs of Billy Joel - (we were so spoiled then) - He’s so talented - songwriting, piano, vocals, whistling- he was my favorite - saw his first concert at Madison Square Garden in 1978 - best concert ever!! 🤩
What's so amazing about Billy, is how he reproduces his studio stuff very accurately live, All the cool sounds and nuances he adds in from the studio... I had suggested Genesis; Harold The Barrel...I think you'd really love it...It's so Brit too...
Billy Joel has been the musician narrating my life. I can recall the exact moment I heard Billy Joel for the first time. I was 11 and my brother was driving me to school in his 1973 Datsun. He played Uptown Girl and it was like a light turned on. I asked him to play it two more times on the way to school. After the third time he played Modern Woman and I have been hooked ever since. Every moment in my life, from graduation to getting my license it a job, or losing loved ones in death can all be summed up in different Billy Joel songs.
The greatest talent to come out of Long Island is our Billy Joel. Just about every one of us has a Billy story with six degrees of separation in some way. At least everyone I know does. The talent was just so never ending with him. He was a storyteller that wasn't folk music. Like Bob Dylan.. Joni Mitchell.. And Harry Chapin just to name a few. He had a bit a jazz with rock telling his stories. He was different with his own style. Anybody could listen to his music and every radio station could play it. His music was and still is very versatile. And a great performer to see live. I saw him perform with Elton John too. His music holds a lot of memories for me.
These reactions are reminding me of Joel's brilliance. I've always known how much I've loved him, but this is excellent for truly appreciating him on so many levels... Performance overall on top of how he changes it up so much and takes you on a journey while keeping familiarities throughout. Joel's piano playing and vocals are top notch. Was that him whistling?! That alone is not easily done... Just brilliant.
I´ll leave this here, Today I found this video reaction and I see/hear this man talking only about how good Billy is playing piano, singing and creating these amazing lyrics. It´s ok but... Why nobody mention how good the musicians who play with him are? Specially MR: LIBERTY DE VITO (yes, with capital letters) playing the drums. He´s a great drummer! I think he needs to be more mentioned.
I love how the intro and outdo fade in and out and are so different from the rest of the melody. Someone once described it as symbolizing how The Stranger comes in and out of our lives so easily, and how The Stranger is so different from our own “regulate melody”.
For context...this was recorded in December of 1982. In April of that year, he was hit on his motorcycle by a red light runner. He had a broken and badly dislocated right wrist, and his left thumb was shattered and he lost his distal bone (the bone toward the fingertip). There's an MTV interview here on YT from that year where he talks about the accident and the recuperation. He had to have multiple surgeries to fix his hands, and was in casts for several weeks while he was working on his album The Nylon Curtain. (He recorded the song "Where's The Orchestra," among others, while still in a cast.) His thumb (a little graphic here) is mushy at the end, and he taped it the next few tours to keep it rigid as he played, but hasn't needed to in recent years as it's toughened up from playing.
The Stranger is the analogy of meaning of word "person" in latin that is "mask", that is why album cover shows a Mask the same we wear in front of people our personality meanwhile truth one is a total stranger.
I ADORE this song....this is also one of the only songs he hasn't sung live in decades & decades and never will. He will always be one of my favourite singer-songwriters.
'The Stranger' and 'Glass Houses' were superb albums; I loved them at a time when I was mainly into punk, new-wave and reconciling those with the guitar-hero rock I'd been immersed in previously, and the first-wave of British rock and pop that initially inspired me. Great songwriting, arranging and playing/singing are always a win if you keep your ears open.
I think it's his best album. It's one of the approximately 20 LPs I have that are half-speed mastered (Audiophile pressings) and it sounds spectacular.
@@CB-gr1uk I've had these special high quality pressings for 40 years or more including 4 of my favourite band, Supertramp. Their already superior instrumentation and record production sounds even better in Audiophile. I've got to get a better turntable so I can listen to them all again.
@@timwhitnell7145 I still have all my albums I ever bought, lol! I still have a Technics turntable, I bought it in 1982, still works. Turntables are so expensive these days, lol, pretty much like CD players were when they came out. Go get that turntable, you have a great collection. I grew up in the 70s, Styx is my favorite group but Supertramp is way up there with them.
