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[ Greatest Hits: Voume I & Volume II ]
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[ Movin' Out: Original Cast Recording ]
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[ Live From Long Island ]
[ The Video Album: Volume I ]
[ The Video Album: Volume II ]
[ Live From Leningrad, USSR ]
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[ Live At Yankee Stadium ]
[ Eye of the Storm ]
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[ Greatest Hits: Volume III ]
[ The Essential Video Collection ]
[ Rock Masters: Billy Joel ]
[ The Last Play at Shea ]



"Billy Joel Returning To The Road"
By: Ray Waddell
(November 9th, 2005)

Billy Joel will return to the road as a solo headlining artist for the first time in nearly eight years, sources tell Billboard.com, beginning with a series of shows in January through April of next year.

Dates on the tour, which includes stops in such markets as Las Vegas, Nevada, Jacksonville, Florida, and New York, New York, will begin being announced as soon as Friday (November 11th, 2005). Ticket prices will top out at $75 in most markets.

The last time Joel toured solo was 1998-1999, when he grossed $47 million from 64 shows that drew 1.1 million people, according to Billboard Boxscore.

Since then, Joel's tours with fellow piano pop superstar Elton John have made them the most lucrative co-headlining duo of all time. John and Joel last toured together in 2003, grossing $46 million from just 24 dates.

As previously reported, Joel handpicked the selections on the upcoming Columbia/Legacy boxed set "My Lives," which has been moved forward to November 22nd, 2005 from its originally announced December 6th, 2005 release date.


"Billy's Better Half"
By: Michael Starr
(November 10th, 2005)

Kate Lee Joel, better known as Billy Joel's wife, will host Bravo's reality show "Top Chef," currently shooting in San Francisco, California. The 10-episode series, scheduled to premiere in March 2006, will feature 12 aspiring chefs battling for the chance to be crowned, well, Top Chef. It's produced by the same people behind "Project Runway" and "Project Greenlight" (Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz of "Magical Elves").

Kate, who married Joel last year, has a culinary background (she co-founded OliveAndPeach.com).


"The Return of Billy Joel"
(November 10th, 2005)

Dates are beginning to trickle in for Billy Joel's return to the road. It looks like the outing will start in January and run well into the spring months. A formal announcement of the arena tour is expected in the next day or so.

This will mark the "Piano Man"'s first solo headlining tour since his 1998-1999 run which grossed $47.1 million over 73 shows. His subsequent tours with Elton John were even more lucrative and made the two pop kings the highest-grossing touring duo ever.

The new tour comes on the heals of the November 22nd, 2005 release of a Joel box set, curated by the artist himself. The Four-CD/One-DVD package includes 23 unreleased tracks and loads of bonuses.


"Billy Joel Returns To The Road In 2006"
By: Jon Zahlaway
(November 10th, 2005)

Billy Joel, who last toured in 2003 with fellow "Piano Man" Elton John, will head out on his own for a North American run that launches early next year.

So far, only two dates for the outing have surfaced: January 10th, 2006 in Jacksonville, Florida, and March 7th, 2006 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tickets for both dates are scheduled to hit the box office November 19th, 2005. Details are included below.

The outing will support the forthcoming box set "My Lives," due in stores November 22nd, 2005. The four-disc collection clocks in at more than five hours, and includes demos, live cuts, alternate takes, covers and more, according to Columbia Records.

Also included in the set is "A Voyage On The River of Dreams - Live from The 'River of Dreams' Tour," a live DVD shot in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 18th, 1994.

A deluxe booklet packaged with the set will feature in-depth liner notes written by Anthony DeCurtis, track-by-track annotations of the unreleased material and photos from Joel's archives.

Joel personally selected all of the tracks included in the set, according to his label.

"I wanted some more obscure things to be represented on this set," Joel said in a statement. "I said, 'Let's dig into the tapes, the B-Sides, the recording sessions and movie songs, things that had never been released officially."


"Tickets For Billy Joel's First US Solo Tour In More Than Six Years Go On Sale Saturday"
(November 14th, 2005)

Tickets for Billy Joel's first solo tour in more than six years are slated to go on sale this Saturday, November 19th, 2005 for at least two of his shows. Those concerts are Tuesday - March 7th, 2006 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Tuesday - January 10th, 2006 at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.


"Billy Joel Hits The Road"
'Piano Man' To Launch Solo Tour Behind 'My Lives'

By: Charley Rogulewski
(November 16th, 2005)

Billy Joel will embark on his first solo tour in more than six years beginning in January. As of today, only six dates spanning the first quarter of 2006 have been announced, half of which will go on sale Saturday, November 19th, 2005.

