Uptown girl billy joel rolling stone
I believe the path you take in life is how you become the person you become in the end. So I kind of outlined what happened in my life and the different things that went on and why I got to where I was. People ask, “How did that happen?” I ask myself, “How did that happen?” This book is how I went from my immigrant grandparents coming over from Italy and then I got to play on one of the top five albums ever, which is Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits I and II. I wanted to write it because I’m the kid that didn’t take any lessons in school or any drum lessons at all. Joel even agreed to write the foreword for the book, something that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago, when they communicated solely through lawyers and angry comments back and forth in the press.ĭeVitto called up Rolling Stone from a car parked outside his home in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, on a sweltering New York afternoon (“the air condition is blasting”) to chat about the book, his long career, making peace with Joel, and learning to let go of the past.
![uptown girl billy joel rolling stone uptown girl billy joel rolling stone](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/x6Lji94HSYY/hqdefault.jpg)
And when he was nearly done writing it, he reached out to Joel via email, and the two old friends agreed to meet up for breakfast and finally make peace. He took a brief pause to look out upon the sold-out room before adding: “Life’s funny.” He and the band broke into Procol’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” They only did the first four lines, but it sounded great, and it would have been nice had they done the whole thing.The finished book (which arrives on July 17th) still traces DeVitto’s whole life, focusing heavily on his three-decade run with Billy Joel, but nearly any hint of anger about the circumstances of his departure is absent. Joel recalled a 1970s show at the Cincinnati Gardens (the internet suggests it might have been at another venue in town) opening for Procol Harum. He performed “Zanzibar,” changing the line about Charlie Hustle in the 1978 song from “Rose, he knows he’s such a credit to the game” to “Rose, he knows he’ll never make the Hall of Fame.” The show had two Cincinnati-specific moments. The winners, as determined by applause, were “Vienna” over “Just the Way You Are,” “The Downeaster ‘Alexa' ” over “The Ballad of Billy the Kid,” and “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” over “I Go to Extremes.” In three instances, he let the crowd pick the tune between two choices. And even the casual Billy Joel fans assembled probably knew most of the other half. “The Piano Man.” “My Life.” “You May Be Right.” “Always a Woman.” “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” “Uptown Girl.” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” “Big Shot.” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” “Only the Good Die Young.” “Movin’ Out.” “New York State of Mind.” That’s half of them.
![uptown girl billy joel rolling stone uptown girl billy joel rolling stone](https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/ppqBwpKrJKfkoMPQAAoPafKGBZo=/1200x0/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/RQCZHLCWYU4NACF7TLJW2GLYHM.jpg)
“So I got nothing new for you,” he said, seated at a black baby grand with a flyswatter in hand, keeping away the bugs drawn to his spotlight. In fact, he hasn’t released an album of new pop songs in nearly 30 years.
![uptown girl billy joel rolling stone uptown girl billy joel rolling stone](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VWfleWabMwg/hqdefault.jpg)
Joel is not the sort of classic rocker who tests material created in the current millennium on a live audience wanting to hear songs from the previous one. He understood why people purchased tickets. “It’s a year later,” said Joel, 72, decked out in a dark shirt, dark tie, dark pants and dark sport coat. Performing on a stage built in centerfield and facing home plate, Joel and his eight-person band’s two-hour, 24-song set was thoroughly enjoyable.
![uptown girl billy joel rolling stone uptown girl billy joel rolling stone](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/05/95/4b/05954b30e890577cb3855b5a0c5cb5a9--cover-picture-magazine-ideas.jpg)
It was a sellout of 36,395 at Great American Ball Park for Joel, in town on Friday making up a COVID-canceled date from last year. It’s September, and the Reds remain in the playoff hunt, but that doesn’t mean that they can draw a bigger crowd in Cincinnati than Billy Joel. View Gallery: Billy Joel performs at Great American Ball Park