The musician Billy Joel knows he could never match on piano: “Kicks my ass”
Most great rock musicians tend to make the guitar their instrument of choice. Although it takes a lot of guts to sing in front of a crowd of people, the security blanket of having the six-string monster strung across one’s torso usually gives an added sense of confidence to dominate any stage they are playing on. Whereas most artists earned their trade on the guitar, Billy Joel proved that anything could be done when sitting behind a piano.
First getting work as a sideman in various groups in his native Long Island, Joel would spend time tickling the ivories with any band that would have him. Once he began writing his own songs, the pianist knew there was something unique that no one else could touch, eventually turning in classic tunes like ‘Piano Man’ and ‘Just The Way You Are’.
Compared to other keyboard sidemen, Joel was in another class of musicians altogether. Joel brought a class to the instrument that had been missing for some time. He was able to gild the lilies of his songs with delicate piano performance, but his secret weapon was also being able to kick up the volume, smash the keys and belt out some real classic rock ‘n’ roll charm, too.
Rather than looking at the instrument as a more refined extension of what could be done with a guitar, Joel got into the percussive value of the piano, spending time playing insane runs on songs like ‘Angry Young Man’ while also weaving in different elements of jazz on songs like ‘New York State of Mind’ and ‘Zanzibar’.
It would become a trademark of his songwriting. The ‘Piano Man’ would rightly live up to his name and bring the instrument into the mainstream of pop as a central focus, rather than a producer’s secret sauce. For all of the great music Joel could squeeze out of his upright, another artist from the other side of the world was making his trade the same way.
After spending years shopping around his song demos to anyone who would hear, Elton John would become one of the biggest stars in the world, interpreting the beautiful poetry of Bernie Taupin while also finding time to squeeze into as many glam outfits as he could. John’s performances would cement his position as a rock ‘n’ roll icon. Though he would segue into pop stardom without much fuss, for a while, John was a bona fide rocker, and he used his piano in the way some icons of the past had.
Even though Joel and John were among only a handful of primary pianists in rock and roll, Joel was awestruck seeing how much time his English counterpart put into his craft. Before becoming a pop superstar, John was known for going to school for music, including pouring over artists like Bach and Beethoven before crafting his own songs.
When putting his chops next to John’s, Joel thought that he never came close to what the glam rocker could do, telling Rolling Stone, “Elton kicks my ass on piano. He’s fantastic — a throwback to Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino, and Little Richard.” That’s some serious praise.
John can certainly deliver a ballad on the keys; ‘A Candle in the Wind’ is devastatingly emotional when played by him, but it was his fits of furious rock that Joel was most impressed by: “His spontaneous, improvisational playing always challenges me. And that is his contribution to rock & roll and pop: his musicianship. Before him, rock was a bunch of James Taylors — guitar-based singer-songwriter stuff. Elton brought back fantastic piano-based rock”.
However, both men knew their craft could only come from the great musicians before them. Outside of the world of rock and roll, Joel and John have been able to repay some of their biggest influences for their success, with Joel performing alongside Ray Charles and John getting Stevie Wonder’s approval when he hit the big time.
Joel and John would even share their gifts on a joint tour in the 1990s, coming together for the Face to Face tour. While Joel may have his production down with machine-like accuracy, he knew he would get an education when performing next to John’s repertoire.