The "Piano Man" grossed more than 47 million dollars the last time he hit the road solo in 1998 to 1999. His 2003 "Face 2 Face" duet tour with Elton John, was one of the highest grossing tours for that year, earning 46 million from just twenty-four dates.

On November 22nd, 2005 Joel also releases the five-disc career retrospective, "My Lives." In addition to four CDs of rare demos and live performances, the box set features the performance DVD "Live From The River of Dreams," recorded in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1994.


"First Dates Announced For Billy Joel Solo Tour"
Ultimate Career-Spanning Collection, "My Lives," With Track Selection Curated By Billy Joel, In Stores Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005

(November 17th, 2005)

Pop music icon Billy Joel will launch his first solo major concert tour in nearly seven years beginning with concerts in Florida in January 2006. A handful of additional dates have also been announced, with tickets going on sale as early as this month (itinerary follows). A full Billy Joel National Tour itinerary is "To Be Announced."

The new Billy Joel tour dates mark the first major solo concert performances from the pop superstar since his fabled 1998-1999 run, which, over the course of 64 shows, played to 1.1 million fans while grossing $47 million, according to Billboard Boxscore.

Since 1999, Billy Joel's major concert appearances have been on double bills shared with his British piano-playing pop superstar counterpart, Elton John. Together, the Billy Joel and Elton John created the most lucrative co-headlining duo of all time. Last touring together in 2003, Billy and Elton grossed $46 million from just 24 dates.

Coinciding with Joel's upcoming solo concert tour, Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings is preparing the release of "My Lives," a lavish five disc (4 CDs + 1 DVD) box-set chronicling the extraordinary musical evolution of superstar Billy Joel, from his early '60s Long Island bar bands through his biggest hits to his most recent classical compositions. "My Lives" will be in stores on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005.

"My Lives" is the first Billy Joel collection to explore the entirety of the artist's career through rarely-heard and highly-collectible material. With a track selection overseen by Billy Joel, "My Lives" provides new and surprising insights into the artist's creative process. A veritable treasure trove for Billy Joel fans, "My Lives" brings together rare demos and revelatory alternate takes from all phases of the artist's career, high-octane live performances, and Billy's covers of songs by some of his favorite artists including Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Brian Wilson, Leonard Cohen, and others.

In addition to four CDs worth of rare Billy Joel music, "My Lives" includes "Live From The River of Dreams," a DVD of Billy performing some of his biggest hits live in Frankfurt, Germany on June 18th, 1994.

As part of his long-term commitment to music education, Billy Joel has recently launched an ongoing initiative to provide gifts of seed money, musical scholarships, and endowments to a variety of East Coast colleges, universities, and music schools.


"Billy Joel Shows Off His Range On 'Lives'"
By: Steve Morse
(November 18th, 2005)

Billy Joel is known as the ''Piano Man," but that's about the only simple label that anyone could use after hearing the broad range of music on his new box set, ''My Lives." The title is fitting, because Joel has lived many lives - from his heavy metal days in a Long Island band called Attila to a solo career that has encompassed street-corner pop, R&B/soul, blues, jazz, and classical music. To call him a musical chameleon is an understatement.

The compilation, out Tuesday, is an ambitious project that boasts four CDs and a DVD concert filmed in Frankfurt, Germany 12 years ago. The wealth of material is staggering - and the songs were selected by Joel, who must have had a fiendish glint in his eye when choosing and sequencing such enormously diverse tracks. Many but not all of his hits are featured (2001's ''The Essential Billy Joel" is still the best place to go for those), but what makes the box so special is the 23 previously unreleased tracks that include demos, B-sides, alternate takes, live performances, soundtrack tunes, and cover versions of Joel tackling Bob Dylan (three cuts, including ''The Times They Are A-Changin'" from a concert in Russia in 1987), the Beatles, Beach Boys, Duke Ellington, and Elvis Presley.

''I like different kinds of music," Joel tells writer Anthony DeCurtis in the liner notes. ''It always shocks me that there are people who only like rock and roll, or people who only like classical, or people who only like authentic American blues but who can't listen to Cream or John Hammond Jr. There are people who only like jazz from a particular era - only swing or only bebop. My view is, 'There's all kinds of food. Are you only going to eat one kind?'"