@@CB-gr1uk I have about 450 LPs, most first runs including some original stuff from the 1960s I got at a Christmas bazaar several years ago for cheap. I think I had an AR (Acoustic Research) basic turntable with Shure cartridges when I was a teen in the '70s. It worked well. I thought I was upgrading in the early '80s with another turntable but it is one with a variable speed wheel and a strobe light. I thought it looked cool but it is annoying as the platter speed will wax and wane and you have to adjust the wheel to get it to the right speed. That's why I haven't been using it for years. All my original equipment from circa 1979-80 - Akai integrated amplifier/tuner and Avid speakers - still work. I've got 4 Styx Audiophile albums as well. Grand Illusion is my favourite.
Well done, Harri. I always enjoy your reactions and your insights are spot on. We saw Billy Joel years ago at the University of Illinois, what an amazing concert. He is indeed a genius and a musical virtuoso. I would love to see you react to "River of Dreams." It is one of my favorites and I think it is one of his best. czcams.com/video/hSq4B_zHqPM/video.html
Yes, he is an amazing lyricist. He is also (IMHO) a better musician and poet than Bob Dylan. Although it may be my age/ Period, I know every single Billy Joel lyric to every Billy Joel song by the first bar. He has addressed a wider range of the human experience than Dylan has ever done (Captain Jack to Scenes from an Italian Restaurant to Goodnight Saigon to Running on Ice to …)
Singer Billy Joe Royal enjoyed a successful musical career which spanned over forty years and encompassed the pop, rock, and country music genres. He was born on April 3, 1942 in Valdosta, Georgia and raised in Marietta, Georgia. Royal hailed from a family of musical entertainers. Billy Joe made his public debut at age five in a first-grade performance for the PTA and sang on his uncle's radio show at age eleven. At age fourteen Royal learned how to play the steel guitar and joined the Georgia Jubilee. He fronted his own rock band at age sixteen which performed around Atlanta. In addition, Billy Joe was a local singing sensation at the Bamboo Ranch in Savannah, Georgia in the 1950's and early 1960's.
Or, he might be a Jewish kid born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island who learned to box to defend himself against anti-semites. As a kid he attended Catholic Church with his friends and I believe even got baptized with them. He identifies as an atheist. His boxing career garnered 22 wins on the amateur circuit but he quit when his nose got broken. He spent about half a year working in a piano bar in LA and it inspired his first hit - - Piano Man. He did take piano lessons (from age 4). Hope that helps.
He started out great, really connecting with a certain (somewhat more sophisticated) rock audience. Then after his early period. He had this long simmering notion to reinterpret a vibe he had from his younger days. It didn't work, imho. As for this song, this reminds me that meeting a new person is like visiting a mini foreign culture.
He did one album in 1983 that was a homage to the musical styles of acts from his youth during the 50s and 60s but that was it and it only happened on that one album, An Innocent Man. And even then most people only know Uptown Girl and Tell Her About It, but the title track is superb and lesser known songs from it like Careless Talk, Christie Lee, Leave a Tender Moment Alone, The Longest Time and This Night are arguable better songs. His albums after that were nothing like the An Innocent Man album because he tends not to repeat himself with his music.
@@seanscanlon9067 I agree with that he had changes in his career. I see the evolution a bit differently. I feel that his later career took a pop wrong turn. Imho.
Hi Harry Blessings from U.S.A. I've seen Billy about 30 times since the 80's and his musical library is absolutely other worldly. Although he had tons of hits I believe his non released singles like The Stranger are better than his hits if you can believe it. If you want to hear a Very Jazz influenced song play "Zanzibar" from 52nd street album. Here's the link. Blessings czcams.com/video/Yget4xVAulE/video.html
Years back they did a tribute to Billy Joel on TV where they had popular singer of the day singing his songs. It might have been as far back as 20 years ago. Anyway, Billy Joel said he loved it because he loved hearing great singers singing his songs the way they probably should sound. To be honest, I didn't like the way any of those so-called singers sang his songs. He doesn't give his singing abilities enough credit.
Sorry, not trying to come across as a dick here but Billy did take piano lessons from the age of four. His parents' families are from Europe and his parents meet through music with his dad being a classically trained pianist and his mum being an operatic singer in things like Gilbert and Sullivan productions. There was no television in the family home but there was a piano and Billy used to 'play' the 'storm song' as a kid with low keys for thunder and high keys for rain. His mum got fed up of hearing this so took him for classical piano lessons and his teacher also taught ballet classes too, and when Billy was older and would go to lessons by himself he would be taunted and teased by other kids when they saw him carrying his music books on the way to his lessons, with it sometimes getting physical. By this time his dad had left the family home to return to Austria and his although mum's English dad/Billy's granddad was a strong male influence on him, he took up boxing to learn how to stick up for himself, being the family home was now only made up of himself, his mum and his older sister Judith or Judy.
