No longer called "The Thoel Project," the new Billy Joel-Twyla Tharp musical will get a more mellifluous moniker, "Movin' Out," for its upcoming Broadway debut.

Conceived, choreographed and directed by Tharp, the show is based on 26 songs and instrumental compositions by Joel and tells the story of six friends from 1967 to 1987.

"Movin' Out" will play a six-week world premiere engagement at Chicago's Shubert Theatre from June 25th, 2002 to August 4th, 2002 before opening on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on October 24th, 2002.

After Abba's "Mamma Mia!" success, the rock songbook musicals are definitely a trend.

The first reading for the new Bruce Springsteen musical, "Drive All Night," looks ready for early March. The rock opera revolves around a man who returns to his home town years after high school graduation.

"Can't Help Falling In Love," based on hit Elvis Presley songs, had its first reading last spring and won the blessing of the Presley estate. Since Presley didn't actually write the songs he made famous, a few publishers and songwriters were also present and duly impressed. Joe DiPietro, who wrote the book, expects a full workshop in the fall.

Barely a month after he dropped $8 million on a five-bedroom waterfront manse in the Sag Harbor area, Billy Joel bought another house on Long Island. Having sold his East Hampton spread to Jerry Seinfeld for $32 million, he had some spare change. So the "Piano Man" spent a few more million on a seaside retreat on Shelter Island, where he's been a partner in a boat-building business since 1996. No word yet on the exact price. "I just hope to matriculate into island life quietly," he told the Shelter Island Reporter...

The new musical collaboration between pop legend Billy Joel and choreographer Twyla Tharp now has a title - "Movin' Out" - and a Broadway theatre, the Richard Rodgers. The show, which will have an out-of-town tryout in Chicago before hitting Broadway, will open on Broadway on October 24th, 2002. The Chicago run, at the Shubert Theatre, will be June 25th, 2002 - August 4th, 2002.

Auditions for male and female dancers for the fast-tracked tuner begin in Toronto on February 1st, 2002.

The Chicago-to-Broadway route is the same one used by "The Producers" and currently being exercised by "Sweet Smell of Success." Rehearsals are to start April 29th, 2002.

The musical, previously called "The Thoel Project," had a workshop over the October 6th-7th, 2001, weekend. The story concerns six friends who grow up in the 1960s and go on to fight in Vietnam. One is killed in the war and another comes to blame the third for the man's death. The show will incorporate existing Joel songs as well some new material the songwriter will pen for the show. The show will feature 26 Joel compositions including the songs "An Innocent Man," "Big Shot," "The River of Dreams" and "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)."

Designers are Santo Loquasto (sets), Ann Roth (costumes), Donald Holder (lighting) and Brian Ruggles and Peter Fitzgerald (sound).

The workshop features Scott Wise, Michael Cavanaugh and Elizabeth Parkinson.

According to the casting notice, Tharp is looking for dancers steeped in ballet. Stuart Malina is the music director on the venture.

Joel had talked about writing a musical off and on over the years. The self-styled "Piano Man" from Long Island has steadily hit the pop charts since his breakthrough 1977 album, "The Stranger." Since then, he has recorded such records as "52nd Street," "Glass Houses," "The Nylon Curtain," "Storm Front," "An Innocent Man" and "River of Dreams." Among his best known songs are "Only The Good Die Young," "Just The Way You Are," "My Life," "You May Be Right," "Tell Her About It," "Uptown Girl," "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "A Matter of Trust."

Joel is only the latest pop musician to venture into the world of theatre. Past pop artists who have crossed over (with varying success) include: Paul Simon ("The Capeman"), Harry Connick, Jr. ("Thou Shalt Not") Pete Townsend ("The Who's Tommy"), Randy Newman ("Randy Newman's Faust"), Roger Miller ("Big River"), Barry Manilow ("Copacabana and Harmony") and Dennis DeYoung ("Hunchback"), Jimmy Buffett ("Don't Stop The Carnival"), The Bee Gees ("Saturday Night Fever"), the Pet Shop Boys ("Closer to Heaven") and the composing half of ABBA ("Mamma Mia!").

The "Piano Man" is taking his act to Broadway.