The Joel box is a full-course meal. The CDs are chronologically arranged, starting in the mid-'60s when Joel was a disciple of the British Invasion, as heard in two tracks by his group Lost Souls (one sounds like the Moody Blues, the other like Herman's Hermits); then American soul as in his band the Hassles (a cover of Sam & Dave's ''You Got Me Hummin'" is here); and later, a prog-rock/metalhead in Attila, a derivative mix of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer and Ten Years After.

Joel began to develop his own voice in the '70s with his first hit, ''Piano Man" (offered in a demo version here), and his experimental nature is seen in other demos with different grooves from their recorded treatments (an alternate take of ''Only The Good Die Young" has a reggae feel). And his lyrics move toward a vivid, cinematic imagery, as depicted in ''Elvis Presley Blvd.," about a visit to Memphis, Tennessee.

This set, however, will separate the fans from the pseudo-fans. It proves he's not just adept at love songs, but also in story songs such as ''Leningrad" (about a son who loses his father in World War II), ''Allentown" (about a factory town), and ''Goodnight Saigon," a mesmerizing look at two friends who meet at Marine boot camp and go through the horrors of Vietnam.

The live tracks are plucked from shows at Yankee Stadium, the LA Sports Arena, and Giants Stadium. And the DVD of the concert in Frankfurt, Germany is a gem, with Joel even doing a modified handstand on his piano before flipping onto the ground. Anything for the sake of entertainment. The "Piano Man" has done it all. (Joel will be at TD Banknorth Garden January 19th, 2006; tickets on sale tomorrow.)


"Side Dish"
By: George Rush & Joanna Molloy
(November 18th, 2005)

Billy Joel wants to set the record straight about his drinking. The rehabbed Piano Man tells Entertainment Weekly that, contrary to reports that he used to favor Jack Daniel's, "I only drank Scotch. Dewar's White Label." He adds, "In this business, [going to rehab] is like going to get your teeth cleaned."


"'Movin' Out' Moves Out, and Just When It Was Really Getting Going"
By: Charles Isherwood
(November 20th, 2005)

Three years can be a long time in the life of a Broadway musical. Dialogue that once sparkled dims with routine. Performances grow soggy. Cast changes alter the chemistry that once made a show more than the sum of its parts. Even musicals forced into retirement well before a third anniversary can look prematurely aged by the time the last curtain falls.

But as it approaches the end of its run on December 11th, 2005, after more than three years on Broadway, the Twyla Tharp/Billy Joel musical "Movin' Out" is an improved model of the sleek, speeding convertible that vroomed onto the stage of the Richard Rodgers Theatre in the fall of 2002, to become the most accomplished and most rewarding of the back-catalog musicals that have been washing up on New York stages like so much gaudy flotsam since the Abba gold mine "Mamma Mia!" It's the only jukebox to be installed on the street in the intervening years whose unplugging will give serious cause for lamentation.

Why does "Movin' Out" hum at a higher intensity even as it prepares to bid Broadway farewell? It certainly helps that the show's singularly and collectively electrifying original stars - John Selya, Elizabeth Parkinson, Keith Roberts and Ashley Tuttle - are back in the show for several performances a week for the remainder of the run, after taking periods of time off. (New mothers struggling to shed postpartum pounds may be chagrined or inspired to learn that Ms. Parkinson, of the liquid backbends, fiercely rippling stomach and sinuous legs, gave birth to her first child recently.)

Their performances are as technically astounding as ever - a feat in itself given the extraordinary demands of Ms. Tharp's choreography - but what's more impressive is the new depths of feeling these dancers have discovered in their characters, and in Ms. Tharp's steps, that give the show a more enduring emotional afterglow.

And yet, even more than the return of these bravura performers, the unusually sharp shape of "Movin' Out" this late in its lifetime may be credited to its conception as a musical that exclusively uses dance to narrate its story of heedless kids in the 1960s caught up in the devouring vortex of the Vietnam War. For Ms. Tharp's intricate, high-speed choreography cannot be performed at anything less than full tilt. Just as a jet plane won't fly at 25 miles per hour, Ms. Tharp's dances demand the kind of commitment from her performers that cannot be faked or approximated. It has to be present in every moment, at every performance. In bringing her hard-charging blend of ballet and vernacular dance to Broadway, Ms. Tharp created a vehicle that delivers, every single night, the exhilarating high that we look to musical theatre for, and too rarely find.

Certainly there are some thrilling performances to be seen on Broadway at the moment, but the excitement of watching artists pushing themselves to the limits of their abilities will be missed when "Movin' Out" closes. I don't think anything quite matches the dancing in this musical for sheer virtuosity or visceral appeal.

