My 50 Year Journey With Billy Joel
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
202.97716
Summary
In this episode, I talk about my love affair with Billy Joel, starting with the song that started it all, "Turn the Lights Back On" by Billy Joel's 1977 album, River of Dreams. I also talk about some of my Billy Joel memorabilia I've picked up over the years.
Transcript
00:00:00.320
Hi, welcome to the channel, and if you've come here, you're probably a Billy Joel fan like I am.
00:00:06.480
My name is John, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about my journey with Billy Joel over the years.
00:00:13.580
Now, it's been a long time. It really has. I first heard Billy Joel back in 1977, and I turned 59 last week.
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That means it's been 47 years, so almost half a century of listening to Billy Joel.
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Now, why am I doing this video now? Well, I think it's obvious to anybody who's been following Billy Joel over the last several weeks.
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A new song came out, Turn the Lights Back On, and I got wind of this a few weeks back, and I watched the video online, and it really touched me.
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Got a tear in my eye, because as you know if you're a Joel fan, really the studio album stuff quit back in 1993 for pop music with the album River of Dreams.
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On that record, right at the end, there's a song called Famous Last Words, and I remember listening to that record for the very first time,
00:01:02.340
listening to These Are The Last Words I Have To Say, wondering if Billy was trying to tell us something.
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And he did. He quit recording pop music after that record.
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He did release an album around 2001, classical music, called Fantasies and Delusions.
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But Joel's record output has been pretty limited to compilation records and live albums and things like that since,
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and there's so much you can find online these days of rare cuts, alternate tracks, and things like that.
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But of course, this was the song that got me thinking Joel again in a big way.
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And this is the actual vinyl single of the record, Turn The Lights Back On.
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And when I wanted to buy this song, I thought it was appropriate for me to go back to the way it used to be, to buy it on vinyl.
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And the way it is becoming more and more. More and people are buying vinyl records these days.
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I wanted this on vinyl, and it came in the mail yesterday.
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It hasn't even been opened. I haven't played it.
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Now, I'm not going to play this song on here. There's lots of places online you can find it.
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If I was to put this song online, chances are I'd be taken down for copyright anyway.
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Well, it started for most people with Billy Joel with this record right here.
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This is the one that's got Moving Out, Just The Way You Are, Only The Good Die Young.
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She's Always A Woman, Seen's From An Italian Restaurant.
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Well, my sisters might correct me on this, but in 1977, at Christmastime, my sister got a little stereo system.
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A sound design stereo system, turntable, amplifier tuner, and an 8-track all-in-one with a couple of speakers.
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And that's where the love affair with Billy Joel's music began.
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So what I'm going to do now is turn around the camera, show you my Billy Joel collection,
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and talk about some of these records and show you some early stuff and some concert memorabilia I've picked up over the years.
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This is the actual River of Dreams t-shirt I bought at his concert in Detroit, Michigan back in 1993.
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So let me turn the cameras around, and I'll show you what I got.
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So here is basically Billy Joel's studio catalog.
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And interesting enough, back in 1977, when this record came out, and as I started listening to it through 1978,
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I had a small Sam the Record Man store in the town I lived in at the time, and they had a catalog.
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So I went back, and I was able to find the stuff that came before Turnstiles, which is a terrific record.
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You start to really see the Billy Joel of The Stranger pop up on Turnstiles.
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It's a terrific record with a lot of mood to it.
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I remember the last time I saw Joel, I believe it was back in 2007.
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But I remember standing on the floor, and Joel didn't sing the song really at all.
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I've never been part of anything quite like that.
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I had tears in my eyes as everybody was singing along to Piano Man.
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But then, even back then, it was hard to find anything else about Billy Joel's career.
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I didn't know this existed, Cold Spring Harbor, for many years.
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And then when I read about it, I heard that it was a major mess-up when it was put out.
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It made Billy sound like a chipmunk on it, because they got the timing wrong on it.
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As a matter of fact, if you listen to the re-released version, which this is one, I
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think Billy still sounds a little bit like a chipmunk.
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And I mean, if you look at this song right here, a song that became kind of famous years
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When he released his album Songs in the Attic, it became more popular.
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Now, I have these two records, Stormfront, and I have River of Dreams on CD.
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And I look at these records just recently thinking, I've got to get these albums on
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Now, I either find them in a private collection, which could be rather difficult, or buy them
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And I was out the other day looking at records that become more popular.
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And I was looking at a copy of Fleetwood Mac's Rumors, and they were selling it for $42.99.
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And kids nowadays are going out and buying these records.
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Kitties, I probably didn't pay more than $7.99 for any of the records I've got up here,
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And I probably got them on some deals when they had $4.99 sales on for the albums.
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Now, the neat thing about this is, I've got these two on CD, and I went back looking through
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my CD collection, and I've got the whole Billy Joel collection on CD as well.
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I forgot that I purchased them all on CD, and I own digital copies of all of them as well,
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because I burned every CD here, and I've got it all on my phone.