Billy Joel's songs are the basis for a new musical, "Movin' Out," that will hit the New York stage in October. While the pop music icon won't star in - or even be part of - the show, 26 of his songs and instrumental compositions will.

The play, conceived and directed by Emmy-award winning choreographer Twyla Tharp, traces the lives of six friends over two decades. Joel's songs and lyrics provide all the words.

In concept, it's not unlike "Mamma Mia!" - a loosely structured play that strings together a number of tunes from the 1970s disco group ABBA. That show opened last year on Broadway, and has proven to be a hit.

Joel wasn't available for comment Friday, but said last year of Tharp's project, "It worked really, really well, and the narrative is actually being described through the lyrics of the songs, which are done by a live band, with dance, so it's a different kind of performance."

The show is slated to open October 24th, 2002 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre after a six-week engagement at Chicago's Shubert Theatre.

Billy Joel and Elton John postponed tonight's joint concert at the FleetCenter until April 3rd, 2002 because of an undisclosed illness to Joel, a FleetCenter official said.

The show was supposed to have been the last of five critically acclaimed, sold-out performances that the keyboard wizards had been performing in the Hub since last month. The concerts have been the highest grossing multi-night run in the history of Boston arenas, FleetCenter spokesman Jim Delaney said.

Saturday night's nearly 20,000 disappointed fans still will be able to see the superstars perform together soon because all tickets will be honored on April 3rd, 2002, the Wednesday night makeup date. Delaney said information about ticket refunds will be posted on the FleetCenter web-site as soon as it becomes available.

Some concertgoers attending last Thursday's show noted that Joel gave an abbreviated performance that night, an indication he wasn't feeling well.

Though the FleetCenter tried to get word out about the postponement in the morning, some ticketholders didn't hear about it until later.

"I found out while I was working," said Jim Coviello of Wakefield. "My daughter called to tell me she heard about the show...on the radio.

"Needless to say, I was disappointed. But I'm also glad they didn't end up putting on a concert where one of them was less than 100 percent."

Although more than 19,000 fans were in the mood for a melody, Billy Joel wasn't and canceled last night's FleetCenter concert with Elton John, according to FleetCenter President Richard Krezwick. Joel notified FleetCenter officials that he was sick yesterday morning and requested the performance be postponed, Krezwick said. The show, the last in a series of five sold-out concerts, has been rescheduled for April 3rd, 2002 at 7:30pm. The original tickets will be valid for the rescheduled concert, he said.

It's a strange thing for Billy Joel, as he goes out for the sold-out multinight runs of the "Face 2 Face" tour with Elton John.

"I look at myself in the mirror before I go out and say, 'You're going to go out and do a rock-star thing? You don't look anything like what you're supposed to look like.'"

"I've aged like everybody else my age," he says over the phone from Long Island, nursing a cold on a one-day break between Boston shows, before a four-night run at the Hartford Civic Center that starts Monday and continues Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

"I'm 52 years-old. My hair has thinned out. And I've thickened out in my body," he says.

"Then I walk out, and the crowd starts screaming, and I think: 'Well, something's going on here.' So I don't question it too much."

In fact, the "Face 2 Face" tour has become one of the most popular - and long-running - special-event tours in rock.

When the duo's tour was first organized in 1994, "I wasn't sure how long it would go," Joel says. "The agreement we had was: Let's see how this feels and see how far we want to go; let's see how much we want to work together. And it worked out well."

That's an understatement for a tour that sold-out five nights at Giants Stadium.

"Doing it in stadiums was really absurd," he said. "I mean, stadiums are great for football, but I think what was missing for us was the better sounds of coliseums or arenas - as good as they can sound.

"I mean, I know they're still huge places. Our idea was to eventually try to do it in 'more intimate' settings," he says with a chuckle. "But compared to a stadium, it is more intimate."

The appeal of the tour, in which the two stars sing separately with their own bands for a dozen songs and then join forces for nearly a dozen more, hasn't diminished.

After earning $57.2 million in 31 shows last year - placing fifth among the year's biggest tours, ahead of Madonna - the 2002 tour has had to put on extra shows in each market, five in Boston last week, seven in Philadelphia, the four sellouts in Hartford.

