I remember as a big Billy Joel fan 25 years ago, I would hear many people tell me they only like his "old stuff". Funny, now that he largely quit songwriting in 1993, all of his songs are his old stuff. I don't know what would have happened if he continued creating new music. It seems common for an artist to heave a period of golden creativity early in their career that they never recapture as they put out mediocre music later. But Billy Joel was still creating hit music when he quit, so maybe the songs he never wrote would have been good ones. But also, he had created a vast catalog by the time he stopped making new music: Twelve studio albums that easily fill the greatest hits collections his record company continues to release.
His post-songwriting years are nothing to write home about. By all accounts he is a hardcore alcoholic. He's had a string of relationships with women his daughter's age--he's married two of them. Wife #4 just gave birth to daughter, making Joel a new father at 66. He builds boats and motorcycles, respectable enough hobbies.
At 66 he perform's regularly, rebuilding the fortune many times over that he lost through bad management before his final album. He's not the kid he once was dancing all over the stage. His voice has dropped a bit and he doesn't get up from the piano often. But he will always be a powerful performer. Even as a senior citizen, it is special to see a performer sing and play the lead instrument through a concert. There is a great wholeness to seeing him lead the show like that.
I think Fred Schruers was going to be the coauthor of Joel's autobiography, and this biography is what resulted after Joel pulled out as author. It draws from, among many sources, extensive interviews the author conducted with Joel, and provides layers of detail and insight probably not available before.
No comments:
Post a Comment