Why should this be so, with Broadway not exactly lacking in high-spirited musicals? It may have something to do with technology. Although we often ascribe the allure of live theatre to its immediacy, the experience of Broadway theatergoing has been mediated by mechanization for some time now, ever since musicals began using amplification to enhance the orchestra and the vocals. Even when the sound mix is relatively fine-tuned, it can still require a disorienting few minutes for the ears to sort out the sounds coming at us so that we can distinguish, without the help of anxiously wandering eyes, exactly who's singing or speaking. If the use of technology eases the stress on singers' vocal cords, it also means that performers no longer necessarily need to draw on their full energies, and the full extent of their vocal training, to perform. If it eases the strain of a performance, amplification can also diminish its impact.

"Movin' Out" is no exception to this rule in terms of its aural component; Mr. Joel's retro-rock songs and easy-listening ballads are performed by an indefatigable young singer-pianist, Michael Cavanaugh, and a rock band that can probably be heard in Mr. Joel's hometown on Long Island. But technology has not yet found a way to amplify the movement of the human body. The dancers in "Movin' Out" rely only on their own limbs and their own energies to communicate with the audience; the relationship between dancer and viewer is a direct one, uncompromised by the distancing tool of technology. The result is a pure and constant engagement between performers and audiences that other Broadway shows cannot easily match.

That absence of digital assistance may also explain why the performances of Mr. Selya and Mr. Roberts, of Ms. Parkinson and Ms. Tuttle, are more satisfying today than when the show opened. These dancers have been digging deeply into the meat of Ms. Tharp's movement night after night. In the process they've unearthed new nuances in the steps, and are now articulating them with a sharpness and clarity that surpasses their prior work.

The series of pas de deux between the warring lovers portrayed by Mr. Roberts and Ms. Parkinson now chart their evolving romance with a plangency that is often breathtaking as much for its dramatic power as its eye-popping physical exertions. Likewise, the troubled journey of Mr. Selya's Tony, a war veteran plagued by guilt over the loss of his buddy on the battlefield, strikes at the heart with an urgency that feels newly minted at each performance.

If three years can be a long time in the life of a musical, it can be a significant span in the life of a country, too. When "Movin' Out" opened in the fall of 2002, the United States was not a country at war in Iraq, and the musical's affecting but not especially revelatory story of young lives traumatized by combat seemed, at times, to be a standardized retelling of a saga worn thin through repetition, galvanized only by the vital raw kinetics of Ms. Tharp's artistry.

Today, more than two years into another unpopular American war with no clear ending in sight, the old story has an unsettling new resonance. It's impossible to watch Ms. Tuttle's character's lonely ballet of mourning for her lost husband without feeling a pang for the war widows in recent headlines, or witness Tony's descent into anguish and confusion without sensing parallels with the lives of young Americans returning home after psyche-rattling tours of duty in Iraq. The sad correspondences were not planned and are not forced, but there's no escaping that "Movin' Out" now speaks to the current cultural moment in a way that it didn't - that it couldn't - when it opened. Ms. Tharp's steps are the same, Mr. Joel's refrains are as familiar as they were three years ago, but they sing together today with an urgency that feels wondrously, painfully new.


"No Comebacks For Billy Joel"
(November 21st, 2005)

Billy Joel is refusing to back down from his decision to quit making pop music, despite pal Elton John's best efforts to prompt a comeback.

The "Piano Man" hasn't recorded new pop material since 1993's "River of Dreams" album, and now insists he plans to concentrate on writing and recording classical projects rather than touring with an album of pop tunes.

He says, "I've always admired guys who walked away at the top of their game."

"(Joe) DiMaggio (baseball ace) did it. I've had my time in the sun. You can't squeeze blood from a stone."

"I know Elton John has said in a couple of interviews, 'I hope Billy gets his confidence back and has a number one album.'"

"I think Elton might be mistaking confidence for desire. You have to have the desire to be competitive in the rock and roll world. I don't have it."


"Strong Sales Lead To More Billy Joel Concerts"
By: Jon Zahlaway
(November 21st, 2005)

Tickets for the initial dates of Billy Joel's first solo tour in almost seven years hit the box office over the weekend and quickly sold out in several markets.

Among the rapid sellouts was a January 23rd, 2006 show on the New York-based musician's home turf. Organizers immediately extended Joel's stand at Madison Square Garden to three nights, with additional performances added for January 26th, 2006 and February 2nd, 2006.

