Billy and the Joels--The American rock star and his German family story

by Steffen Radlmaier

  The “Havana Jam” took place in March 1979 and it was a brilliant coup by Columbia records. Among the artists who appeared were singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Stephen Stills and jazz-fusion formation “Weather Report”. Several Cuban bands took part too. The record company intended to record a live album of the three-day festival in the small Karl Marx Theater, and also broadcast the show live on TV. But they’d forgotten to take the real star of the show into account. Billy Joel felt he hadn’t been informed soon enough of the plans, and didn’t wish to be used as crowd-puller for the commercial misuse of the goodwill concert. This caused trouble behind the scenes and led to Billy Joel not appearing on the two “Havana Jam” live albums. Nevertheless, his performance was the highpoint of the festival, something even The New York Times had to agree with in their review of the event. One of the big surprises was that the young Cubans were familiar with Billy Joel’s music from the radio, and they loved rock and roll.

  Billy had learned at an early age that music was a language that could be understood throughout the entire world. And rock and roll was the language of youth. However, he didn’t wish to be used for political purposes, whether by the left or the right wing – enemy stereotypes just didn’t interest him. He made his stance in this matter during a press conference, when asked for his motives: “I played in Israel for the same reason I played in Cuba – to play for the people. We wanted to see what the people in Israel were like instead of listening to the propaganda we get in our country. The people at the press conference stood up and clapped. It was the same thing: Capitalist or Communist, it doesn’t matter. You can play Cuba or Israel or Hong Kong or Russia. Kids just want to rock out. At the press conference, they also wanted me to put down America: ‘What do you think of all the problems in your country?’ I go, ‘Well, we’re better off there than you are here.’ So suddenly I’m a right-wing fascist. Well, I’m closer to a socialist. But I’m not blind. I like my country. I’ve seen a lot of places, and while we’re not perfect, there is none better. The hip thing is to put America down, but I don’t care about being hip. I think it’s the greatest country in the world. We’re all supposed to hate America. That’s more propaganda.”81

  People Who Live in Glass Houses

  The year 1980 started well: In February Billy Joel picked up another two Grammys, one for Album of the Year (“52nd Street”) and one for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Male. A new album was released not long afterwards: “Glass Houses” with its suggestive cover photo of a man in a black leather jacket who is about to throw a rock at a glass house-front. Billy Joel is the man, and the house is his own. The photo was not an advertisement for glass insurance, but a pointer to his image problem. Billy’s commercial breakthrough was thanks in particular to his ballads, and he was regarded by some as being just a good pop singer and a bit of a featherweight. However, he saw himself as a rock musician and, in order to finally do away with the balladeer image of the ‘Piano Man’, he went for a harder, tougher studio sound: “So I figured, ‘What the hell, I’m just gonna throw a rock through my window, at myself – meaning the whole narrow image people have of me.’ And, that is my house, by the way. People think I’ve got this multimillion-dollar mansion. I paid 300,000 dollars for it, and it wasn’t even money up front; I’ve got a mortgage. I’m not a multimillionaire. Frankly I’m not sure what I’m worth…I honestly don’t know and don’t ask.”82

  And the plan worked: For the first time, Billy Joel made number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his single “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”. The song contains a dig at the media: “It doesn’t matter what they say in the papers, ’cause it’s always been the same old scene. There’s a new band in town, but you can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine aimed at your average teen.” This was aimed at Rolling Stone magazine – which got its own back by voting the song worst song about rock and roll ever, in a survey of rock critics.

  As had often been the case, the opinions of American music critics were divided when it came to “Glass Houses”. Although some praised the new-found toughness and honesty, most considered it a failure. Paul Nelson’s slating in Rolling Stone became well-known: “Billy Joel writes smooth and cunning melodies, and what many of his defenders say is true: his material’s catchy. But then, so’s the flu.”83

  The reputable music critic Robert Palmer of The New York Times didn’t disguise his dislike when reviewing Billy’s concert in Madison Square Garden: “[Joel] has won a huge following by making emptiness seem substantial and Holiday Inn lounge schlock sound special. […] Yes, he’s an energetic, flamboyant performer. But no, this listener can’t stand him. […] He’s the sort of popular artist who makes elitism seem not just defensible but necessary.”84

  Despite all his commercial success, Billy Joel still longed for artistic recognition, and he started to believe the press were hounding him, suspecting they had declared war on him. In retrospect he says: “I saw it as a press war, even though logically I knew things were not that controlled. I was feeding my own frustration and enlarging the problem. […] The truth was that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was a very pissed-off guy. I had a lot of hurt from mistakes I’d made in the past. And I had no personal life whatsoever, because I was working so much and becoming emotionally drained, psychically spent.”85

  Whatever the case, the singer’s relationship with the press was so strained that his record company called in a PR strategist to defuse the situation, as it seemed both sides were somehow bogged down in enmity. Experienced music attorney Howard Bloom did finally manage to make several important music journalists acquainted with Billy, and to convince them that he was more than just an angry young man. The result of this PR campaign was a much more favorable cover story in Rolling Stone magazine.

