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

by Steffen Radlmaier

  “Goodnight Saigon” addresses the traumatic consequences of the Vietnam War for American soldiers. Billy got his inspiration for this melancholic, despairing swan-song from numerous conversations he’d had with war veterans on Long Island. This critical song was highly praised by the Vietnam Veterans against Agent Orange, who were able to identify with the lyrics.

  Producer Phil Ramone used numerous sound effects and noises on “The Nylon Curtain”. Billy had wanted to create a musical answer to the Beatles’ “Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. The sound collages built upon the energetic rhythm work of Liberty DeVitto on drums, Doug Stegmeyer on bass and Billy on piano; guitarists Russel Javors and David Brown completed the picture. The Beatle-esque string and brass arrangements were written by jazz musician Dave Grusin.

  Billy Joel never considered himself a particularly great poet, but it was also due to his clever lyrics that “The Nylon Curtain” finally earned him the recognition of his keenest critics.

  And although this album was released on vinyl, it was at this time that a technological revolution was taking place that was to change the music market completely: On August 17, 1982, German record company PolyGram presented the first ever Compact Disc recording to the world in the form of Abba’s “The Visitors” album. Shortly thereafter, Billy Joel’s “52nd Street” became the first CD to be released by CBS – proof of the singer’s popularity.

  And it was in this same year that a second revolution came along to lastingly alter the music market. The American music television channel MTV enjoyed immediate success broadcasting video clips. It wasn’t long before every country in the world had its own music channel on TV. Ironically, it was Buggles’ critically prophetical 1979 anti-video song “Video Killed the Radio Star” that became one of the new medium’s greatest hits.

  Critics had mixed feelings about the success of MTV. Billy Joel was one of the skeptics who – not without good reason – were worried that visual effects would eventually become more important than the quality of the music. And besides that, he was not fond of being in front of the camera, well aware that he didn’t always appear particularly cool or sexy. It was the birth of megastars such as Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson, and marked the beginning of a trend in which the production of sinfully expensive video clips became as decisive for sales generation and chart success as the appearance of the singer.

  It was about this time that Billy Joel, who had by now written numerous hits, talked about the agonies of song writing during a long interview with Playboy magazine: “Writing is the worst thing. It’s the scariest thing in the world. I hate to write. I absolutely hate writing. You tear your guts out of yourself. You’re in the middle of a hot, dry desert. There’s nothing but this blank piece of paper in front of you and this piano that has 88 white teeth staring at you, waiting to bite your hands off. That’s what it’s like. It’s horrible – until you finish.”87

  Billy was beginning to get used to the advantages of bachelor life and, in the winter of 1982, treated himself to his first vacation for a very long time. His friend Paul Simon had encouraged him to visit the island of St. Barts in the Caribbean. During a stopover on St. Martin, Billy noticed an attractive woman. “I recognized her immediately. She was more beautiful than she was in her pictures – ‘Oh, wow, that’s Christie Brinkley. I wonder if she knows who I am.’ So I did what I call an album cover – I tried to look like me on an album cover. I gave it every angle. She didn’t recognize me from a hole in the wall.”98

  The acclaimed rock star behaved like an excited schoolboy in his attempt to catch the attention of the famous model. Unsuccessfully – at least in the beginning. But fate was to give the two celebrities a second chance: They were to meet up again one evening at a bar on St. Barts, and an old saying within the music world once more proved to be true: ‘Girls love a guy who can play the piano.’ Billy sat himself down at the piano – and three ravishingly beautiful girls suddenly pricked up their ears: Whitney Houston, Elle MacPherson and Christie Brinkley. “So, everybody’s having a couple of drinks, no one was feeling any pain, and we started having a sing-along”, the Piano Man remembers. “I was making believe I was Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, and I was playing “As Time Goes By”. Eventually a little crowd gathered, and we were singing. Christie was sitting next to me. Whitney was standing in front of the piano singing. Elle was there. And that’s how we met. I started playing some old rock and roll songs. Platters songs, Little Anthony and the Imperials, mushy stuff.” 89

  Christie Brinkley, born 1954, was considered the embodiment of the All-American Girl, and her natural radiance had made her one of the world’s most popular supermodels. When she was aged 21, the CoverGirl cosmetics company gave her a model contract that was to last 20 years. She was married to French artist Jean-Francois Allaux from 1973 until 1981; this was followed by a relationship with Moët & Chandon heir Olivier Chandon de Brailles.

