HBO’s revealing new documentary on Billy Joel delves into the rocker’s private life and profession, from his beginnings as a struggling cocktail lounge “Piano Man” to promoting out Madison Sq. Backyard greater than 100 instances throughout an unprecedented decade-long residency.
However one subject the complete five-hour challenge, “And So It Goes” by Emmy winners Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, doesn’t deal with is how Joel went from a scruffy aspiring steel head in a cacophonous act referred to as Attila to an offended younger man whose public uniform was a coat and tie with a button-down and sneakers.
On the 1970 cowl of Attila’s sole, ill-fated album, a long-haired Joel and his bandmate Jon Small wore furry barbarian costumes from the movie “Ben-Hur” surrounded by hanging meat.
However quickly after, Joel wouldn’t be caught and not using a coat and tie.
In 1976, Joel appeared on the duvet of his solo album, “Turnstiles,” within the look that might outline his profession: a white costume shirt and a preppy rep tie.
The fashion was repeated on the moody covers of Joel’s breakthrough “The Stranger” (that includes Joel in a swimsuit on a mattress) and “52nd Avenue,” for which Joel paired the jacket and tie with prepster kicks Tretorns as he leaned moodily towards a wall with a trumpet.
And whereas Joel could have been sporting a leather-based motorbike jacket as he threw a rock at his personal luxe residence on the duvet of his rebellious 1980 smash, “Glass Homes,” he appeared on the again cowl pouting by means of a damaged window in a preppy jacket and tie.
(Joel’s by no means seen within the doc on stage in any 12 months and not using a signature blazer.)
These near the star inform us that the “Uptown Lady” singer hatched the hip buttoned up look with assist from his first spouse and supervisor, Elizabeth Weber (who will get her due within the doc for making Joel’s profession).
The coat and tie was additionally maybe a solution to amplify his obvious disdain for costumed rockers of the day (a la Elton John), and likewise a manner for the Lengthy Island common Joe (common Joel?) to point out some respect to his paying followers.
A longtime Joel insider informed us after we puzzled in regards to the genesis of the signature look: “The origin of the look was easy… Billy mentioned on the time the viewers paid good cash to see him — the least he might do was costume good for them! And to him, that was a coat and tie.”
The doc additionally factors out how the singer was a fan of (well-dressed) legends like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
In his 1974 tune, “The Entertainer,” Joel makes enjoyable of showy performers sporting “every kind of sparkles.”
Joel additionally bristles early in his profession in an interview at being in comparison with over-the-top Elton, saying their types have been the antitheses of one another. (The rockers later toured collectively, and have been on and off frenemies through the years.)
One other power behind the look was the trendy Weber. (The doc suggests she might’ve been the character in that “Halston costume” with these “associates at Elaine’s” in Joel’s scathing hit “Large Shot”).
Our insider says, “The jackets have been an evolution… Elizabeth picked them [for Billy] within the early years,” together with an orange quantity Joel wore on the duvet of his 1980 single “It’s Nonetheless Rock and Roll to Me.”
Prime graphic designer Paula Scher can be credited with being instrumental within the creation of Joel’s album covers.
