More Joel About Billy and Songs

Sometimes these things work out. 

Went back to Half-Price Books & . . . 

I'm listening to the second (of four) of the aforementioned Billy Joel cd box set now (and there's a concert on DVD as well). The first cd was quite a pleasing scent unto my nostrils, with some very early Joel stuff that I hadn't ever heard of before (and I used to have both of The Hassles's albums and the Attila album), the afore-mentioned demo of "Piano Man," and some other strange stuff . . . like a reggae arrangement of "Only the Good Die Young." (I shit thee not. Nor would I shit thee, for . . . never mind. We've been there before.)

So this thing retails for $48.59, though Amazon has some used copies from $12.49 to $49.99 ( + $3.99 shipping), but Half-Price sold it to me for $9.99 + tax. Sa-weet.

There was also a vera nice booklet included in the set which I've just finished reading. It made me love Billy Joel all over again. And made me remember how much he meant to me back in those lost and lonely and angry times from the mid-seventies until the mid-eighties or so. When you're young and scared and lonely and angry you really need to know that somebody else is angry, y'know? (I think that's what Harlan Ellison did for me on the literary front. It wasn't so much about his stories as it was about his persona.) And for sure, Billy Joel was that Angry Young Man.

Wish I still had my The Hassles albums . . . . 

Of course I can listen to both of them on The You Tub, but that's not really the same, is it?

Oh, by the way, one of the most interesting things I read in the booklet was that Billy Joel did some session work back in the day, and that while he doesn't know if his piano work made the final cut (since the studio never informed him one way or the other), he remembered doing sessions for both "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" and "Leader of the Pack." (Wikipedia says George "Shadow" Morton, the songwriter, asserted that the opening chords of "Remember" are Joel, but that the piano on "Leader of the Pack" was by Roger Rossi.)