He was great till his his manager stole all his money. Then he became a total A-Hole, especially in the way he treated the musicians that had been with him for 30 years , just kicked them to the curb without so much as a thank you......lost all my respect .
Impeccable pianist, yes... but also, have we heard many musicians who can whistle as magnificently as Billy??
🥰
Look into Rob of Home Free. EPIC whistling ability.
But his real talent is song writing, which is insane given his whistling.
Guy Mitchell?
I worked with a guy that could whistle that good. He would be walking through the plant whistling a happy tune and I would be in awe.
Billy Joel is such a great singer-songwriter from the 70's-90's. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The whole "Stranger" album is great & one of my favorites. It had the songs "Just The Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", "Only The Good Die Young", "She's Always A Woman", "Vienna", "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". I prefer the studio version.
Can't forget about Vienna on top of all of that
The album “ The Stranger “ is a masterpiece!!! Vienna is something worth listening to. As a guy from Long Island, his music hits home for me
I believe it was tony Bennett who said billy Joel has written our generation's great American songbook
Billy whistles better than I sing!
Glad you mentioned his piano playing ability, there are so many of his live performances that are all great, over 40+ years of live concerts, no miming or hiding behind other musicians. His band from 1975 through 1993 was almost unchanged and live were practically studio quality every night!
One amazing piano detail from the video Harri chose is that this Long Island concert was soon after Joel's motorcycle accident that injured his hands. Harri noticed that Joel played with two fingers at times. It's hard to see here because the corner frame is so small, but you can find the video on Billy Joel's official website. You would notice that his fingers are taped, and every now and then he shakes out one hand. He said in interviews that he was actually glad to feel pain because he figured that meant healing was happening. But he probably was playing in pain that whole concert. Such an awesome performer!.
Yes, Harry, that's what this song's about. You have it completely correct. People usually hide their true selves whenever they meet others for the first time. Then there are others who will never do that. These people are honest with every person they meet. I know I'm one of them. This is part of how my DNA was formed in 1966. That's the year I was conceived.
‘Movin’ Out’ would be another good one from Billy Joel.✌🏻✨
I love the lyrics. You can know someone for years and you don't know them. Brilliant. Great analysis Harri!
I was lucky enough to see him live 3 times in the 80s and 90s. His band is amazing.
This was the first big concert I ever went to back in 1977 when I was 18. One of the early dates with my girlfriend at the time that has now been my darling wife for 42 years. Have seen him in concert three other times over the years, but will always remember that first concert with great fondness.
This was Billy’s breakout album and first time produced by the great Phil Ramone. Billy told a story about the recording of this song. Billy whistled through the opening part they said , I think there should be some instrument here but I can’t come up with the right one. Phil then replies , “ you just did”.
That's the brilliance of a great producer like Ramone. Mike Chapman's like that too. Of course, nobody is in George Martin's league.
Sophomore year of high school this album came out and I wore it out, Then I wore out the cassette tape. This song is relevant to finding yourself in a world of relationships that are not always interested in your benefit.
That's why he is "The Piano Man"
You know Harri, being a musician, I have always been music first and not as much about the lyrics. One thing that is great about your reactions is your breakdown of the song. It isn't only about us introducing you to a song you might not have heard before, but also for us to discover the message or meaning along with you. Well done Harri! Good pick Jami A. Love Billy Joel.
Gotta check out Billy Joel Allentown and All For Leyna. Also Green Day Jesus of Suburbia
Billy is a musical genius. I’m going to see him in 2 weeks here in Las Vegas. I’m from Long Island and have been listening to him from when starting. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant is incredible. It’s like 2 songs in one. It was written Christianos restaurant that my brother in law was the chef.
As a teenager in the 70s, I learned about life through the songs of Billy Joel - (we were so spoiled then) - He’s so talented - songwriting, piano, vocals, whistling- he was my favorite - saw his first concert at Madison Square Garden in 1978 - best concert ever!! 🤩
Would have loved to experience the 70s like you guys
Great reaction to Billy Joel song The Stranger. One of his many great songs. I saw him in concert in the 1980s. Thank you.
This is my favorite Joel song. Great lyrics, arrangement, vocals, and relatable. Thanks for the post, Harri!