  For Billy Joel it was love at first sight, but she admits he wasn’t really her type, him being almost a head shorter than her. “I guess her first impression of me must have been this guy sitting at a piano with a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, looking like a bloated, puffy lobster. I had this incredible sunburn. The music was the key to the introduction. She sat down and started singing, too. She was laughing about it, saying, ‘I don’t have much of a voice.’ And I was encouraging her, ‘Oh, no, you have a great voice. Come on, sing, sing, sing.’ And I got a crush on her right then and there. [She was] real down-to-earth, you know, down-home kind of girl. Not stuck-up or anything, and not very self-conscious about her looks.”90

  Not a lot happened at this first meeting, they chatted about this and that and upon parting there was just a non-committal: “Might see you in New York”.

  Only a few weeks later, on March 2, 1983, Olivier Chandon was killed when his sports car crashed in Palm Beach, Florida. He was just 27 years old.

  It was this tragic occasion that saw Billy contacting Christie Brinkley again. “And when I was back in New York, I was living at the St. Moritz Hotel, and she was living on Sixty-Seventh Street by Central Park West, which is right around the corner. I picked up the paper one day, and I saw that Olivier Chandon had been killed. I called her up and said, ‘Look, I know you’re going through a hard time. If you just need someone to talk to, I’m here.’”91

  Thus began the love affair between the Beauty and the rock and roll Beast. This was the kind of thing the tabloid press always longs for, and Billy Joel had to get used to the fact that he was now never going to be safe from the paparazzi. Affairs between rock stars and models were often the subject of newspaper headlines: Mick and Bianca Jagger, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg, David Bowie and Iman, Eric Clapton and Patti Boyd, Rod Stewart and Kelly Emberg, to name but a few.

  New Love, New Luck

  Billy Joel was deeply in love and feeling like a giddy, carefree teenager all over again. It was in this state of mind that he very quickly wrote the songs for a new album: “An Innocent Man” was released in August 1983, once again produced by Phil Ramone.

  As had often been the case, Joel surprised his fans with a new sound, which was in fact an old sound and one that didn’t really fit in with the music fads of the time, such as punk and disco. Inspired by his new muse and lover, Billy went back to the music that he’d listened to in his youth: The album is an anthology of musical fun, a tribute to the feel-good vibes of early 1960s doo-wop, soul and rock and roll.

  Nevertheless, the song “Keeping the Faith” is proof that the singer wasn’t just aiming to steep himself in nostalgia: he wasn’t living the past, but was keeping the fire of his youth burning brightly. “Ain’t it wonderful to be alive when the rock and roll plays, yeah when the memory stays, yeah I’m keeping the faith.”

  Three of the ten songs were very obviously about Christie Brinkley, including “Christie Lee” and the huge hit “Uptown Girl”. Billy Joel explains: “Uptown Girl is a
joke song. It’s a tribute to Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. I did it in that style. I even tried to sing like Frankie Valli (sings in a nasal voice). That strained falsetto. It’s a joke, but if you listen to it in the context of the album, you get it. You go, ‘oh, this is like The Four Seasons’, who were a hugely influential group in my youth. The Four Seasons, before The Beatles, were maybe one of the biggest American bands there were. But like I said, taken out of context, it’s like ‘what kind of pop silliness is this?’”92

  Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley themselves both acted and danced in the cute “Uptown Girl” video clip, with Billy playing a simple car mechanic servicing the Rolls-Royce of the rich girl from uptown, finally winning her heart and riding off with her into the night on a Harley. It turned out to be the most successful Billy Joel video clip ever.

