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

by Steffen Radlmaier

  The situation in Iraq is still part of the whole situation, there is still a lot of suffering and atrocity going on. The people who did this to us are still there. I hope that President Obama can change something. Maybe we have a new way of dealing with those things, a new way to work this out to make it better. They have the same old way to send soldiers to kill people and for them to kill our soldiers. I would hope that people can talk with each other. Sometimes there is no other way of dealing with the evil except to be evil yourself. The only way not to be killed is to kill. I recognize that.

  It’s a crazy world. The cold war ended at the Millennium, now we are here in the year 2000 since the death of Christ and you are looking to the future with this golden hope: We must have learned from all the terrible things that happened in the 20th century, science and poetry will rule now. And then this happened on 9/11. A lot of the hope diminished. We are not as idealistic as we once were. I don’t want to turn into my father, who said: ‘Life is a cesspool.’ I have to fight not to be that.”

  Billy Joel was one of the first celebrities on the scene of the disaster speaking to rescuers. And of course, he took part in the benefit concert on October 20th in aid of the victims. He performed at Madison Square Garden alongside such famous colleagues as Elton John and Eric Clapton, as well as rock bands such as The Who, Bon Jovi and U2. A police helmet lay atop his piano as a visible symbol while he performed “New York State of Mind” and “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” in light of the recent events. Many relatives of the victims attended the concert that day, along with survivors, as well as firemen and police officers and their families. The extraordinary concert lasted six hours and brought in several million dollars.

  A Time of Crisis

  The following year, Billy Joel set tongues wagging with his alcohol problems, which had long been an open secret for many. His family, as well as his friends and fans, were starting to worry. The situation came to a head during his “Face-To-Face” tour with Elton John. Billy cancelled the tour after the New York show in March 2002. The official reason was said to be a severe respiratory illness that affected his voice and lasted half a year. Despite press reports to the contrary, Billy maintains to this day that he has never been drunk on stage, not even during that New York concert. He claims that the reason for his dropping out was the mixture of medications that had been administered by two different doctors.

  Nonetheless, Billy Joel told me that it was his friend Elton John who first raised the taboo issue. “He came up to me and said ‘you’ve got a problem, you need to stop drinking.’ I answered ‘You’re right, I admit it.’ He’d also been to rehab. When Elton John tells you you’ve got an alcohol problem, then you should listen. He knows what he’s talking about. I have such respect for him. That was one of the reasons I decided to go to rehab.”

  After a car accident in July, in which the singer wrote off his Mercedes, he checked himself into the Silver Hill clinic. The Connecticut hospital is an exclusive location for celebrity addicts, famous patients of which include Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli and Gregg Allman. But Joel didn’t last long at the clinic: The media frenzy, the hounding by the paparazzi and the tabloid press made it impossible for the clinic to function normally. After just a few days he cut short his therapy.

  In September, The New York Times Magazine published a long, revealing story by Chuck Klosterman about Billy Joel’s crisis. The very telling heading is a reference to the title of one of his best-selling albums: “The Stranger”. In it, the singer admitted that, in spite of his success, he often felt unhappy and lonely: “I want what everybody else wants: To love and to be loved and to have a family. Love was always the most important thing in my life.” Behind the banality of this statement was concealed the tragedy of an extremely successful performer with an unhappy private life. “He talks like a man who has achieved every dream he dreamt as a teenager, only to discover that these triumphs have absolutely nothing to do with personal satisfaction,” wrote Klosterman.

  After his two marriages, his long-term relationship with painter Carolyn Beegan and then another with TV journalist Trish Bergin had also come to an end during the 90s. Unlike before, his personal crises and love affairs no longer inspired him to write pop songs; instead, they only served to worsen his creative block. His growing alcohol problem was linked to all of this.

  “The most difficult part of my job is writing,” Billy Joel told me, “I always found that difficult. Each time was like a birth, like having a baby. You’re pregnant with the song and it has to come out. Writing is real torture, very painful. You have to open up completely and lay everything out on the table in order to write it down. It really is like giving birth. I’m talking about songwriting – music and lyrics. And because it was so difficult and painful, I started to drink. If I had writer’s block or was going through a bad time, I would drink. It’s a process of repetition, like smoking. If you’re frustrated with writing, you grab a glass. After a while it becomes a big problem. You’re in a vicious circle. Lots of artists have this problem.”

  Between 2002 and early 2006, Billy Joel only made very rare appearances. He no longer wished to put himself under pressure and just wanted to lead a quiet life. But he wasn’t forgotten. In October 2002, the musical “Movin’ Out” premiered on Broadway and went on to have a successful three-year run before going on tour after 1,300 shows. The story was put together by choreographer Twyla Tharp based on Joel’s famous songs. It tells the story of five friends from Hicksville, Long Island in the 1960s, experiencing their first love and the madness of the Vietnam War. The musical was met with largely positive reception from critics. The New York Times wrote: “A glittering portrait of an American generation! ‘Movin’ Out’ is brilliant – and it’s even better the second time you see it.” Variety remarked on: “The best dance scenes ever.” And The New Yorker declared: “If you like Billy Joel, then you’re sure to like ‘Movin’ Out.” The musical was nominated for ten Tony awards and took home two: Best Choreography (Twyla Tharp) and Best Orchestrations (Billy Joel). It was a great success for the composer, who had always thought about writing his own musical, but had never got down to it.