Also new to the itinerary is a March 13th, 2006 show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was added on the fly after Joel's March 7th, 2006 stop sold-out.

No additional shows were unveiled, but more dates are expected, as the handful of shows announced so far are scattered from mid-January through early April.

Joel's upcoming tour marks his first major solo outing since his 1998-1999 trek, during which he played for 1.1 million fans over the course of 64 shows, and grossed $47 million, according to a press release.

Since then, Joel's major concert appearances have generally been co-headlining dates with fellow singer/pianist Elton John. The two last toured together in 2003, and grossed $46 million from just 24 shows.

On November 22nd, 2005, Columbia Records issues "My Lives," a four-CD collection that chronicles Joel's career "from his early '60s Long Island bar bands through his biggest hits to his most recent classical compositions," the label said in a press release. The set clocks in at more than five hours, and includes demos, live cuts, alternate takes, covers and more.

Also included in "My Lives" is "A Voyage On The River of Dreams - Live from The 'River of Dreams' Tour," a live DVD shot in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 18th, 1994.

A deluxe booklet packaged with the set will feature in-depth liner notes written by Anthony DeCurtis, track-by-track annotations of the unreleased material and photos from Joel's archives.

Joel personally selected all of the tracks included in the set, according to his label.

"I wanted some more obscure things to be represented on this set," Joel said in a statement. "I said, 'Let's dig into the tapes, the B-sides, the recording sessions and movie songs, things that had never been released officially."


"Joel's Pre-Tour Boxed Set Neglects Classic Hits"
By: Kyle Munson
(November 22nd, 2005)

Having released no new pop album within the last dozen years, "Piano Man" Billy Joel opts to seed his fan base for a 2006 arena tour with a massive, $60 boxed set that takes pains to avoid the hits.

Talk about four CDs and a DVD that go to extremes: "My Lives" contains 66 tracks spanning 1965 to 2001, 23 of them previously unreleased. We get low-fi recordings from Joel's 1960s bands; solo demos in various stages of completion; leftovers from soundtracks and tribute albums; the occasional live recording; covers of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and the Beatles; and stray album cuts that include Joel's most recent album, the classical "Fantasies & Delusions." The live DVD is a routine 14-song performance in 1993 in Frankfurt, Germany.

Joel's "Greatest Hits: Volume I & Volume II" from 1985 - pre-"We Didn't Start The Fire," which is a good thing - remains the best document of the Bronx native's melodic gifts, short of a copy of "The Stranger" or "Innocent Man." Anthony DeCurtis' liner notes for "My Lives" try to make the case that the box set helps to flesh out Joel as an artist, with its revealing works in progress and nods to the musicians who inspired him.

Sure, it's mildly interesting that the 1981 demo "The Prime of Your Life" eventually had its lyrics overhauled to become 1983's "The Longest Time" - but I can't imagine fans paying $60 to hear Joel literally hum his way through verses yet to be written.

Aside from Joel's surprising jazz-organ workout in "Amplifier Fire" as one-half of the 1970 duo Attila, his early recordings with The Lost Souls and The Hassles merit only passing fancy - curiosities better left to their era, sort of like Joel's early-'70s moustache.

The alternate reggae version of "Only The Good Die Young" is a kick, but hardly replaces the more urgent, beloved radio staple.

Joel's covers of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen fall flat, but his live takes on the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" and "I'll Cry Instead" are a better fit. And since he can act like a downright ham in concert, the Isley Brothers' classic "Shout" recorded at Yankee Stadium rings true and helps enliven Disc 3.

The unearthed gems of "My Lives" are few and far between: the 1973 demo "The Siegfried Line"; a 1981 live recording of "Captain Jack"; an alternate version of "The River of Dreams"; and perhaps a few others.

If anything, Joel makes a case that some of his album cuts should have been included on his Greatest Hits albums. The "An Innocent Man" title track shines forth on Disc 2 as a centerpiece that puts to shame the demos and alternate tracks.

"My Lives": Leave it alone unless you're a hard-core fan.

Even then it might best be digested with a bottle of red or bottle of white.


"Billy Joel Heads Back To Valley for April Date"
By: Larry Rodgers
(November 23rd, 2005)

After canceling a Phoenix, Arizona concert in March 2005 to undergo a second stint of alcohol rehabilitation, Grammy-winning singer-pianist Billy Joel is heading back to the Valley.

