The one artist Sting claimed could “play anything”
The primary goal Sting had was always about being the most well-rounded musician he could be.
Although The Police were birthed in the same venues that spat out the greatest punk acts of all time, it’s not like they were going to be playing three chord songs for the rest of their career. The bassist always wanted the chance to stretch out, and by the start of the 1980s, he began to realise that that meant working outside of the power trio format that they had built up for so many years.
Because, really, there was no way The Police could have sustained themselves after Synchronicity. They had hit one of the greatest apexes a band could have asked for in their career, and despite having the biggest stadium shows anyone had ever seen, there had to be a little voice in everyone’s head wondering how the hell they were going to top it. And for Sting, it simply was to not bother trying.
He had done that part of his career, and there was hardly a reason for him to make another version of ‘Every Breath You Take’ all over again. However, if anyone had come to him to listen to the pop hits, they were in for a bit of a surprise when they first heard tunes from The Dream of the Blue Turtles for the first time. He had gone into the world of jazz, and while the tracks were still good, they were far from the same simple romps he had in the past.
Then again, it would always feel like cheating for anyone to try and make jazz solely to be different. Given how many artists end up commandeering the genre half the time, it seems like jazz has become the “grown up” phase of most rockers’ careers more often than not, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, there was a way to make music that was a lot more pop-friendly and complicated at the same time.
Steely Dan had managed it fine, and so did Joni Mitchell, but Sting felt that he had a true musical confidante in Billy Joel. The ‘Piano Man’ was never considered cool by the mainstream at any point in his life, but going through his entire discography, there’s something new in almost every song he makes, to the point where he eventually started making symphonies to get away from the traditional pop machine.
Although there was a lot of mutual respect there, Sting felt that it was hard to think of anything that he couldn’t accomplish with Joel, saying, “Billy and I have been friends for a long time — since 1980. He came to see us at Nassau Coliseum — came on his own, walked into the dressing room, said: ‘Hi, I’m Billy Joel. I’m a big fan.’ Then I spent an evening with him around a piano, and Billy started to play Gilbert and Sullivan, Beethoven, the Beatles. He can play anything. He’s a real mensch. I’ve always, always loved him.”
While Joel did tease the idea of working with Sting and Don Henley in a potential supergroup, none of them seem to have any pressing plans to make any new music. If you listen to the way that both of their voices sync up with each other during their various live performances, it’s shocking how well Sting finds a way to balance his smoky voice with whatever Joel is working on at the time.
The future might still be wide open for them to collaborate in the future, but by Sting’s own admission, it wouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world to find common ground. Joel was practically a walking musical encyclopedia, and chances were strong that he could work with nearly anything that Sting threw at him.