  Billy Joel was 53 years old when he met 22-year-old student Katherine Lee in November 2003 – and once again fell head over heels in love. The two met by chance in the bar of a New York hotel. The pretty young woman from a small town in West Virginia, only four years older than Billy’s daughter, was studying English and Journalism in Ohio. She didn’t know much about the lonely rock star except that he had had a few hits ages ago with “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man”. He invited her out for dinner and took her to the musical “Movin’ Out”, where he took to the stage to join in with the last two songs, just to impress Katie Lee, who assumed it was all part of the show.

  After barely a year, the unlikely couple got married. At the lavish wedding ceremony on October 2, 2004, on Billy’s Long Island estate, attended by many celebrity guests, not only were Rosalind, Alexa and Christie Brinkley invited, but also Audrey and Alexander Joel from Vienna. Billy’s father was unable to attend due to ill health. Whilst Alexa, as maid of honor, looked after her new stepmother Katie, Billy chose his brother as best man. The fact that the groom had chosen Alexander as his most trusted confidante shows just how close the two had become.

  It is a well-known fact that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and Billy and Katie certainly shared a passion for good food. She, a passionate cook, working as a restaurant critic and appearing on a TV cookery show has since published her own cookery book (The Comfort Table). When asked about the age difference, Katie answered with a smile: “He’s so immature for his age, his job allows that. And I’m quite mature for my age. We meet somewhere in the middle.”

  But shortly after the honeymoon the demons came back to haunt the musician and multimillionaire, who seemed to have everything that a man could dream of. A third serious car accident and,
to top it off, a life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas pointed towards Joel’s excessive alcohol consumption, especially Whisky and Vodka. The warning signs were clear to see. Not least at the insistence of his young wife, he checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic in California on March 10, 2005, where he went through four weeks of therapy. Seemingly successfully.

  Billy Joel told me: “They have this twelve-step program there and get all the crap out of you. It’s a kind of brainwashing. If you’re an alcoholic, then you need that. You have to become aware of how dangerous the boozing is. When I got out I knew that I should go somewhere where there’s absolutely nothing to drink. Locked up in a jail cell, if necessary. I’d never done that in my whole life – a whole month without alcohol. That was a good experience for me. I learnt that I don’t always have to drink. I don’t need it and can live without it.

  When you’re an alcoholic, you have to recognize that you don’t have your problem under control. But I don’t ever want to get drunk again. I can’t stand myself when I’m drunk. Now and again I’ll enjoy a nice glass of wine with a meal, but that’s all. I can stop after one glass now.”

  Billy later attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: “But if I’m honest, I found those meetings where people talk about their alcohol problems depressing. I didn’t find it helpful. I found it so tragic that it just made me want to go out and drink again to forget all the horrible stories. It wasn’t for me. Many believe in a Higher Power, there’s a lot of talk about God in the program. But I don’t believe in that kind of thing.

  I realized that only my willpower could save me. My willpower has determined my whole life and my aspirations. I’ve got a very strong will. I have to use that. Only I can control what I do, no God, no twelve-step program, no book. That helped me a lot. Since then I’ve never drank more than two glasses of wine in a row. As soon as I notice the alcohol taking effect, I stop. No, I never want to get in that situation again.”

  Of interest in this respect is the venturous theory of psychiatrist Borwin Bandelow, who drew on several case studies in his book Celebrities in order to analyze the addiction problems and self-destructive behavior of stars in show business. Far from being the price of success, he believes that drug addictions, sex scandals, relationship trouble and depression are a self-inflicted feature of the stars’ dysfunctional personalities, and a prerequisite for a career as a performer. “It’s as if the fame on the one hand, and the wild, drug-influenced lives of some rock stars on the other hand, are a result of the same thing: A personality disorder. […] The driving force of the tremendous energy necessary to be a star is the reward system in the brain, which requires more happiness hormones for people with Borderline syndrome. The super-fuel for this demanding feel-good system is success. Not just the need to get the audience’s approval, which motivates the artist, but drug-abuse can too be explained by a lack of satisfaction from the reward system. Of course, love of music and the fun of performing motivate the artist too. But more than natural abilities, talent, money, nice words and the joy of performance, it’s fear of not getting the reward of recognition that drives artists on.”125

  Billy Joel sees it differently: “People need to be loved, they need to feel that they are loved and wanted and desired and valuable and important. I don’t get that from an audience. I don’t look for love or approval from an audience. I hope to do a good show, but where I really need to get all that from is family. My daughter, my wife, my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my grandparents. Everyone craves that.”