Four sellouts ties a Civic Center record set twice before by Joel, an obvious Hartford favorite. "And I don't even sell insurance!" he says.

The show has changed through the years, this time including a salute to George Harrison and a trio of new songs from John's latest album, "Songs From the West Coast."

Joel, who hasn't released a pop album in nine years (the last was the #1 "River of Dreams," with the video filmed in a Glastonbury tobacco barn), alters his set by pulling out more obscure songs from the past.

"Sometime we'll give the audience a choice," he says. "We pick some obscure songs, and depending on the audience reaction, that's the song we'll do."

"We did this last night in Boston. I think one song was 'Vienna' from 'The Stranger' album; another was 'Summer, Highland Falls' from 'Turnstiles,' and 'Don't Ask Me Why' from 'Glass Houses.' ("Don't Ask Me Why" won.)

"I don't think the show should be all hits," says Joel, who has racked up 33 Top 40 hits, "even though the majority of the audience does want to be familiar with what you're playing. I think if you just play hit, hit, hit, you're not really representing yourself - you're not really representing the body of your work.

"I'm not all just about Top 40 hits," he says. "I think a lot of our reputation goes back years and years and years of having what they called album cuts. Songs like 'Scenes From An Italian Restaurant' and even 'New York State of Mind' have not been singles.

"But then again, you can't do too many of them, because then you see people starting to go to the bathroom. So it's a balance."

"New York State of Mind" is taking on a life of its own, becoming like "Just the Way You Are" before it, an accepted standard.

"It seems to have had longevity," Joel says. "At this point, it does resonate, doesn't it? In light of events in New York, it took on a whole other life as well."

Joel sang it, with an FDNY hat on his piano, for the "America: A Tribute to Heroes" telethon and again at "The Concert for New York City," where he also played the obscure, strangely appropriate sci-fi song "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway)." That song, from his 1976 "Turnstiles," has become part of his current live show as well.

Later this month, "New York State of Mind" is up for a Grammy, from Joel's duet with Tony Bennett on the latter's "Playin' With My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues."

"That came out of left field," Joel says of the nomination. The six-time Grammy winner appreciates the recognition. "The fact that Tony wanted to do it and a number of other really great singers have wanted to do this song means a lot to me," Joel says. "It's like one of my kids went off and became successful."

His daughter - Alexa Ray, now 16 - is planning her own career as a singer-songwriter.

"I want her to take her time," the proud papa says, "because one of the worst things you can do is come out, viewed as a pop teen recording artist, and then never be able to be taken seriously again when she got older.

"So I'm trying to hold her back. I'm saying, 'Look, just keep writing. Write, write, write; get a lot of experience in the recording studio and in singing and working with other musicians; and when you get to be college age and get to be in that Alicia Keys phase, that's a good time to come out.'"

Keys, at 21, is perhaps the best example of a contemporary pop-based pianist, songwriter and singer.

"She's really, really young, and she's quite poised for her age," Joel says of Keys. "She's got a great voice, and she's terrific at how she arranges her stuff, too. She's put together a very good band; her sound is good."

But, Joel adds, "I think she has a lot to live up to in terms of how she's been critically received. Her first album is being seen as this masterwork, and it's not there yet. She's got a lot of potential; she's got a ton of talent. But I hope she has an opportunity to grow."

"I was fortunate," he adds sardonically, "in that critics made sure I didn't peak too early."

Of other contemporary acts, Joel says, "I like Train; I think they're good. I like Ben Folds."

Generally, he says "It's hard for me to keep track. I don't follow things like I used to. I'm a kind of dial spinner in the car, and my daughter will point out things she thinks are good. And that gets me to listen.

"A lot of times, I'm listening to someone on the radio, and I have no idea. I say, 'Well, who's this?' And my daughter will say, 'Well, that's Nelly Furtado.' And I say, 'Well, I thought a frittata was an Italian dish.' And she says, 'Oh, no, no, she's really, really big.'

"Then I'll say, 'Who's this?' And she goes, 'That's Pink.'

"I don't know who's what anymore. But there's stuff that I like, and there's stuff I don't like. Just like always."

And neither have been dominating the charts the way they did in the '70s. Quick - what were their last hit singles? I mean besides the Princess Di "Candle In The Wind"? (It's OK - I couldn't recall, either.)

