“Kicked the door down”: the singer Billy Joel owes his career to
As someone whose love for music runs bone deep, Billy Joel appreciates the storytellers who are a little rough around the edges.
It’s one of the reasons why he first fell in love with Bob Dylan. The self-referential brooding troubadour showed people like Joel that there was “leeway” when it came to vocal talent, a space where being unique was a sell, and that picking apart your deepest thoughts and feelings could be presented with poetic flair and artistic virtue.
Another of his favourites – Cream – resonated with Joel for a multitude of reasons. Ginger Baker, for one, played the drums in a way Joel had never witnessed before, and Eric Clapton’s guitar playing was, to him, completely “flawless”. And on perfect songwriters, Joel once described Don Henley as the quintessential innovator, mainly because he utilised the best of all his talents to create a sound that was unique but also in keeping with the spirit of the times.
Those who are more deeply interested and invested in the man behind the magic will also know how much Joel adores classical music. Like many of his peers, classical music is to Joel the essential framework from which every genre stems, especially pop and rock, and once you dive deeper into all facets of the art form itself, you can understand and appreciate modern music on a completely different level.
For instance, the reasons why Joel once described Beethoven as “perfect” were that he was an authentic, messy human in his work, and you can hear all of these inconsistent throughlines in much of his best work. To Joel, Beethoven’s emotional crescendos and cadences still speak to modern listeners, a big statement considering his reign in an entirely different era.
However, when it comes to Joel’s ultimate hero, someone who he owes his career to, who completely “kicked the door down” was the singer-songwriter virtuoso himself, James Taylor. Previously discussing Taylor’s impact, Joel said that Taylor “changed the game” and sparked a movement when singer-songwriters were suddenly some of the most sought-after recording artists.
“I owe him a debt; I might not have gotten signed or even been heard if it weren’t for James’ success,” said Joel. He also recalled how they’d often frequent the same club, and one night during a jam session, a blizzard broke out that suspended all public transport. They both walked back to Joel’s, where his then-wife was waiting for him “with a rolling pin”.
A huge fan of Taylor, his wife wasn’t happy about Joel returning late, but soon softened at the presence of Taylor, letting her husband off the hook. A worthy justification for his tardiness, Joel reasoned. “Thank you, James, you saved me from some unpleasant stuff,” he joked.
As such, Taylor was a timely addition to the music scene in more ways than one, and like Dylan, he made space for a different kind of talent to emerge, one free from over-polished embellishments and defined by more intimate and personal musings about the individual experience of life, love, and the industry itself, and for someone like Joel, this was fodder to allow his own offering to flourish, setting him on a path to greatness.
