Billy Joel meets “The Stranger”
2008-07-09 15:12:11 (GMT) (Caymanmama.com - Entertainment News)Los Angeles, California (CaymanMama.com) — Billy Joel’s career saw many setbacks. During his teens, he started out as a session pianist on records produced by Shadow Morton. However, Joel was not successful with his group. His first hit “Piano Man” followed by “The Entertainer” did not meet with success. Joel was known as a singer-songwriter who had great potential but had a tiff with his producer and his label. During the making of “Turnstiles” in 1976, he fired James William Guercio, his producer and a hit maker from Chicago while taking over the helm of affairs and bearing rough results.
Yet Phil Ramone, who was to produce “The Stranger,” a path-breaking album from Joel, had something to remember. In 1976, Billy Joel opened a musical show at the Columbia Records convention in Toronto, where he “ripped the crowd up,” Ramone said in a telephone interview.
This was followed by a series of concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall beginning in June 1977. Billy Joel is a well known live performer and gave enthralling performances that highly impressed Ramone. According to Ramone, “I watched what he had done and tracked his past records. Everything I’d seen hadn’t been captured on record.”
“The Stranger” was a different album. Joel came with bestsellers such as “Movin’ Out”, “Just the Way You Are”, “Only the Good Die Young” and “She’s Always a Woman.” It was “The Stranger” that established him as a best seller and became top selling album in the history of Columbia that took him to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This was the time when Billy Joel wanted to make consistent hits. Joel says “I don’t recall feeling this was going to be the breakthrough. We were just happy with the album we were making at the time.”
He though admits that, “The Stranger” could have been his last stand.
CaymanMama.com - Press Release Distribution Service
Comments
Articles
- Pakistani youth deprived of recreational facilities
- How to Identify a Brain Injury
- Bluetooth technology: Revolutionized
- Color card printing best for business promotion and personal use
- What is Depression?
- Brochure Templates made easy with PrintPelican.com
- Flyers as best marketing tool for business enterprise
- Who uses an RSS Feed?
- A guide to personal injury claims
- DVD versus HD/DVD