But it's the memories. It's why we go out and buy that gallon of vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice cream, or wolf down that juicy burger, or gorge on that sushi-sashimi platter or whatever you love to eat - we recall how good it tasted the first time.

In Mr. John's case, remember the first time you heard "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" on the radio. Or playing the "Captain Fantastic" pinball machine and hearing his version of "Pinball Wizard." Or cranking "Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting)" at full-blast on your stereo as you headed out to party on a weekend night. Or feeling the gale fury the first time you heard "Funeral For A Friend"/"Love Lies Bleeding." Or seeing Elton with a half-million of your closest friends in Central Park in 1980, as he broke out the Donald Duck costume. Or the first time you took your kid to see/rented the video for "The Lion King."

Or in Joel's case, maybe you remember the days when you couldn't get "Piano Man" out of your head because they played it so much on the radio. Or how you just about had all the lyrics down from "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant." Or maybe you remember how lucky you were seeing him at Toad's in 1980, or even earlier in the '70s at Quinnipiac College. Or the first time you heard "Uptown Girl" and swore it was a new Frankie Valli song. Or seeing the 1984 tour for "The Nylon Curtain," where the sad sound of choppers overhead sounded so real accompanying "Goodnight Saigon."

Fond memories. Comfort in a time of uncertainty. That's why you paid, and that's why you're going - that and the knowledge that the two are still consummate performers despite the onset of...well, how do we say this?...maturity. (Elton John will be 55 on March 25th, 2002, Billy Joel will be 53 on May 9th, 2002).

That said, though, both stars - who also toured last year, and will each play a set with their respective bands before pairing up - haven't totally relied on memories. This tour at least has the potential not to be an oldies jukebox.

In the case of Elton - who's been more visible as a Broadway composer with Tim Rice ("Aida," "The Lion King") and a walking photo-op than a recording artist as of late - he released his latest album, "Songs From The West Coast," last October to lukewarm public response. But don't be deceived: He and his songwriting right arm, Bernie Taupin, pulled off a disc that both captured the natural urgency of his early-'70s material and the relative maturity of a man in his 50s.

Despite the puff publicity he's received lately because *NSYNC's Justin Timberlake played him in the video for "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore," this is not an album of fluff. You might put on the album for the first time, the way I did, and let it drift into the background and think "That's nice," the way I did, until - bam! - "God hates fags where I come from."

Fourth song in: "American Triangle," about the killing of Matthew Shepard, and his voice practically leaps out of your speakers, his voice a firm jumble of rage and sadness. You go back and listen to the disc a little deeper, almost apologetically, and you take in the full album the way you haven't absorbed an Elton album in years.

So much for resting on laurels - and likewise with Joel.

His "New York State of Mind" took on an extra-special meaning when he played it at the September benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. (A version of the song with Tony Bennett, by the way, is up for a Grammy Award.) But before September 11th, 2001, Joel drew attention for something completely different.

Not only has he conquered the pop charts, he now has a #1 album on the classical charts - the summertime release "Fantasies & Delusions." Some critics might harp that the fantasy part is right - yeah, yeah, another pop star who fancies himself a highbrow composer - but Joel had no delusions about his abilities as a classical pianist; he lined up Richard Joo to translate his work to keyboard on the disc.

It might not be to your liking, but it was an awfully ambitious and admirable undertaking - a statement that Joel had no plans to stagnate artistically.

"I'm still at a point where I feel like a student discovering a treasure trove of goodies that will make me better and smarter," he told Billboard's Larry Flick last year. However, he added, "To allow my name to be mentioned in the same breath as the masters is not something I'm comfortable with."

That doesn't mean he can't have it both ways, though. He recently gave the green light to "Movin' Out," a Broadway musical that will include 15 to 20 of his songs choreographed by Twyla Tharp.

Of course, you won't be thinking about any of this when you sit and see the two of them working their craft and their art. You'll be nestled in your memories. But don't be surprised if they pull away the security blanket every so often. Comfort only goes so far.

The best parts of Elton John and Billy Joel's "Face 2 Face" tour, which played the first of four record-breaking nights at the Hartford Civic Center Monday, are when the two are face to face.

