“Don’t take no shit from anybody” announced Billy Joel to a mid-80’s concert audience in Cincinnati that included my now-estranged father.  My dad recited the Joel quote to me the day after the show and thought it was just the coolest thing ever spoken; obviously he (and Billy Joel) felt like they were taking too much shit from people.  Billy Joel speaks to the blue collar working man in a very musically-sophisticated way, and perhaps Joel’s biggest, most profound statement ever was his 1977 album, The Stranger.  Sony Legacy Records has just put together an amazing 30th Anniversary box set edition of The Stranger, and it has me floored.

In my early teens, I don’t think I understood what my father liked about Billy Joel, but I always have memories of hearing it in his car on the way to the movies or the drive-thru pony keg (a Cincinnati thing).  But my appreciation for Billy Joel’s music has grown exponentially in the past 10 years, accelerated by such life-changing events as falling in love, moving to New York, getting married, and becoming the ‘grown-up’ that I am now (though some might argue that).  I grew up hearing Joel’s unique songs, not really ‘getting it’, but knowing that there was something special going on there.

My wife and I have been immersed in the Sony Legacy 30th Anniversary box set of The Stranger for the last couple weeks, and it has been very pleasing.  First of all, what a great package!  It contains a remastered version of the original album, another CD featuring a live Carnegie Hall show from the summer of 1977 just after the album’s release, a DVD with an 11-song performance recorded for the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, two live promo videos, and a 30-minute ‘making of’ documentary with new interviews with Billy Joel and Phil Ramone.  But wait!  There’s more: a foldout poster for the sold-out Carnegie Hall shows, a replica of Joel’s songwriting notebook for the album complete with food stains and scratched out lyrics, and a book with tons of photos and great liner notes from Rolling Stone’s best music writer/lover, David Fricke.

Something really struck me as I skimmed through the songwriting notebook where Joel lists all the diverse acts that he has opened for up to 1977…Bill Withers, J. Geils Band, Yes, Taj Mahal, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, Kinky Friedman, Jeff Beck, John Sebastian, Janis Ian, Seals & Crofts, Anne Murray, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stevie Wonder, and Olivia Newton-John, to name quite a few.  It really had me thinking about just how different an artist Billy Joel is…not quite cut out for classic rock radio (Joel’s music is a classic rock radio no-no), not quite the classic crooner (like Franky and Deano), not really the typical singer/songwriter of the era (James Taylor, Dan Fogleberg), and not quite flamboyant showtunes-man (a la Manilow), yet all these things are somehow wrapped up in his own unique style.  It’s almost like he created his own genre.

And luckily Joel was from an era when an artist had time to nurture his craft – since he had to make four so-so albums before he hit his creative stride with The Stranger.  He may not have survived in today’s pop music climate where artists are quickly disposed of after an unsuccessful first or second album.  I would also argue that it would take an artist some practice before he’s able to nail the kind of quality songwriting and studio-savvy that is evident on The Stranger.

A lot is speculated about how autobiographical The Stranger is and how Joel exorcised his demons on the album, and I’m sure it is true in some sense because, like Paul McCartney says, “…that’s the lovely thing of songwriting: whether you like it or not, you’re in the song.”  But what I think is more interesting about the music on The Stranger is the way that the listener makes the songs his/her own and I think just about everyone equates these songs with some kind of nostalgia…and it’s not nostalgia about Billy Joel’s life, it’s nostalgia from their own lives.  Find me someone in New York, or the tri-state area for that matter, that doesn’t feel something individually special when they hear “New York State of Mind”.  Joel wrote two of his biggest ballads on The Stranger (“Just the Way You Are” and “She’s Always A Woman”), but it was also the album from which Billy and his band of buddies became real rock stars.  I mean, who doesn’t love that guitar riff on “The Stranger”?  And although “Only The Good Die Young” sports acoustic guitar rather than electric, its message is pure rock n’ roll.  A couple of Joel’s best story-narrative songs appear on the album too (“Movin’ Out” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”).  The Stranger is just packed with hits…and the kind of hits that never seem to wear out their welcome.

This Sony Legacy box set edition of The Stranger is an excellent addition to any Billy Joel fan’s collection.  I would even recommend it to casual fans and especially to those who are looking for a starting place in their Billy Joel fandom.  One thing I must mention though, is that the album has been remastered to modern mastering standards, (something most listeners won’t even notice), but it roughly means that everything is super-compressed and maximized, basically louder.  The subtleties are, in some places less subtle and the instruments that were originally mixed to be set somewhere in between the foreground and background of the sound canvas, are now in the foreground with everything else.  Again, most listeners won’t even notice and some will be happy that the sound is nice and loud like the rest of the CD’s they bought this year, but lovers of the old warm vinyl sound should probably hang on to their vinyl copy.

But it’s the extras in this box that make the set a true winner.  The bonus disc of Joel’s Carnegie Hall performance in ’77 is top-notch…an amazing high-energy performance with excellent sound quality.  Then watch him play live from the Old Grey Whistle Test BBC performance and learn about the ‘making of’ The Stranger via the included DVD.  Both discs serve as a reminder at how fantastic a showman Billy Joel is and how stellar his band was at the time.  You really get a perfect up-close account of a true original American artist in his prime (or at least one of his primes) who does things his own way…and who doesn’t “take no shit from anybody”.

Go see the original post of this review on Blog Critics and leave me some nice comments there, so they keep me on staff over there!

Filed in Music, review on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 · 5 Comments »