What's so amazing about Billy, is how he reproduces his studio stuff very accurately live, All the cool sounds and nuances he adds in from the studio... I had suggested Genesis; Harold The Barrel...I think you'd really love it...It's so Brit too...
One of my top three Billy Joel songs of all time. The lyrics are killer, the song is a banger, holy moly, what a great musician.
Billy Joel has been the musician narrating my life. I can recall the exact moment I heard Billy Joel for the first time. I was 11 and my brother was driving me to school in his 1973 Datsun. He played Uptown Girl and it was like a light turned on. I asked him to play it two more times on the way to school. After the third time he played Modern Woman and I have been hooked ever since. Every moment in my life, from graduation to getting my license it a job, or losing loved ones in death can all be summed up in different Billy Joel songs.
Billy is always first and foremost an amazing piano man and lyricist! Great song and performance!
The greatest talent to come out of Long Island is our Billy Joel. Just about every one of us has a Billy story with six degrees of separation in some way. At least everyone I know does. The talent was just so never ending with him. He was a storyteller that wasn't folk music. Like Bob Dylan.. Joni Mitchell.. And Harry Chapin just to name a few. He had a bit a jazz with rock telling his stories. He was different with his own style. Anybody could listen to his music and every radio station could play it. His music was and still is very versatile. And a great performer to see live. I saw him perform with Elton John too. His music holds a lot of memories for me.
This may have been the 1st Billy Joel song I ever heard, quite sure it was the 1st album of his I bought. Loved his music ever since.
These reactions are reminding me of Joel's brilliance. I've always known how much I've loved him, but this is excellent for truly appreciating him on so many levels... Performance overall on top of how he changes it up so much and takes you on a journey while keeping familiarities throughout. Joel's piano playing and vocals are top notch. Was that him whistling?! That alone is not easily done... Just brilliant.
I LOVE BILLY JOEL.
Sheer genius
Sometimes you get so hyped for a song and then fuck…he went with the live version.
My feelings as well. For a first time reaction you need to hear the studio version. This version feels flat.
Agreed. The studio version hits way harder!✌🏻
I've seen him lay on his back on the piano, reach backwards and play the 🎹 piano. Amazing!
Whistling is a fine art in and of itself... again his unique NESS is heart thumping soul spinning Stuff!! ✌️❣️🌙🐂🪐
I´ll leave this here, Today I found this video reaction and I see/hear this man talking only about how good Billy is playing piano, singing and creating these amazing lyrics. It´s ok but... Why nobody mention how good the musicians who play with him are? Specially MR: LIBERTY DE VITO (yes, with capital letters) playing the drums. He´s a great drummer! I think he needs to be more mentioned.
"U belay urself" intense. We all belay ourselves.
You said this was Live from Long Island. He makes me proud to say, I’m Live from Long Island.
He IS the piano man.
This and 52nd St. are my favorite albums. Just great.
Love Billy Joel saw him on concert twice Orlando Florida and New york City- Great reaction Harri
I love that lyric where he says it was then the stranger kicked me right between the eyes
I love how the intro and outdo fade in and out and are so different from the rest of the melody. Someone once described it as symbolizing how The Stranger comes in and out of our lives so easily, and how The Stranger is so different from our own “regulate melody”.
For context...this was recorded in December of 1982. In April of that year, he was hit on his motorcycle by a red light runner. He had a broken and badly dislocated right wrist, and his left thumb was shattered and he lost his distal bone (the bone toward the fingertip). There's an MTV interview here on YT from that year where he talks about the accident and the recuperation. He had to have multiple surgeries to fix his hands, and was in casts for several weeks while he was working on his album The Nylon Curtain. (He recorded the song "Where's The Orchestra," among others, while still in a cast.) His thumb (a little graphic here) is mushy at the end, and he taped it the next few tours to keep it rigid as he played, but hasn't needed to in recent years as it's toughened up from playing.
Great Analogy
try listening to You're My Home. beautiful song
The Stranger is the analogy of meaning of word "person" in latin that is "mask", that is why album cover shows a Mask the same we wear in front of people our personality meanwhile truth one is a total stranger.
The whole album is 🧨🧨🧨
You have to do UNTIL The Night a magnificent love story
Listen to his New York State of Mind and Vienna
Love it HARRY.You can never go wrong with Billy Joel..Sings about the truth..
Harry we all go south.... It's how we get back on the right path that counts... or if we do.
Next-WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE 🔥
Harri, the Entertainer is an absolute must!
LOVE this song!
Thank you for the analysis and appreciation of Billy Joel, one of my all time favorite musicians.