Either of the revered pop stars could fill the arena for consecutive dates, but playing together gives the show more dimension. They began the marathon show together with a pair of their best-known ballads, with each taking the first verse of the song the other made a standard - Joel beginning John's "Your Song" and John starting "Just The Way You Are."

Face to face, they could smile and grimace back and forth to one another from behind their two grand pianos, like two joshing co-workers at their cubicles.

"Don't have much money," Joel sang in John's "Your Song," and rolled his eyes - they'd be grossing more than $7 million from the four-night Hartford stop alone.

The promises of "forever" in "Just The Way You Are," drew raised bemused eyebrows from John - Joel wrote it for the first of his ex-wives. Such was the tone in the show where Joel started to sing a John song seeming just right for the city - "Don't Go Breakin' My Hartford," and then stopped.

At a time when being a pop star means looking good first, it wasn't pretty out there. Both are stout men in their 50s who seem to strain when they climb on top of their pianos for "The Bitch Is Back." Hairpiece technology has helped John look as youthful as his songs sound; Joel has gone naturally bald but his gray goatee suggests a Burl Ives turn.

But a mostly older audience truly appreciated what they were doing - though the crowd was more divided than you would expect.

Perhaps it was an East Coast bias that made Joel the favorite Monday, with many lustily singing along to his old songs, from his opening "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" and "Allentown" to "We Didn't Start the Fire" (the only song accompanied by electric guitar rather than piano) and "Only The Good Die Young."

Joel hasn't written a new pop song in nine years and only played a bit of a classical prelude from a new project as an intro to "Prelude/Angry Young Man." But, like John, his playing and singing have stayed on a high level, though both men seemed to be fighting colds.

John's set had not only enduring songs like "Levon" and "Rocket Man," it also had the only current material of the night - singles from his "Songs From The West Coast" album that fit well the tenor of his classics.

The audience may have still been Super Bowl tired, but the energy revived when the two joined forces again, for each other's top songs and a couple of covers - George Harrison's "Here Comes The Sun" in tribute and "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis, whose rock and roll piano style may have influenced both.

But at the end of the 3½-hour marathon, it was the crowd who swayed and sang most of the choruses of the final song, "Piano Man."

Rare is a concert that lasts 3½ hours and leaves a capacity crowd cheering for more.

I'm sure Billy Joel and Elton John could have played all night had they wanted to. But they have three more nights (tonight, Friday and Saturday) at the Hartford Civic Center, thousands more fans to entertain - emphasis on entertain - they way the "Piano Men" did Monday night.

What was apparent, both in the three songs they played together at the start of the show and the eight together at the end, was the mutual admiration society.

On their third "Face 2 Face" tour, Joel and John naturally traded lines in each other's tunes, and let's face it: With their talent, this was child's play. Joel opened the show with the first verse of John's "Your Song," and John did the same with "Just The Way You Are." No big deal, but the compatibility of the two songwriting giants was evident from the start.

Sir Elton, showing a muted flamboyancy, played first with his band (including longtime drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone) for nearly an hour and a half. While his opener, "Funeral For A Friend"/"Love Lies Bleeding," seemed as if by rote, the rest didn't. He used both ends of his repertoire, from early songs such as "Take Me To The Pilot" and "Levon" to "I Want Love" and "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore," from his latest album, "Songs From the West Coast." And in between were spirited versions of "Philadelphia Freedom," "I'm Still Standing" and the set-ending "Crocodile Rock." He had to make a few vocal concessions to his 54 years, but not many.

After a rapid changeover, Joel's hour-and-10-minute set got the louder response. With a band that included his longtime drummer, Liberty DeVitto, he opened on a high note with "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant." At 52, with his paunch growing and his closely cropped hair and goatee going white, he's starting to look a little like Burl Ives. But while it's not Christmas anymore and there wasn't any holly, he did make jolly with the jokes.

Before "Allentown," he cracked, "Let's face it: For these ticket prices (up to $176.50), we should be cleaning windows." After citing how people have been reluctant to go places since the September attacks, he continued, "By paying these exorbitant prices, you're doing your patriotic duty...so I can send my daughter to Yale."

