Billy Joel

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Henceforth, these book reports will be a time-saving device. You need not read entire books anymore. Read these condensed versions instead. You'll have that much more time for your own blog.

Today I read "Billy Joel The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man" by Hank Bordowitz

This is a biography of a popular musician/singer/songwriter of the last three decades. He was born in 1949 and grew up in Hicksville, NY, on Long Island, with one older sister. He got his musical bent from his father, who was a pianist. However, his father abandoned the family.

Billy fell in love with rock and roll. He took up piano but was better at playing the organ. In his late teens and early twenties, he was in bands called "The Commandos", "The Hassles" and "Attila", but he wasn't making money. This put a damper on his desire to support a married woman with whom he was having an affair, so she could get a divorce, and he and she could marry. Eventually, they did.

Billy was encouraged to try his hand at songwriting. He also succeeded at that. Yet, Billy's music was a "sleeper" in terms of popularity. Record companies rejected him in the early 1970's because he was too similar to Elton John-- also a piano player/singer/songwriter who had just been discovered.

Eventually, Billy got discovered, and as you know, has had a fabulous solo career to date. He divorced his first wife, Elizabeth, who was also his first (career) manager. She grew tired of the music business, so they drifted apart. Billy allowed her brother, Frank, to take over as manager after the divorce. However, Billy had no interest in keeping track of his own personal finances. So, for more than a decade, Frank and others in Billy's entourage treated Billy's financial accounts as their personal piggy bank. Woe was Billy when he found this out in the mid- to late 1980's. There was an orgy of litigation. The cases were settled for a fraction of their full value. Fortunately, his talent was still intact, and he was able to go on tour to make more money to pay the lawyers. There were also other grave injustices done to Billy.

There was his motorcycle accident in 1979, during which he broke his wrist. Although the driver who hit him was 100% at fault, she sued HIM, essentially forcing him to give her hush money. Her lawyer would otherwise have dragged his name through the dirt, what with his shady reputation as a motorcycle-riding, drug-doing, drinking rock-and roller. In his life, there have also been two cases of plagiarism filed against him. Both cases were brought by struggling songwriters looking for money. The first time, however, Billy was not in a position to fight the guy, so he just settled out of court, and suppressed his anger. The second time, Billy had the money and legal muscle to get the case thrown out. And he did.

In 1984, he married his second wife, model Christie Brinkley. Then they had a daughter, Alexa. In 1994, Billy and Christie divorced, when Alexa was 8.

Three problem areas in Billy's life have been alcohol, long-term relationships, and accident-proneness. Perhaps the reasons are that his mother had a tendency to drink, he grew up in a single-parent female household, and he is distracted easily. He has had a few car accidents with no one else around. He went through a few girlfriends after his second divorce.

Billy was interviewed for this book. The quotes provided by him, seem to suggest a modest, honest man, for whom the enjoyment of playing music is more important than money. He said he wrote music for himself. On occasions when his record company strove to wring every penny it could from his music, such as when concert tickets were overpriced, or a charity event was over-commercialized, Billy became angry.

In 2002, he went into rehab because his daughter, whom he loves dearly, wanted him to. Finally, in 2004, Billy married a 22-year old news correspondent named Katie Lee. I like to think he's happy now.