Joel is scheduled to perform April 3rd, 2006 at America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. Tickets, priced at $42.00 to $77.50, go on sale at 10:00am, December 3rd, 2005 at the arena's box office or through Ticketmaster, or 480.784.4444.

The singer, 56, checked himself into a rehab center in March 2005 and has continued outpatient treatment since. He underwent similar treatment in 2002 and was in the news last year after crashing his car for the third time in two years.

Joel announced that he would retire from touring in 1999 but has performed occasional concerts since.

It was unclear at press time how extensive the new tour will be.

Joel currently has six dates listed on his web-site, Billy Joel.com, and announced the seventh date, in Phoenix, Arizona, through the local promoter, Evening Star Productions.


"Stargazing"
(November 24th, 2005)

Long Island native Billy Joel played veritable host to the Country Music Association Awards last week in New York.

"I think this has been a long time coming," the "Piano Man" said. "It's about time."

Joel, known for piano ballads, says he has been a country fan for decades and hopes New York City - currently devoid of a country radio station - gets one. He also thinks the generally accepted definitions of country music are too narrow.

"I first heard country music when I heard Ray Charles sing," he said. "Elvis Presley was considered country, and he started rock and roll."

Joel, whose boxed set "My Lives" was released Tuesday, also said that several of his songs are country songs, among them "Last of The Big Time Spenders."

"I wanted to be Charlie Rich," he said, referring to the country singer who won two CMA awards in 1973.


"Billy Joel: 'My Lives'"
By: Glenn Whipp
(November 24th, 2005)

This five-disc box (four CDs, one concert DVD) aims to be a companion to the "Piano Man"'s other box set, "The Complete Hits," but this time showcases Joel as something more than a Top 40 artist. The new set includes B-sides, alternate versions of familiar songs, a handful of never-before-heard cuts, live performances and a great many cover versions of other people's hits. Predictably, the early material from the 1970s - including a demo of the beautiful "I Loved These Days," titled "These Rhinestone Days," a fun, reggae-ish "Only The Good Die Young," a "Zanzibar" that lets Freddie Hubbard's trumpet soar even longer - provides many of the highlights. Discs three and four rely mostly on covers, which illustrate again that Joel is more convincing as a loungy balladeer than as an arena rocker. But then hard-core fans - for whom this set is intended - already knew that.


"Billy Joel: 'I Haven't Quit'"
(November 26th, 2005)

Billy Joel has hit back at reports he's retired from the music business, insisting he simply isn't bothered about competing for radio play or touring anymore.

The "Piano Man" has just scheduled another short tour for the beginning of next year (2006) and he's keen to clear up reports that suggest he's quitting the business.

He says, "What I said - and it got taken a bunch of different ways - was I didn't want to do these long, gruelling tours anymore. "I've been touring now for 35 years...and I just get tired of the long tours - nine months, a year-and-a-half on the road. I got too homesick. (It's) too strange a life."

"As far as rock and roll writing, I started writing a different kind of music - I'm writing classical music, I'm writing music to be used for a movie soundtrack, instrumental music."

"It doesn't mean I've stopped writing songs. If I get a good idea for a song I'm gonna write it."

"I didn't want to have to be competing... I've done that already. I don't feel I have to prove anything in that department. But I haven't stopped."


"Billy Joel: 'My Lives'"
(November 27th, 2005)

The "Piano Man" finally gets the boxed set treatment, and if there's a guy who deserves such a set, it's him. Included, along with all his obvious hits, are tracks from his early, early, early days with prog-rock outfit Attila and soul-pop group the Hassles. In addition, the box includes alternate takes, unreleased demos, live versions and duets - such as "You May Be Right" with Elton John.


"Billy Joel Rubbishes 'Quitting' Reports"
(November 27th, 2005)

Grammy Award-winning singer Billy Joel has rubbished reports that he has quit the music industry, and insists that after 35 years of constant performing, the only thing he's giving up is the gruelling tour circuit.

The singer, who is the third highest selling solo artist of all-time after Garth Brooks and Elvis Presley, said that his comments about quitting were distorted out of context and added that he was only giving up the long tours which, he now found gruelling and tiring.

"What I said - and it got taken a bunch of different ways - was I didn't want to do these long, gruelling tours anymore. I've been touring now for 35 years... and I just get tired of the long tours - nine months, a year-and-a-half on the road. I got too homesick. (It's) too strange a life," RateTheMusic.com quoted the singer, as saying.

Joel, who has been nicknamed "Piano Man," further added that he was concentrating on a genre of music that was different from rock and roll. The singer revealed that he was composing instrumental music to be used in a movie soundtrack.