Billy in front of his people. I was at that concert back in 1982. This was recorded for an HBO special.
Loves this tune muches !!
My absolute favourite Billy Joel track.
It's so very well written, anyone who's honest with themselves will relate to the lyrics.
This whole album is fantastic. it's in my personal top five of all time
I ADORE this song....this is also one of the only songs he hasn't sung live in decades & decades and never will. He will always be one of my favourite singer-songwriters.
Thinking of an Astro Zombie. A dedication from long ago. Great nostalgia, thanks!
Always enjoy Billy. Still hoping you react to “Goodnight Saigon”
I did 😁
czcams.com/video/pOGGhAi4hiY/video.html
Very good analysis. We're also subject to being strangers to ourselves. Love Billy Joel.
Hope you listen to the studio version, it's so incredibly good. Thanks Harry
Harry, we're always on the same page my friend. If ya wanna try some more Billy, put "Vienna" on your list. Trust me. Your friend, DJ Kev.
Harri...you nailed it in my opinion!!!
It's called THE Stranger.
After Paul McCartney Billy best songwriter ever in modern music era !!!
Such a wonderful album and song
'The Stranger' and 'Glass Houses' were superb albums; I loved them at a time when I was mainly into punk, new-wave and reconciling those with the guitar-hero rock I'd been immersed in previously, and the first-wave of British rock and pop that initially inspired me. Great songwriting, arranging and playing/singing are always a win if you keep your ears open.
Nessuno come Piano Man ... Il più completo e brillante musicista songwriter e performer... Da giovane era un portento .....
Great song, great reaction!!
Try “Zanzibar”. Amazing arrangement & song!
He’s known as The Piano Man.
Just discovered you and love this channel! You do a great job!
Great reaction. Thanks Harri.
scenes from an italian restaraunt;)
He was trained as a classical pianist.
Great song but even greater album! One of t he best albums I have ever owned. I do like the studio version a lot better.
I think it's his best album. It's one of the approximately 20 LPs I have that are half-speed mastered (Audiophile pressings) and it sounds spectacular.
@@timwhitnell7145 Absolutely it is! I bet it sounds fantastic! I love vinyl!
@@CB-gr1uk I've had these special high quality pressings for 40 years or more including 4 of my favourite band, Supertramp. Their already superior instrumentation and record production sounds even better in Audiophile. I've got to get a better turntable so I can listen to them all again.
@@timwhitnell7145 I still have all my albums I ever bought, lol! I still have a Technics turntable, I bought it in 1982, still works. Turntables are so expensive these days, lol, pretty much like CD players were when they came out. Go get that turntable, you have a great collection. I grew up in the 70s, Styx is my favorite group but Supertramp is way up there with them.
@@CB-gr1uk I have about 450 LPs, most first runs including some original stuff from the 1960s I got at a Christmas bazaar several years ago for cheap. I think I had an AR (Acoustic Research) basic turntable with Shure cartridges when I was a teen in the '70s. It worked well. I thought I was upgrading in the early '80s with another turntable but it is one with a variable speed wheel and a strobe light. I thought it looked cool but it is annoying as the platter speed will wax and wane and you have to adjust the wheel to get it to the right speed. That's why I haven't been using it for years. All my original equipment from circa 1979-80 - Akai integrated amplifier/tuner and Avid speakers - still work. I've got 4 Styx Audiophile albums as well. Grand Illusion is my favourite.
Well done, Harri. I always enjoy your reactions and your insights are spot on. We saw Billy Joel years ago at the University of Illinois, what an amazing concert. He is indeed a genius and a musical virtuoso. I would love to see you react to "River of Dreams." It is one of my favorites and I think it is one of his best.
czcams.com/video/hSq4B_zHqPM/video.html
Goodnight Saigon really stands out to me, from the Nylon Curtains album.
I was at that concert. Sax guy was having at it that night.
"He was a quiet man".....how many neighbors and friends describe a serial killer that way?