And he fed off the cheers, the set ending with a jumping "Only The Good Die Young." Another highlight was a snippet from last year's classical album, "Fantasies & Delusions," leading into a powerful "Prelude/Angry Young Man." His one curveball was that he played "New York State of Mind" - which, of course, has reaped much attention since September - in a somewhat subdued, perfunctory tone.

By the time the stars, and their bands, reunited for the home stretch, the audience was at relative fever pitch. They reeled off six songs ("My Life," George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun," "The Bitch Is Back," "You May Be Right," "Bennie and the Jets" and Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire") that would have been a great ending.

But they then slowed down to end the show Here, though, it wasn't a sin. Each man saved his best for last - John's "Candle In The Wind" and Joel's "Piano Man," with the crowd swaying and singing to the latter like a 15,000-seat pub.

And the duo entertained the audience the way Joel did when he was writing that tune 30 years ago and playing for the tip jar. Forget the fame and the money - that song, more than anything, brought home the evening.

Throughout this concert week, Billy Joel and Elton John have been getting out of Dodge City as soon as their legs could carry them - Joel flying home to New York, John jetting home to Atlanta.

No offense to our rising star of a city, but these rock stars are moving like shooting stars. There's a police escort from the airport to the Hartford Civic Center, then each to his respective dressing room, stage and home again.

After Wednesday night's performance they stuck around briefly on stage so Hartford Civic Center general manager Marty Brooks could present them with a specially designed gift. Brooks came up with the idea while watching the concert, and worked with John Green of Lux, Bond & Green to create it.

It is a rectangular black base topped by two miniature black marble baby grand pianos facing each other as they do in concert. John's name is on the left piano, Joel's is on the right. It commemorates one of the highest grossing concerts in Connecticut history - more than $7 million.

"Both were extremely touched and taken by the uniqueness of the gift," Brooks said.

In other concert news, Billy Joel drummer Liberty DeVitto was so pleased with his service Tuesday night at Morton's of Chicago in Hartford that he offered his servers, Dinah Ladz and Natalie Falko, free tickets to Friday night's concert.

Billy Joel and Elton John are looking forward to six sold-out shows at the First Union Center in Philadelphia starting Wednesday night.

Subsequent shows are Friday, February 17th, 19th, 22nd, and 24th, 2002. Nowhere else on the duo's "Face 2 Face" Tour will they play that many concerts, although Boston came close with five shows.

Two questions are on everyone's mind - why here and why now? But isn't it obvious? Joel got his first break nationally when Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM jumped on his debut album "Cold Spring Harbor." The rest of the country waited until 1973's "Piano Man" album to get behind him.

John also got a quick start here with a showcase performance at the Electric Factory, touring behind his American debut "Elton John." Since those early-1970s days, both stars have kept their core audience intact and both have acquired new fans along the way. John even went so far as to chart one Top 40 hit every year from 1970 through 2000 - a record that may forever go unbroken and one that has kept him in the public eye.

As for why now, that's easy. Both artists have been extremely active - recording albums, performing for charity and stretching themselves musically in the last year or so. Joel released his first semi-classical album, "Fantasies & Delusions," last year and watched it go straight to #1 on the classical chart, even though pianist Richard Joo performed the material. The New York native also participated in the benefit concert "America: A Tribute to Heroes," performing "New York State of Mind" for his hometown crowd.

John issued his first mostly instrumental soundtrack album "The Muse" in 1999, writing and performing all of the music himself. In 2000, John composed his first Broadway show music with Tim Rice, offering a pop version of Verdi's classic opera "Aida." The show opened on Broadway last March, but that still wasn't enough. Sir Elton followed up his smash "Lion King" film music with another soundtrack score - "El Dorado" - and released a concert disc, "One Night Only," that gathered 17 of his big hits.

John continued his charity work - raising more than $20 million for AIDS causes in just seven years - and held a huge fund-raiser last month in Los Angeles, the night before he came to Philadelphia to christen the new Kimmel Center. In January he received the first-ever "Hero Award" by the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. His single, "I Want Love," is nominated for two BRIT Awards (England's top music honor) - Best British Male Solo Artist and Best British Video.

Let's face it. These are two hard working guys.