  Although Billy didn’t want to admit it, the continuing stress started to have an effect on his married life. Elizabeth had made a major contribution to her husband’s success, but the work began to be too much for her and she hoped to slowly but surely get out of the music business. It was the beginning of the end of their marriage.

  Within the space of a few years, Elizabeth had gradually and cleverly built up a small empire with various affiliated companies attached: “Home Run Systems” was responsible for artist management, “Impulsive Music” took care of publishing rights, “Billy Joel Tours” looked after tour production, “Home Run Agency” did the booking and “Roots Rags Ltd.” handled merchandising products such as t-shirts, posters and baseball caps.

  Elizabeth proposed her brother Frank Weber, who had marketing experience, as her successor – with disastrous consequences. But he was part of the family, which had to be an asset, and even Billy – who’d had his fair share of problems with bad managers – saw it that way.

  After an initial trial period, Frank Weber officially took over from his sister at the Home Run System Corporation in 1980. In the meantime, Billy and Elizabeth agreed that should their marriage end in divorce, they would split their joint assets 50-50.

  It was about this time that Beatles fans throughout the world were devastated by tragic news: John Lennon, idol of a whole generation, was shot dead in front of the Dakota building in New York. He’d been murdered by a mentally ill fan, Mark David Chapman. Billy Joel, who had never personally met his musical idol, was particularly affected by Lennon’s death, not least because he himself had unsuccessfully tried to get an apartment in the Dakota just a few months beforehand. However, the owners had turned down his request on the grounds that there were already too many celebrities living in the building, often leading to too much disturbance for the residents. They were worried that having a rock star like Billy Joel in the house would automatically bring groupies and drugs into the genteel Dakota.

  The first thing Billy did upon hearing of John Lennon’s death was to jump on his motorcycle and ride around aimlessly for hours on end. Somewhere along the way he stopped at a club, sat down a
t the piano and played one Beatles song after the other, to console himself and any guests who happened to be there – a musical grieving.

  Dreams and Nightmares

  The 1980s brought with them a whole series of radical changes in the life of Billy Joel: privately, musically and professionally.

  Things seemed to be going well, Billy was riding a wave of success and earning big money. The band was getting on well together and having fun playing the concerts, and there was no lack of parties to go to on the New York scene. Like it says in Ian Drury’s famous song, life seemed to be nothing but sex and drugs and rock and roll. In an interview in Playboy in 1982, Billy Joel admitted to having tried all manner of drugs, including cocaine and heroin. He claims never to have been addicted to any type of hard stuff, but for many years his drug of choice remained alcohol.

  Billy Joel’s seven-year contract with Columbia came to an end in 1981 and was up for renegotiation. CBS president Walter Yetnikoff wanted to keep his ‘cash cow’ under contract and made Billy an enticing offer in order to keep him on. Artie Ripp was still earning 25% of every dollar Billy Joel’s records brought in. The record company was now to take over this share so that Billy could enjoy the full fruits of his copyrights.

  The first album release to be affected by this new agreement was “Songs in the Attic”, a mixture of best-of and live recordings. Billy had long dreamed of capturing the live energy of his concerts on record. Phil Ramone produced the album, which was recorded both in small clubs and in large concert venues. The basic idea was to present previously unappreciated or badly produced songs from the early days in a new garb. Among these were “Captain Jack”, “Summer Highland Falls” and “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)”.

  The album captured the early work recorded between 1971 and 1976 in the way Billy Joel and the band wanted, full of passion and energy. The sleeve notes featured private photos from Billy’s childhood and youth.

  Released in September 1981, “Songs in the Attic” was technically pioneering: It was the first ever live album to be recorded digitally. And the reviews were consistently positive, even that in Rolling Stone.

  It was the last Billy Joel album on which long-serving band member Richie Cannata ever played. The multi-instrumentalist was fed up with the rock and roll circus and was searching for a new musical challenge; this he later found working for artists like Elton John, Rita Coolidge, Phoebe Snow and Celine Dion. However, Richie Cannata’s departure was probably the first sign that things were heading towards a crisis in the band. Although the musicians were proud of their part in the success story, they realized that – in contrast to the frontman – they were replaceable.

  Billy Joel was too intelligent to accept his fame and riches unquestioningly:

  “The more you have, the more you spend. So we’re also responsible for a lot of different people’s income. The money coming in is creating employment too, creating jobs. I’m not really a capitalist. I never was. I’m kind of a quasi socialist; I’m embarrassed by all the money. Elizabeth is a very good capitalist; she’s very sensible. She exists in this society and she accepts it. We give money to charity. I help my family out. I kind of like that. We never had no money and now I can help out. See, I’m afraid to get too business-oriented. It gets in the way of creativity. I’m not saying I subscribe to the theory that you have to be hungry to create; I don’t buy that, because I’ve eaten a full meal and sat down to write. But I’m not doing this for the money.”86