  “An Innocent Man” featured numerous renowned jazz musicians, including Belgian harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans, pianist Richard Tee and saxophonists Michael Brecker and David Sanborn.

  Reviews for the feel-good album were all favorable, even that of the often so critical Rolling Stone. And the album was loved by the public too: it contained six worldwide hit songs and went to number 4 in the USA and number 2 in England.

  In 1984 Billy Joel and his band undertook an extensive world tour, including three shows in London’s Wembley Stadium and finishing with seven consecutive shows in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

  The same year saw the re-release of his unsuccessful debut album “Cold Spring Harbor”, re-mixed and, this time, at the right speed. In addition, the first complete live concert video entitled “Billy Joel: Live from Long Island” was released and promptly rewarded with a Grammy nomination.

  On January 28, 1985 Billy found himself along with many of his famous colleagues in Los Angeles for the American Music Awards television production. This rare gathering of so many pop stars on one night was what made another unusual record production possible: The gospel-esque “We Are the World”, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian. It was a charity single in aid of famine victims in Africa and Ethiopia in particular.

  All of the artists wanted to contribute to the studio production and help the cause, and all put aside their own artist-egos for the good of this collaborative project: Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Daryl Hall, Cindy Lauper, Huey Lewis, Kenny Loggins, Bette Midler, Willie Nelson, Steve Perry, The Pointer Sisters, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Dionne Warwick und Stevie Wonder – they all had to be content with singing short solo sequences. Billy Joel was also part of this all-star ensemble as they sang their song for Africa, which was to bring in millions for the good cause.

  On March 23, 1985, two years after their first meeting and at the height of their fame, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley were married on a yacht in New York harbor. It was a dream wedding to the exclusion of the press, who were hell-bent on getting photos of the couple. Paul Simon was one of the few personal guests of the groom.

  A year later, in November 1986, Billy Joel talked about his new marriage in a long interview with Rolling Stone, in which he took stock of the relationship so far. He reminisced about his marriage proposal: “We were in a hotel. I said, ‘Will you marry me?’ I think she was very moved by the fact that I asked. A couple of weeks after that, we were home. We had kind of not said anything after that. I got her this diamond ring. I had this whole candlelight dinner planned, but I couldn’t wait. It was the middle of the afternoon. She was upstairs painting – she had a little art studio. I had the ring and it was burning a hole in my hand. I ran upstairs and I put it on her easel table. She broke up, and she said, ‘Yeah, let’s get married.’”

  The newly married celebrities had hoped to live a normal private life, but found themselves in the gossip columns on a regular basis and, for better or worse, were forced to keep themselves out of the public eye. Billy’s strained relationship with the media was put under even more duress due to bothersome photographers and dubious society-reporters. “What I found was that I didn’t change, Christie didn’t change, but people’s reaction to us changed drastically: ‘Oh well, he married this fabulously notorious model, and now’s he’s changed.’ As if I married her because she was famous or wealthy.”93

  Billy Joel retreated out of the limelight of the music business for a while after the wedding, allowing himself time to concentrate on his private happiness. In order to bridge the time until the next studio album and to keep the customers satisfied, the record company fell back on the popular strategy of releasing a compilation of hits: a double album, “Greatest Hits, Volume I & Volume II”, was released in the summer of 1985. This retrospective did contain two new songs (“You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and “The Night Is Still Young”); it was a top ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and also turned out to be an enduring success.

  Billy and Christie’s daughter Alexa Ray was born on December 29, 1985, nine months after the wedding. Her first names were symbolic and related to two of the most important people in Billy Joel’s life: Alexa is the female diminutive of Alexander, the name of Billy’s half-brother, and Ray is a tribute to revered soul singer Ray Charles.