According to Ike Richman, public relations director for the First Union Complex, Joel holds the First Union Center's record for most sold-out shows with 35 appearances. "He has the record for the seven-year history of the building," Richman said. "The Grateful Dead have the record for the Spectrum - 53 - but they toured all the time. Joel only tours occasionally, and sometimes he doesn't even have an album to promote. He's playing six shows this time with Elton, but his last time he played seven shows and the time before that he played six shows. It is a true testament to his ability as an artist."

Joel's last album may have come two years ago - "2000 Years: The Millennium Concert" - but he performed on Tony Bennett's 2001 album and is nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration. In June, he was given the Johnny Mercer Award for song composition at the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The songwriter also contributed one of his classical pieces to the "Music of Hope" CD last February, with the London Symphony Orchestra committing it to disc.

This past November, Joel appeared on the A&E cable TV station with the special "In His Own Words" that was filmed at the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine Auditorium. And with Joel claiming to have retired from pop music for a while, in October his Sony Music label released a two-CD collection, "The Essential Billy Joel," which should put a period on this part of his career.

John, on the other hand, continues to churn out albums at an amazing rate, with "Songs From The West Coast" issued late last year. The album hasn't sold well - first week sales were an anemic 83,000 - and John isn't getting the airplay he used to. He still is promoting it as best he can though, with an appearance today at the NBA All-Star Game. He will perform "Philadelphia Freedom" during the player introductions and "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" and "I'm Still Standing" during half-time.

The "Face 2 Face" Tour will continue through the spring, with Joel and John hitting places such as Madison Square Garden in mid-March. From there, John goes it alone, heading to England, Europe and Australia with his band.

For the record, Joel and John first appeared together at Veterans Stadium, playing three shows there in 1994. "I remember it like it was yesterday," Richman said. "People still talk about it to this day."

So the question remains, if they could sell 180,000 seats back then, could they have sold out more shows in Philadelphia this month?

"I think so," Richman said. "But we do have other commitments for the venue and they have other commitments in other cities."

Richman said the shows will run almost four hours, with Joel and John performing together and separately with their respective bands. At the duo's January 22nd, 2002 concert, they played 38 songs, starting on stage together, playing one set each and ending the show together. It is a greatest hits show for both artists, but John is offering four songs from his new album and nothing from his recent releases. A couple of oldies covers should turn up on the playlist, too.

Billy Joel will be honored as the 2002 MusiCares "Person of the Year" at a gala dinner and all-star performance on Monday, February 25th, 2002 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. The annual event continues the MusiCares Foundation's tradition of honoring music legends while helping raise funds for MusiCares' ongoing mission to focus the music industry's attention and resources on health and welfare issues.

As the 2002 MusiCares "Person of the Year," Billy Joel finds himself being honored for both his good works as a musician and his good works as a humanitarian. Characteristically, the gifted and unpretentious Joel - born in The Bronx and raised in Long Island's Levittown - accepts the honor with considerable humility.

"I don't think I'm a great musician - not to me," Joel explains from his current, grander home in Long Island, just hours before heading off on the latest leg of his successful "Face 2 Face" 2002 arena tour with Elton John. "I like to think that I've gotten better. I like to think that I know how to write. This is my own theory: I think I'm competent, but when you're competent in an age of incompetence, that tends to make you appear to be extraordinary. I don't mean that with any false humility. I really believe that."

And despite a long record of charitable efforts, Joel is the first to take himself out of the running for sainthood too. "I'm no great humanitarian," Joel says. "If I was a great humanitarian I would be poor. I would give away everything. I would be like Thoreau or Gandhi or Mother Theresa. That's a great humanitarian." With that Joel breaks into a convincing cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' philanthropic funk-rock classic, "Give It Away."

Alluding to his famous business mishaps along the way, Joel adds, "You know, I didn't give it away. It got torn away from me. But I've tried to help people. I have done benefit concerts. I've tried to help raise money. I've made my own donations. But considering the amount of money that I've made - and the amount of money I've kept - I ain't no great humanitarian." Here too, Joel offers a theory. "I get asked a lot: 'Why is it you musicians are always on the forefront of these charities and fund-raising efforts and trying to help humanity?' I really believe it's because we had such an incredibly dissolute youth that it's our way