The only band Billy Joel said he would have joined
For all that he has given to the world, Billy Joel has every right to play up his status as a rock legend if he wants to.
When you’ve written something as great as ‘Just The Way You Are’ or ‘Piano Man’, there’s good reason for anyone to tip their hat in respect, but Joel was never the kind of guy to coax by his millions and treat his bandmates like a bunch of hired guns. He always liked the idea of being just another guy in a group, and he would have played his cards a lot differently had he had the chance in the beginning.
Then again, it’s probably for the best that Joel never got to show his true colours in a rock and roll outfit. The Hassles may have helped him get his foot in the door and start learning the ins and outs of what a travelling musician is supposed to be, but the less said about his short-lived hard rock outfit Attila, the better off we’ll all be. He wasn’t cut out for those kinds of songs, but if you really think about it, there’s hardly any set genre that Joel falls into when looking at his body of work.
You could call it straight-ahead pop if you wanted to, but there are moments on his records that are love letters to everything that he ever listened to. He may have had his more obvious departures like making classical pieces in the 2000s, but Piano Man is still indebted to the singer-songwriter scene, The Nylon Curtain was his answer to The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper in many respects, and while An Innocent Man is loaded with hits, a lot of it comes from everyone from Beethoven to The Four Seasons to the greatest acts in Motown.
That might sound insane, but when you grow up in a bar band environment, it’s a lot easier to fit all of those influences into the repertoire. Joel had been used to practising everything he could if it sounded cool, and when looking at the other pop acts coming out of the 1970s, the J Geils Band wasn’t all that different when they started making waves after ‘Centerfold’ and ‘Freeze Frame’ stormed up the charts.
They were practically a bluesy rock and roll outfit for the longest time, but even when they made their bid for superstardom, they never forgot where they came from. Frontman Peter Wolf was always a child of the stage, and while Joel was already riding high by the time they started gaining momentum, he could easily see himself sliding into the band if they needed a sub to play piano.
For someone with as much knowledge about pop history, Joel felt he had musicians that were speaking his language in that band, saying, “I just wanna be a blues pianist in a band like. J. Geils. Just sit there and play the blues. Just wearing a hat, dark shades, a beard, a little Scotch on the piano, a pack of cigarettes….’Okay, Bill.’ Or B.J., or some anonymous name. Al.” And it’s not like he wouldn’t be a great fit.
No disrespect meant to him, but Joel never branded himself as the most eye-catching rock and roll star in the world. Everyone knows him today, but the fact that he has made his career out of being a normal guy playing some of the greatest songs they he could would make him a great sideman if he decided to play a few tunes on his off nights.
So if Joel does eventually get around to making that supergroup that he had in mind with Sting and Don Henley, perhaps someone like Wolf could find their way into those jam sessions. Not all of them necessarily had the same approach to music, but what they did have in common was knowing what to play for a certain song and delving deep into the greatest music that soundtracked their childhoods.