"As far as rock and roll writing, I started writing a different kind of music - I'm writing classical music, I'm writing music to be used for a movie soundtrack, instrumental music. It doesn't mean I've stopped writing songs. If I get a good idea for a song I'm gonna write it," he said.

According to RateTheMusic.com, Joel feels that he no longer needs to keep competing as he has nothing left to prove. However, he says that this should not be taken to mean that he is quitting.

"I didn't want to have to be competing... I've done that already. I don't feel I have to prove anything in that department. But I haven't stopped," he added.


"Billy Joel Planning Syracuse Show"
(November 28th, 2005)

The "Piano Man" is coming back to Central New York to rock the Carrier Dome.

The site of the show will be at Syracuse University where Joel has performed several times. The last time he jammed for Syracuse, was a in special duet with Elton John in 2001.

Syracuse University says it will announce the concert date today. We'll bring you that information and let you know when tickets go on sale.


"Billy Joel: Oh, The Squandered Genius!"
By: Jody Rosen
(November 29th, 2005)

There was a time in my demented youth when I believed that Billy Joel was the greatest musician in the world. I spent seventh-grade classes scrawling the lyrics to "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" on the back of a three-ring binder. I shelled out $30 for a bootleg copy of Joel's debut LP "Cold Spring Harbor" at a used record store. I recall an argument with a junior high school classmate in which I maintained that Joel was a better songwriter than Bob Dylan. In a moment of acute identity crisis, I attempted to fuse my newfound love of hip-hop culture with Joel fandom by adopting the graffiti tag "Stiletto 121." The "121" was for the Upper West Side street where I spent my early childhood, "Stiletto," of course, was for Joel's boogie-woogieing 1978 song about a femme fatale.

All this came to a head in my freshman year of high school when I discovered Elvis Costello, who, a friend informed me, "writes songs about why people like Billy Joel are just so bad." I didn't want to believe it; surely, I told myself, it was possible to be a fan of Costello and Joel, both of whom, after all, had a way with a tune. Later that year, I went to my first Costello concert. Midway through the show, Costello sat down at an electric piano and began playing a series of cheesy cocktail-jazz chords. "I'd like to sing a Billy Joel song for you now," he said dryly, as laughter rippled through the audience. "It's called 'Just The Way You Are.'" When I returned home that night, all the Joel albums got stuck away in the back of a closet.

It's now more than 20 years later and the new Billy Joel box set, "My Lives," sits on my desk - a Four-CD + Bonus DVD behemoth whose 80 tracks offer ample reminders of why I loved Joel in the first place, and why, indeed, he's just so bad. Give Joel credit for quirkiness. Rather than release a greatest-hits rehash, he's put out a collection packed with B-Sides, oddball cover songs, obscure album tracks, and rarities from his pre-solo-career bands, including the preposterous Attila, a "heavy metal power-duo" that the "Piano Man" led briefly in the late '60s. Some of the alternative takes of familiar songs are even weirder. There may never be a more spectacularly wrongheaded genre experiment than the reggae version of "Only The Good Die Young," Joel's 1977 anthem about deflowering a Catholic schoolgirl - perhaps the whitest reggae track ever recorded.

Joel is one of pop's special cases: The essence of his badness lies in his squandered excellence. He is a fluent pianist, a singer of deceptive versatility and range (listen to his vocal overdubs on the doo-wop homage "The Longest Time"), and one of the more gifted tunesmiths of his generation, right up there with Costello. The least of his album tracks are catchy little melody bombs; his big singles - "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," "My Life," "Uptown Girl" - have the same savant's knack for hooks and harmonies that you hear in Paul McCartney's best.

For some musicians, virtuosity - and upward of 78 million albums sold—might be accomplishment enough. But Joel's tragic flaw is a classic one: hubris. The guy desperately wants to be an artiste. Listening to "My Lives," it's clear that these ambitions began early, back in the Attila days, when he was given to creating minisuites with titles like "Amplifier Fire (I. Godzilla; II. March of The Huns)." As a lyricist, Joel has never stopped straining for significance. He's tried to be a Dylan-style poet-troubadour ("Piano Man"), a jaundiced social satirist a la Randy Newman ("Los Angelenos"), and a Springsteenesque working-class bard ("Allentown"). Lately, he's reinvented himself as Claude Debussy: "My Lives" features several forays into classical composition, including a tremulous piece of glop called "Elegy: The Great Peconic," performed by members of the London Symphony Orchestra.