  Billy Joel had always been a family man, and he took his role as father very seriously; he’d suffered long and badly enough under the separation of his parents: “I missed having a father very much. I went out and did crazy things to discover what my masculinity was. I got into trouble, I got into fights. I had to go out and box to discover my masculinity. Stupid stuff. One thing I knew when I had a kid was I was going to be very much present as a role model. I definitively want to be very much present in my daughter’s life. Not just as a male but as a father. And I don’t mean in the old sense of Father Knows Best, with the pipe and the slippers.”99

  By now in his mid-thirties, 20 years in the business and continually on the road, he thought about his career and talked about plans for the future. The much longed-for celebrity fame had lost its attraction: “Well, I don’t see me being an entertainer forever. I don’t see me being a recording artist forever. I can see me working in music and composition and maybe songwriting, but sort of retiring from the forefront of the celebrity part of it…I think it’s a matter of knowing, just knowing, what your priorities are. I would walk away from being a rock and roll star in a shot if it was a choice between my wife or my work. I know what’s important. So does she. She never embraced modeling as some kind of successful career to strive for. She fell into it by accident, and she’s never looked at it as an end in itself. She’s an artist in her own right. She’s a very good painter and illustrator. She has a flair for comedic acting. We have other things that we’re interested in besides the particular fields we’re in right now.”100

  The End of the Cold War

  Having no regular income, Billy Joel’s musicians were not particularly happy with his decision to take a creative break, and the atmosphere was not at its best when the band met up again to record in the spring of 1986. “The Bridge” was released in July 1986, once again produced by Phil Ramone. In an interview with The New York Times around that time, Billy Joel explained: “The only premise for “The Bridge” – when I started – was that it not be a concept album. After “52nd Street”, I felt I was being typecast as someone who wrote and played well-crafted songs. My feet were being encased in cement. Because my band was a rock and roll band and we played large arenas, I needed to go for more rock and roll, and so the songs on “Glass Houses” were written to be performed in concert. The next album, “The Nylon Curtain” was just the opposite – an elaborate studio album that took a year to make and whose songs were difficult to play live. I thought of it as my “Sgt. Peppers’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, although I didn’t intend to copy the Beatles. The last album, “An Innocent Man” was a complete reaction to the “Nylon Curtain”, which had been so laborious. It was a romantic
tribute to my rhythm ’n’ blues roots and the discovery of love when you’re a teenager.”101

  Once again, renowned session players and jazz musicians were featured on “The Bridge”, among them Ron Carter and Michael Brecker. In addition, three very special guest stars made contributions: Steve Winwood played Hammond B3 on “Getting Close”, Cyndi Lauper sang on “Code of Silence”, and Ray Charles duetted with Billy and played piano on “Baby Grand”.

  “The Bridge” is essentially about human relationships of each and every kind. Like a gloomy premonition, the ballad “This is the Time” reminds us to consciously enjoy the good times and keep them in mind to be drawn upon when things get bad. Billy Joel commented on this aspect rather self-deprecatingly: “I do believe relationships can last. I see these old people who are together in their eighties, holding hands. I think that’s really neat. I think that’s probably one of the hardest things to do in the world, to be a human being, maintain a relationship, be a decent person. They talk about the difficulties of being successful in business. These things you can work on. The toughest thing to do is to do the things that are very human and make them work, because everything seems to be against it a lot of the time. A lot of temptation, a lot of pressure in other directions. You know, I like to think that I’d be able to live like a normal human being. I’m not going to be a celebrity forever. I don’t have any great grand plan to be a famous personality when I’m older. I hope to retire from it somewhat.”102

  “A Matter of Trust” is a rousing plea for mutual trust within a relationship faced with the constant hazards of the modern day. “Modern Woman” was written for the soundtrack of the film “Ruthless People” starring Bette Midler and Danny DeVito. It became a hit although it wasn’t really one of Billy’s own personal favorites. “Big Man on Mulberry Street” describes a scene from everyday life in Little Italy.