  On the other hand, money allowed him to buy himself nice houses and expensive toys. Motorcycles, for example: “It’s nice to have four motorcycles. It’s fun. And I walk into the garage and go, ‘Holy shit! I’ve got four motorcycles!’ But I don’t go beyond a certain point. I got the Harley Electra Glide. I looked at it and said, ‘What else do I need for my life? This is it! This is all I need!’”87

  It was irony of fate that, not long after, a crash with his cherished Harley almost prematurely brought his music career to an end. On April 15, 1982, he was riding his motorcycle on Long Island when he was rammed by a car driven by an elderly lady, hurtling the singer into the air and causing him fairly serious injury. She’d run a red light. Luckily, he was wearing a helmet and leather protective clothing. Picking himself up and trying to get over the shock, he noticed his left hand was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, was bleeding and hurting like the devil. A pianist’s nightmare! He’d been lucky enough to escape the accident with his life, but it could still have meant the end of his playing days.

  Billy Joel was flown by medical helicopter to a specialist clinic in New York, where he was operated upon for several hours. His left thumb and some bones in the right hand were broken. The operation was successful and, after a period of convalescence, Billy was able to play piano once more. However, his right thumb has never really recovered from the damage. “The biggest thing I learned from the accident was that when you think you have all the control in the world, suddenly someone is going to run a red light.”88

  The accident also had a rather unpleasant epilogue to it: During the lawsuit that followed, the driver of the car turned the tables and claimed Billy Joel was at fault. She evidently intended to cash in on the fame of the rock star, who was not particularly keen on getting any negative press concerning the incident. In the end, the woman did actually receive an undisclosed sum in order to get the case out of the way as quickly as possible.

  In the summer of 1982, just a few months after the accident, Billy and Elizabeth were officially divorced. They went their separate ways in friendship: “It didn’t work. The hardest thing for two people who love each other to do is to break up. But sometimes it has to be done,”94 was how Billy explained his view one time in an interview.

  Later, he added the following comment: “It really shook me up when my marriage didn’t work out. I was one of those people who intended for that to last forever, like with swans. But I found out that we’re not swans, we’re people.”95

  Elizabeth had done an excellent job as Billy’s manager, helping to make her husband into the rock star he’d become. But they’d drifted apart over the years and lost each other. Billy’s marriage had fallen apart, just like the first marriage of his father.

  Being not only husband and wife but business partners too, the divorce brought with it very unfavorable financial consequences for Billy Joel: According to their contract, Elizabeth was entitled not only to half of their joint assets, but to half of the prospective royalties from intellectual property up until the date of the divorce. According to Billy Joel biographer Hank Bordowitz, Billy paid his ex-wife three million dollars for her share of the song rights alone.

  Despite his broken marriage, having his own family remained the dream of the celebrated rock star, who had decided to make the most of his new found freedom. In a Rolling Stone interview in October 1982, he remarked: “I’ve wanted to have kids. I’m thirty-three. I see little kids, I get a little mushy. I’d love to have a little girl who thinks her daddy is everything. A little boy I could take fishing or teach to work on bikes and stuff. And the last 12 years, I’ve been on the road so much it wouldn’t have been fair if I’d had a family. Some of the problems with that came up in the marriage. So in the future, I’m gonna make sure I have some time to give to a family. I grew up without a father, and I don’t want my kids growing up the same way. I think the real test of being an adult is having a kid. I don’t think you know what it’s really all about until you have children, and therefore, I really don’t know what it’s all about yet.”96

  Despite the motorcycle accident and the divorce proceedings, Billy Joel worked on his next album. It was intended to be a tribute to the Beatles on the one hand, and a snapshot of the USA during the Reagan era on the other. Upon its release in September 1982 “The Nylon Curtain” was promptly celebrated as a milestone and masterpiece – even the otherwise so critical music press was impressed. The rock poet had surp
rised his fans and critics with a multi-faceted album that had current social-political topics at its core. It was a soundtrack to the baby-boom generation, in which Billy Joel describes the nightmare that lurks in the back of the American dream: Dreams and nightmares are not separated by an Iron Curtain, but only by an extremely thin “Nylon Curtain”.

  The album kicks off with four songs about what are according to Billy Joel the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the American landscape”: unemployment, guilt, repression and war.

  “Allentown” is a metaphor for America and deals with the economic demise of a typical American town. Allentown is representative of the many towns and cities that were trying to come to terms with the consequences of structural change. Joel sings from the perspective of people who have lost their jobs and have no alternatives. “It was written during the steel industry recession. I think a lot of people assumed that they could get the same job their father had, in the Northeast especially places like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Suddenly those jobs were gone. There was a diminishing horizon in America. I think it was the first time since the Depression that people were actually faced with limitations in the America that they know.”97

  Billy Joel obviously hit a nerve with the song: Allentown’s 16,000 citizens invited him to a concert during which he was symbolically presented with the keys to the city by the mayor.

  The song “Laura” plainly invokes the later work of the Beatles, dealing with the unusual relationship between a disturbed woman and a bored man, to whom she pours out her heart on the telephone at night.

  “Pressure” is about the increasing stress that people face in their private and working lives.