The truth is that Joel was born at the wrong time. Were he a decade older, he might have wound up in the Brill Building crafting perfect little pop songs and gone down in history with Burt Bacharach, Carole King, and company. But Joel came of age in the post-Beatles era, when songwriters grew self-conscious about rock's aesthetic and social significance, and felt compelled to make statements. Alas, Joel is a leaden lyricist with nothing to say; the result is songs like the 1989 hit "We Didn't Start The Fire," a laundry list of historical events - "Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai" - that Joel tried to pass off as a panorama of postwar American life, or a portrait of baby boomer ennui, or something. Joel's self-seriousness has been painfully evident on his recent co-headlining tours with Elton John, who never lets artistic pretension stop him from donning a feather boa and throwing a party. Which Lite-FM legend would you rather have over to dinner?

Elton John, in addition to being infinitely gayer and more fabulous than Joel, seems at peace with his status as a god of the adult contemporary charts, which Joel decidedly is not. Forget punk rockers and gangsta rappers: Billy Joel is pop music's angriest man. He was a welterweight boxer in his early 20s and that pugnaciousness has never left him - for two decades he has ended his concerts by telling audiences "Don't take any shit from anybody." His songs have poured wrath on women ("Big Shot"), mom and dad ("My Life"), and virtually everyone else, including, curiously, angry young men ("Prelude/Angry Young Man"). Even his gentlest songs leak bile. "Honesty" seems tender enough until you listen closely and realize it's about how everyone in the world is a liar and a hypocrite.

Joel, of course, is Long Island's favorite musical son, and it's tempting to write off his fuck-everyone attitude as a regional tic: The Song of the Bridge-and-Tunnel Tough Guy. But the chief source of Joel's resentment is his place in the musical pantheon. He's never stopped moaning about rock critics dismissing him as a lightweight. In the late '70s he famously ripped up Village Voice critic Robert Christgau's reviews on stage. He recorded "Glass Houses" (1980) in a fruitless attempt to answer his detractors and prove that he was a real rocker, undeserving of relegation to soft-rock radio, a format he's referred to as "soft-cock." The irony is that Joel was running away from his strength: He makes good cheese. A comparison with McCartney is revealing. Sir Paul is at his finest when he gets arty and ambitious. The Beatles' songwriting experiments and sonic questing brought out the best in him; when he writes sweet and sentimental, the results can be gruesome. (All together now: We're simp-ly hav-ing a won-der-ful Christmas time!) But Joel is actually quite good at writing saccharine love songs, big lush ballads, and lounge music.

The ur-Joel ballad, of course, is "Just The Way You Are," which is an expertly constructed song, the kind of thing that urbane Tin Pan Alley types were writing back in the 1950s. Joel has said that when he wrote the song, he envisioned Ray Charles singing it in Yankee Stadium, and, sure enough, "Just The Way You Are" has become a standard, recorded by everyone from Wayne Newton to Isaac Hayes to opera diva Jessye Norman. Barry White gave it the disco boudoir treatment; Sinatra swung it. Even Mrs. Elvis Costello herself, Diana Krall, gave a tender reading on her 2002 "Live In Paris" album, proof positive that art - even schmaltz-drenched art - is longer than snark. And the song really is artful: If you can get past the production dreck of Joel's original, you just might find yourself surrendering to its dreamy tiptoeing between minor sixth and seventh chords and to the spare elegance of its lyric. Joel croons those words - a plea not to put on airs - to a lover. But the old-fashioned balladeer who fancied himself a poet-genius-rebel-rocker would have done well to heed them himself: "Don't go trying some new fashion/Don't change the color of your hair."


"Billboard Review: 'My Lives'"
(November 30th, 2005)

Billy Joel's vast catalog of hits has been well-represented on numerous compilations, but his demos, B-Sides, covers and pre-fame explorations have gone largely untapped. This Four-CD set focuses on these rarities, tracing a career that began with forays into psychedelia and heavy metal and is now in a classical phase. In between is a generation's worth of pop and rock anthems, many of which are revealed in their formative stages - a sketch of "Piano Man," a reggae treatment of "Only The Good Die Young," an early demo of "The Longest Time." While these gems appeal to the hardcore fan, casual listeners will find familiar ground on tracks like "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "An Innocent Man" and "Baby Grand," which appear in their commercially released versions. "My Lives" also includes a DVD of a riveting show from the 1993 "River of Dreams" Tour. A definitive document of a talented, multifaceted artist.