CONCERT REVIEW
Billy Joel gets classic at Tanglewood
by Seth Rogovoy(LENOX, Mass., Oct. 5, 1997) -- For nearly two-and-a-half hours, pop star Billy Joel held forth at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood on Saturday night, revealing the secrets of his creative process, performing bits and pieces of his greatest hits, and explaining why for now he has forsaken his Tin Pan Alley-derived pop for the late-19th century Romantics. While for the audience the highlight of the program was probably hearing Joel's complete, jazzy rendition of his signature tune, "Piano Man," for Joel himself the show's centerpiece was the world premiere of two of his classically-styled, instrumental piano pieces, played by Yuliya Gorenman, the recipient of the Billy Joel Keyboard Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1994.
Not many composers have their works premiered at Tanglewood -- especially those who have absolutely no track record as classical composers. But Joel, the winner of six Grammy Awards and a member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, is one of the most commercially successful recording artists in history. Some of his songs, including "Just the Way You Are," have already become as firmly entrenched as standards of the pop repertoire as anything written by Cole Porter or George Gershwin.
Describing his foray into instrumental music as "a natural evolution" of what he has been doing all along, Joel said that today he feels closest to the works of 19th-century composers such as Robert Schumann and Frederic Chopin.
By way of introduction, Joel demonstrated how his first piece, "The Soliloquy," was based on a four-note motif suggesting the lyric, "We say goodbye," inspired by the frequent leavetakings he has with his daughter, whose mother is Joel's ex-wife, model Christie Brinkley.
Gorenman performed "The Soliloquy" with the same gusto and intensity she exhibited on an earlier piece by Franz Liszt. The dark piece exhibited flourishes that seemed to owe as much to Gershwin as to Chopin, which made sense, as earlier Joel had cited Gershwin's crossover works from pop into classical as a personal signpost.
Joel anticipated criticism of "The Soliloquy" and, by inference, his other piece, "Reverie," which Gorenman played toward the end of the evening. "The music is derivative," he said. "I know that I might be accused of every cliche and every excess of late- nineteenth-century Romantic music. I like that stuff."
These comments are reflective of much of the evening's tenor. In response to questions from audience members and in Joel's own digressions, he offered his brash, witty, revealing and highly- opinionated observations about music and the music business.
In response to a question about his role in the Disney production, "Oliver and Company," Joel spoke disparagingly about the entertainment monolith that he said insiders bitingly refer to as "Mousechwitz."
In an allusion to his decade-long battle with his former manager to recover earnings he never saw, Joel said that he has been his own manager for the last eight years. "If I screw up, at least I get to keep the commission," he said.
Joel admitted that there have been times during his career when some of his songs have fallen out of favor with him and have been temporarily retired. He demonstrated how even a hit such as "Just the Way You Are" fell victim to overfamiliarity for a period, when he couldn't get through the song without thinking about what was for dinner after the concert and wound up muffing the lyrics.
Offering glimpses into his creative process, Joel deconstructed many of his most famous tunes. He offered how "Piano Man" -- which he said he never grows tired of -- is in fact wretchedly repetitious and linear, and recited the song as if it was a limerick.
Joel demonstrated how in one of the rare cases when he wrote the lyrics before the music, the song utterly lacked for melody. In this case, "We Didn't Start the Fire" ironically became a huge hit single.
Many of Joel's songs were written, consciously or otherwise, as tributes to other artists. In an aside, he tossed off the clue that "My Life" was meant to have the feeling of a Paul McCartney solo effort. "Uptown Girl" was more obviously a nod to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and as such was purposely written to stretch Joel's vocal range to its limit. "Tell Her About It" was meant to evoke Diana Ross and the Supremes, and "An Innocent Man" was based on the same Latinesque beat that Leiber and Stoller gave to hits for the Drifters.
In spite of Joel's seemingly keen sense of rhythm, sound and melody, he insisted, "I wouldn't know a hit single if it bit me on the butt." He said while he had final veto power over which of his songs were released to radio as potential singles, he was happy to accede to the wishes of record executives at his label, Columbia. In any case, he said, "I don't think the singles represent the sum and substance of my work."
The program, billed as the kick-off event of the 70th anniversary season of the Berkshire Theatre Festival -- for which it was a benefit - - was recorded for subsequent broadcast by National Public Radio on its show, "NPR's Performance Today." Host Martin Goldsmith was on hand to introduce Joel to the crowd. Berkshire listeners can catch the broadcast locally on Capital District public radio station WMHT-FM on Nov. 28 at 9 a.m.
[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Oct. 6, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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