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Every Billy Joel album, everything he's recorded that I know of, I've got on my phone.
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Now, speaking of songs that you couldn't find at the time, and you didn't know about,
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If you went to look for this song right here, I'll bet you if you went on YouTube, somebody
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Or you could find it just by asking Google or Alexa these days.
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I went out to buy Allentown as a single, and on the other side, there's a song called
00:06:42.520
On the flip side of it, it's on none of these records, so I ended up with a bonus track
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for Billy Joel, not even knowing it existed at the time.
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But again, you could probably find it right now if you went on YouTube.
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I don't know, but I'm going to show you some earlier stuff that actually precedes Billy Joel's
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I wonder if Christy Brinkley realizes that I hang this on my wall.
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She actually created the River of Dreams album cover.
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A friend of mine gave this to me years ago, and it's on wood.
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As you can see, it's much bigger, and I proudly hang this one on my wall right over there.
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Of course, there are other albums out there that you can pick up.
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Billy went back to the songs he'd recorded in studio prior to The Stranger, did them live,
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and they really come out great on songs in the attic.
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This is the live concert that he did from Russia, double live album.
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And of course, his greatest hits package, he could have three or four.
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He could have four of them and pack them up with great songs.
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Now, he did other songs as well you may be aware of if you're a Billy Joel fan.
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He recorded Light as a Breeze on here, which is a terrific song as well.
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He plays the voice of a little dog that sings a song, Why Should I Worry on Here?
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And you might remember the version of New York State of Mind he recorded with Tony Bennett,
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And what's amazing, again, is that you can go on your Google, your Alexa, you can go on YouTube,
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There's so much more stuff out there that you can hear now that you could never hear years past.
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And, you know, looking at records that came out prior to Cold Spring Harbor,
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I had to find that out somewhere along the line long before we ever had the internet.
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I say somewhere along the line, Billy Joel title, right?
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Anyway, I'm going to show you some of the earlier stuff that he did with a group and as a duet.
00:09:02.960
I'm not sure if they're even available anymore.
00:09:07.520
So, you're a Billy Joel fan, the internet isn't around,
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and you're trying to find more music from Billy Joel, and you think you got them all.
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And then you find out he was in a band prior to being Billy Joel, the guy we know today.
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And you find out that band was called The Hassles, and you start looking for records.
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So, I started looking in an import book at my local record store,
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Billy Joel and The Hassles, it says, and it says import right on there,
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Probably 20 or 30 bucks at the time, which was a lot of money for me.
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So, anyway, that is just sort of a compilation of some Hassles music,
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and I ended up finding this one, which I believe is The Hassles' very first record.
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It's possible I bought it at a record store in Toronto.
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I used to have to go to Toronto to find records, kids.
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You couldn't just download it off the internet.
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I would take trips to Toronto to find specific albums,
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They're wrapped in plastic, as all of my Billy Joel albums are,
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But did Billy Joel do anything else prior to doing The Hassles,
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I believe it was after he teamed up with John Small.
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Now, John Small has been a friend of Billy's for years,
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and in more recent years, he's done videos and whatnot.
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If you watch Uptown Girl, I believe he directed that.
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He's been a music guy, I think, lighting and stuff for Billy for a long time.
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I don't know whether this is an original release.
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Basically, I can't understand why anybody would reissue this,
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That's Billy Joel and John Small in a meat locker, dressed up like Huns.
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but instead of the guitar, you get Billy playing a lot of Hammond B-3 organ on it.
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Songs like Brain Invasion and Amplifier Fire are on this record.
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It's the whole thing, but it's a British import,
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This is the same record, Attila, with a different album,
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I don't know if you've ever heard the extra-long version of Teller about it,
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and it was produced, mixed by John Jellybean Benitez,
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who was pretty big back in the 80s and early 90s
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and it's got very long intros and extras on it.
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I'm going to have to do that again, but tell her about it,
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and it's got Easy Money and one of the Hassle songs,
00:12:05.620
Now, you can find a lot of this music on YouTube right now.
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This is from a concert from the University of Connecticut,
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and this is made specifically for record stores
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Now, he was pretty famous when this was at a record store.
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It's got songs like Piano Man, Just the Way You Are,
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it shows you how to display Billy Joel's latest record,
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and it's got the most awesome version of New York State of Mind on there,
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and you can see the track listing on the back there.
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and the bottom are him live in concert from 1976
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So, I don't know whether this is very common at all,
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with what looks like to be a switchblade knife.
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So, this is my Billy Joel River of Dreams World Tour 1993 shirt,
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I don't even know what it looks like on the back.
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Now, I always tell people when you go to a concert,
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yeah, pick up the t-shirt, but they don't last.
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Okay, so it's all about Billy Joel and his band playing live.
00:14:06.800
can't remember whatever happened to the t-shirt.
00:14:12.220
Okay, some people may remember the Root Beer Rag,
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they would send something out to you in the mail
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Okay, that's the booklet from the Stormfront Tour.