Yes, he is an amazing lyricist. He is also (IMHO) a better musician and poet than Bob Dylan. Although it may be my age/ Period, I know every single Billy Joel lyric to every Billy Joel song by the first bar. He has addressed a wider range of the human experience than Dylan has ever done (Captain Jack to Scenes from an Italian Restaurant to Goodnight Saigon to Running on Ice to …)
Singer Billy Joe Royal enjoyed a successful musical career which spanned over forty years and encompassed the pop, rock, and country music genres. He was born on April 3, 1942 in Valdosta, Georgia and raised in Marietta, Georgia. Royal hailed from a family of musical entertainers. Billy Joe made his public debut at age five in a first-grade performance for the PTA and sang on his uncle's radio show at age eleven. At age fourteen Royal learned how to play the steel guitar and joined the Georgia Jubilee. He fronted his own rock band at age sixteen which performed around Atlanta. In addition, Billy Joe was a local singing sensation at the Bamboo Ranch in Savannah, Georgia in the 1950's and early 1960's.
I think you are mixing up Billy Joe Royal with Billy Joel.
@@dagmar.6954 yeah he mixed it up a bit :D
Or, he might be a Jewish kid born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island who learned to box to defend himself against anti-semites. As a kid he attended Catholic Church with his friends and I believe even got baptized with them. He identifies as an atheist. His boxing career garnered 22 wins on the amateur circuit but he quit when his nose got broken. He spent about half a year working in a piano bar in LA and it inspired his first hit - - Piano Man. He did take piano lessons (from age 4). Hope that helps.
@@jillk368 I don't think anti-semites were the issue, it was because he was taking piano lessons from a teacher who also taught ballet.
@@seanscanlon9067 I read it in an interview. But, it sounds like he could have been picked on for both.
He started out great, really connecting with a certain (somewhat more sophisticated) rock audience. Then after his early period. He had this long simmering notion to reinterpret a vibe he had from his younger days. It didn't work, imho.
As for this song, this reminds me that meeting a new person is like visiting a mini foreign culture.
He did one album in 1983 that was a homage to the musical styles of acts from his youth during the 50s and 60s but that was it and it only happened on that one album, An Innocent Man. And even then most people only know Uptown Girl and Tell Her About It, but the title track is superb and lesser known songs from it like Careless Talk, Christie Lee, Leave a Tender Moment Alone, The Longest Time and This Night are arguable better songs.
His albums after that were nothing like the An Innocent Man album because he tends not to repeat himself with his music.
@@seanscanlon9067 I agree with that he had changes in his career. I see the evolution a bit differently. I feel that his later career took a pop wrong turn. Imho.
Hi Harri, another great song called "The Stranger" is from Smokie. Test it out 😁😁Greetings from germany
Brilliantly used in Xzibit’s “The Foundation” by the way.
Told ya
Hi Harry Blessings from U.S.A. I've seen Billy about 30 times since the 80's and his musical library is absolutely other worldly. Although he had tons of hits I believe his non released singles like The Stranger are better than his hits if you can believe it. If you want to hear a Very Jazz influenced song play
"Zanzibar" from 52nd street album. Here's the link. Blessings
czcams.com/video/Yget4xVAulE/video.html
Yeah, I know the stranger. He's not me right now. But he's there. This is probably the most disturbing song I've ever heard.
Years back they did a tribute to Billy Joel on TV where they had popular singer of the day singing his songs. It might have been as far back as 20 years ago. Anyway, Billy Joel said he loved it because he loved hearing great singers singing his songs the way they probably should sound. To be honest, I didn't like the way any of those so-called singers sang his songs. He doesn't give his singing abilities enough credit.
Billy Joel never took piano lessons. He's self taught.
Sorry, not trying to come across as a dick here but Billy did take piano lessons from the age of four.
His parents' families are from Europe and his parents meet through music with his dad being a classically trained pianist and his mum being an operatic singer in things like Gilbert and Sullivan productions. There was no television in the family home but there was a piano and Billy used to 'play' the 'storm song' as a kid with low keys for thunder and high keys for rain.
His mum got fed up of hearing this so took him for classical piano lessons and his teacher also taught ballet classes too, and when Billy was older and would go to lessons by himself he would be taunted and teased by other kids when they saw him carrying his music books on the way to his lessons, with it sometimes getting physical.
By this time his dad had left the family home to return to Austria and his although mum's English dad/Billy's granddad was a strong male influence on him, he took up boxing to learn how to stick up for himself, being the family home was now only made up of himself, his mum and his older sister Judith or Judy.
He began piano lessons at age four.
Many people present a different personality to different people in effort to communicate more fully. Is this being empathetic or disingenuous?
He was great till his his manager stole all his money. Then he became a total A-Hole, especially in the way he treated the musicians that had been with him for 30 years , just kicked them to the curb without so much as a thank you......lost all my respect .
That is not actually how it happened though.
If you only ever hear one side of a story then you are only ever likely to form one view.