Billy joel biography reviews

Yet Billy Joel, even as a flawed person as we all are is a compelling figure to read about, and someone whose life bears some striking and unsettling parallels to my own, which made reading this book a bit jarring at times. To give but a few examples, Billy Joel is portrayed as being a striking mixture of qualities, a sensitive child of divorced and mismatched parents a remote father and a manipulative and emotionally needy mother who grew up poor and with a chip on his shoulder and a decidedly anti-authoritarian bent, cynical and mistrusting of others yet with a constant longing for romantic love that he continually sabotaged through his lack of trust and problems building intimacy, a person who seemed to have constant drama with others and somewhat heated in argument and debate yet was widely recognized as being forgiving towards others who had wronged him, all the while medicating his pain and sensitivity with constant effort and alcohol.

Billy joel biography reviews: › book › show › billy-joel.

The man that appears in these pages mixes deep vulnerability with a certain false bravado that attempts to provide a tough guy appearance for all of his obvious romanticism. Not all were fortunate enough to find a safe refuge. Then the biography covers his childhood in poverty, his struggle at the beginning of the career, his eventual success, his three broken marriages, his efforts at being a good father for a daughter he loves but found difficult to connect to, his intimate and confessional style of lyrics, often written about specific people and situations, and his struggles to make a living as a musician while finding plenty of others who were willing to break the law and behave in corrupt ways to take a cut of the money gained from his songs and performing.

Joel comments in here frequently on his view of a three minute pop song as a sort of miniature work showing excellence in design and elegance, and also his view of crafting albums by designs with a clear concept. Whether this is because of his own hostility to authority, father figures, or his own wrestling with the grim fate of the Holocaust that engulfed many of his relatives, or more likely a combination of the above is hard to say.

Billy joel biography reviews: The pace and the

Billy Joel. Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox Sign Up. Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about? Get in the know on Visit Billboard Pro for music business news. Powered by WordPress. Jump to ratings and reviews. Want to read. Buy on Amazon. Rate this book. Billy Joel: The Biography. Mark Bego. This biography is the first in-depth portrait of a man who is the son of German Jews who fled the Nazi regime, including his childhood in the Bronx, his professional struggles, and his six Grammys.

Billy joel biography reviews: —as well as those of

Billy Joel is also widely known for his professional struggles — his substance abuse problems, his marriage to Christie Brinkley, and a string of car accidents. This is a portrait of a larger-than-life figure, featuring interviews with his bandmates and representatives from Columbia Records, an extensive examination of his diverse music tastes, and never-before-seen photographs.

Genres Biography Music Nonfiction. Loading interface About the author. And he has battled some health issues.

Billy joel biography reviews: I think his music and lyrics

Still, he has made it through the tough times and keeps performing, with his latest gig being a monthly concert at Madison Square Garden. Many of the lyrics mirrored important events taking place in his life. Since they tend to be autobiographical, he is reluctant to pour out his soul with new lyrics. Instead, he takes the old hits and gives them new life and dimensions when he performs them live.