Review: New Billy Joel 2-Part (Very Long) Documentary, ‘And So It Goes’ – A Piano Man Deep Dive, Worth The Time

I finally finished the in-depth new Billy Joel documentary, or “rockumentary” if you like, but I won’t lie, at 2 episodes and roughly 5 hours of material, it took me two sittings per episode (each episode is 2 and 1/2 hours) over two weekends to digest it all. I have always been a big Billy Joel fan but I must admit the Rock Chick has never been much of fan. I convinced her to sit down and watch the first episode with me in the hopes that she’d be captivated by the man and his fabulous back catalog but after about an hour and a half I lost her and she hit the rack. I ended up turning it off and watching the end the next morning. That was last weekend, the weekend of July 18th. When I tried to get her interested in the second episode this weekend, July 25th… well, my rock n roll seed could find no purchase. Oh well, you try and open up a closed mind… You can take a loved one to the Billy Joel river (of dreams), but you can’t always make them drink.

This thing gave me a level of detail about Billy Joel, his career and his life, for that matter, that was astonishing in it’s depth. I’ve been a fan of his since before I started listening to music. My parents, of all people, had a copy of Piano Man, because my father aka the Hard Guy, liked the title track. I think my brother also had a copy of the album and by the time I got to college, I had one too. So our family was clearly supporting Billy’s career from the early stages. Years later my brother bought a copy of Glass Houses, when I was in junior high and I would go in his room to listen to that great album, Billy’s reaction to punk. I really liked “Sleeping With The Television On.” It wasn’t until I got to college that I became immersed into Billy Joel’s music. I went to college a Springsteen/Stones fan and met my good friend/roommate Drew who was a Billy Joel/Who fan. We definitely cross pollinated musically, rather quickly and suddenly I was buying Billy Joel LPs. I’ve been a fan of Joel’s ever since… well, maybe not that whole An Innocent Man thing… I despised that record. However, that was the first tour I saw Billy on, and he was a phenomenal live performer. I think I’ve only seen him three times total, so I need to work on that. If he’s doing a show anywhere near you – and I realize he’s recovering from some health issues – do yourself a favor and go see him.

This documentary has such a wealth of old photos and interviews, even if you’ve got your PhD in Billy Joel mythology, you’re going to see something you haven’t seen before. There are so many guests providing commentary including: Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp, Don Henley and Sting, just to name the rock stars who show up. He also has ex band members (including the great drummer Liberty Devito), and his ex wife and former manager Elizabeth Weber who provides quite a bit of insight. Billy is interviewed through out the show and he answers everything very openly, from his early career, to marriages, to substance abuse issues. Everything is fair game. There’s a certain vulnerability in Joel as he opens up so widely in a way that I certainly never thought he would.

If I have any complaints, other than the length, the doc does take some tangents. It starts off with his early days and takes you all the way up through Turnstiles, before doing the inevitable deep dive on his upbringing and childhood. Why didn’t they start with that? It just seemed oddly sequenced. I’ve always loved Turnstiles and thought that was the album that should have broke him wide (“Angry Young Man,” “New York State Of Mind”) and it symbolized his departure from California where he’d been since he released his debut, the botched up recording, Cold Spring Harbor and his return to New York. It was originally going to be recorded with Elton John’s backing band (Nigel Olsson/drums and Dee Murray, bass) and we hear snippets of those recordings, proving that Billy still has some stuff in the archives that we’d all like to hear, despite releasing the box My Lives a few years ago. I’d love to hear more of that Elton John band with Billy but I’ve always been a completist, just see my post on Springsteen’s new box, Tracks 2.

Episode one continues, after the foray into Billy’s childhood, on from Turnstiles, to his partnering with producer Phil Ramone, which was the secret sauce, and on through those classic late 70s Joel albums: The Stranger (1977), 52nd Street (1978), and Glass Houses (1980). By that time his wife, Elizabeth – who still is quite a strikingly beautiful woman – had become his manager. That had to cause strife as she was the only adult in the room. Billy and the band were more like, as Sting once said about his own touring band, “a group of vikings, looting and pillaging.” That “working together” tension, along with Billy’s drinking drove a wedge between them. I did learn the song “Big Shot,” which I always thought was Joel’s autobiographical song about his own misbehavior, was written for Elizabeth. “They were all impressed with your Halston dress, and the people that you know at Elaine’s…” probably should have been a clue. I’ve never seen Joel in a dress, Halson or otherwise.

Elizabeth had taken off by the time episode 1 ends and they just start teasing The Nylon Curtain (1982). They fire up episode 2 and instead of rolling through his career we have another side tangent into his father and  his father’s family who had to flee Germany and the Nazi’s. It’s a fascinating story that I had never heard. At that point they take up the story of The Nylon Curtain, which I always considered Billy’s most Beatles’ influenced record. One thing unique about Joel is that he’s so schooled in classical music – he talks about Beethoven, Bach – that those type melodies bleed into his music. You can hear it on most his albums, but songs like “Where’s The Orchestra” really brought that to the fore.

At that point we follow Billy into meeting Christie Brinkley – and let’s just say, Hats off, Billy! – their marriage and the aforementioned An Innocent Man. At that point Billy’s drinking continues to swell out of control. The doc pulls no punches on that subject which includes references to the car wrecks and rehab. The doc continues through The Bridge, which I always liked… I probably could have put that on my “The Dirty Dozen List – Albums Only I Like” but I don’t think I did. From there it was the phenomenal Storm Front album, which contained the track from which the doc takes its name, “And So It Goes.” Billy wanted to take time off and spend it with his family but his manager after Elizabeth, her brother, swindled the shit out of Joel and took a bunch of his money. Show biz, sigh. One of the reasons he kept touring and touring was an attempt to make up all the money the evil manager stole. But, as most artists do, he began to burn out. He recorded The River Of Dreams (1993), and that was to be his last full length album of new material. The doc surprisingly doesn’t mention the great “comeback” single from last year “Turn The Lights Back On,” that I just loved.

From there we follow the very busy Billy, his life and career, up to present day. He’s been an absolute road warrior and of course there was his Madison Square Garden residency. It’s just such a shame that his ex-brother-in-law ripped him off. If he had had better management, he might have been able to take a break, sober up, and focus on and maybe save his family. Maybe after a nice rest we would have gotten more Billy Joel original music over the years. Ah, the path less taken.

This thing is long, but for real Billy Joel fans it’s a treasure trove of film, photos and music. It kept me captivated (if not the Rock Chick) for the whole 5 hours. This guy is one of those guys like Tom Petty or Bob Seger that were such a big part of the sound track of my life, it was just a joy to connect with Billy for a couple of weekends. Billy is to Long Island and New York what Springsteen is to New Jersey. The man is an icon and a legend and deserved this deep-dive doc treatment. I just wish he’ll put out another album before we lose him…not to go all dark, but I’m still recovering from losing Ozzy.

Enjoy this documentary and as Billy used to say at the end of every concert, “Don’t take any shit from anybody…” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Cheers!