  For him, music is the best therapy. He expresses his mood swings best on his piano and by literally immersing himself in his music. “Sometimes I give a concert just for myself. Then I laugh my head off and think: ‘There are people who would pay goodness knows what for that, and I get it for nothing.’ I enjoy that. Even when I’m sad I’ll play piano. The music moves me and helps me get over my sadness.”

  Whether walking on air or in the depths of despair – Billy Joel has written a song about it: “I go to Extremes”, or “Summer Highland Falls” to name but two. “Nearly all artists are manic-depressive. We feel sadness deeply, but happiness too. That helps us to write about extremes and human sensitivities. Sometimes it’s not easy to deal with feelings. But that doesn’t mean you have to turn to the bottle – you can express it in your work. It’s a kind of therapy. I don’t know if I’m clinically manic-depressive. It’s just my theory.” The fact that he can express himself through music and express his feelings on stage is something he considers a blessing. And he suspects that his father’s own failed music career is part of the reason why he became so bitter and cynical – Helmut was never able to develop his full potential.

  Comeback

  Time had left its mark quite visibly on Billy Joel’s face, and he was looking more like his own father every day. His hair was thinning and starting to go gray, his figure was growing stockier, his voice hoarser and deeper. But the performer takes it all on the chin: “Sometimes I look in the mirror and think: ‘you’ve never really looked like a rock star, but now you look like a rock star’s grandfather.’” The ‘Angry Young Man’ had become an old man. He was older and wiser, but that didn’t stop him.

  In 2005, twelve years after his last pop album, it was time to take a look back on his musical career: The CD box set “My Lives” charts Billy Joel’s work over four decades from the early performances with the “Lost souls” to the piano pieces “Fantasies & Delusions”. The cover art, a black-and-white drawing, is the work of Alexa Ray Joel.

  The box set is not just another best-of collection – it is a musical self-portrait with some obscure songs, rare live recordings and unknown cover versions. To accompany it there is also a detailed booklet and a DVD concert recording of the “River of Dreams” tour, recorded at the Frankfurt Festhalle.

  VIP ticket for Billy Joel´s concert in Frankfurt, 2006

  Billy Joel on stage, Vienna, 2006 · © Steffen Radlmaier

  The third CD in the box even contains a previously unreleased demo version of the “Motorcycle Song”, which later became “All about Soul”. The song is particularly revealing in that it tells the story of Billy Joel’s lifelong passion for motorbikes. Just as with his boats, he loves classical design in this respect, too. And just as happened with the boats, Billy’s passion for old motorbikes has left its mark; his custom designs have evolved into a business that he runs with a couple of friends on Long Island. For several years the small “20th Century Cycles” workshop has been customizing bikes for nostalgic easy-rider fans, selling modern motorcycles with a chrome-heavy retro look. “I like their lines and curves. That’s how motorcycles should look in my opinion,” says Billy, who owns several machines, including British bikes from the 1960s, a 1974 BMW and a new Harley Springer.

  In the fall of 2005, rumors were rife that Billy Joel was planning a US tour – the first in many years. Sure enough, the tour turned out to be a triumph for the rock singer, whom many had already written off and who had been off the radar for so long. Without much publicity, tickets for the scheduled trial concerts at Madison Square Garden were sold out in a short time. More and more dates were added. In the end, Billy Joel had yet another record-breaking run with his sensational comeback tour. No other performer has ever managed to sell out twelve consecutive performances at Madison Square Garden – the record was previously held by Bruce Springsteen with ten shows.

  New Yorkers celebrated Billy Joel’s return to his birthplace like the return of a lost son. The New York Times wrote about the first concert on January 23, 2006: “He shows his fans that he’s got everything under control.” A mature entertainer on top form stood there on stage and proved with his explosive band that he had lost none of his old charisma. The band was made up of a mixture of veterans and newcomers: Tommy Byrnes (guitar), Mark Rivera (saxophone), Crystal Taliefero (percussion), David Rosenthal (keyboards), Andy Cicon (bass), Chuck Burgi (drums), Richie Cannata (
saxophone) and Carl Fischer (trumpet). Only the long-serving drummer Liberty DeVitto was absent, following a dispute with Billy.

  The genuine pleasure the performers took in their playing and the exuberant atmosphere at these concerts has been preserved on the live double album “12 Gardens”.

  The New York concert series was followed by shows all around the USA and a highly acclaimed world tour. The European leg of his concert tour began on June 26th in Vienna, during which Billy also visited his father and brother. The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote about the show: “The real achievement is perhaps that he didn’t simply let the evening turn into a nostalgic review. Maybe Joel’s voice is not quite as versatile as it used to be, maybe he is a little less flexible at the hips when dancing around at the piano – but the man is still on top form. He elegantly avoids overdone sentimentality in his ballads and has enough strength in him for the faster numbers to keep his energetic, crazily conventional 80s-style rock band from running away with him. Looking at Billy Joel’s surgery-scarred hands up close, at how he is able to move the worn tip of his left thumb every which way, you wonder how on earth he still manages to hammer out frenzied flourishes on his right hand without crying out in pain. The man clearly has soul. And he is certainly talented enough to indulge in self-mockery and avoid sentimentality.”