Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 13, 1993 TAG: 9403220002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: IRA ROBBINS NEWSDAY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Billy Joel has taken twice as long to become sure of his own place in the creative world. In his third decade as a 5-zillion-served pop composer and performer, the 44-year-old finally understands where he stands. Now confident rather than cocky, he seems remarkably comfortable and relaxed in the knowledge.
``I always found people who elevated themselves because they thought they were artists to be somewhat ridiculous and pretentious,'' he said during a recent interview. One is easily put in mind of Sting's haughty condescension, Paul Simon's world-beating appropriations or Bruce Springsteen's gold-plated populism.
America's real middle-class icon is a forthright suburbanite who has never striven to be placed above his audience or disclaim his beloved musical influences, a real-world nebbish whose stubby fingers put the Midas touch to instantly memorable songs. Without a trace of hubris, this superstar - who can attempt a Flaubert quote in one breath and compare musical sidemen to erstwhile Yankee utility infielder Fred Stanley in the next - says, ``I've tried to stay away from the artsy-fartsy artiste aspect of it. Now I can see, at this age, I am an artist and very proud of it. I've come to understand that I don't need anybody else to tell me I'm good enough.
``You watch these award shows where all the artists are in one room hoping to win the `tchotchke,''' he says, momentarily affecting an announcer's voice: ```Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, The 25th Annual Tchotchke Awards.'
``And here you've got Eric Clapton, Sting, Nirvana, Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston, Billy Joel, blah, blah, blah. This is a pretty power-packed room, therefore you get some major advertising dollars spent on the time. The producers of the show make the money. The artist who wins the tchotchke gets a tchotchke, which is worth about $5.98. The plaque falls off, but there we all are, wanting that tchotchke. We think it is going to legitimize what we do. It never does.''
Switching to the comic delivery of George Carlin, Joel continues. ```How many tchotchkes did you win?' `He's got three tchotchkes.' `Well, he's a five-time tchotchke winner.' `He's one of the living tchotchke legends.'''
On ``River of Dreams'' (Columbia), his first album since 1989's triple-platinum ``Storm Front,'' Long Island's living tchotchke legend takes philosophical stock of middle age and what's truly important in life. ``The essence of the album is a loss of faith, a search for and understanding of how to deal with that, and a renewal of faith in substantial things: faith in love, faith in one's self, faith in the things that have always been there.'' (For those keeping score, the word also appears in six of the 10 songs.)
Although the album contains a compassionate, sweet lullaby to his 7-year-old daughter that, he says, answered her questions about what happens when you die, Joel rejects the suggestion that yesterday's angry young man has achieved serenity.
``I always assumed that when you got to this age, life would calm down, things would become boring and mundane. That I would start to vote ... Republican. That when you got into your 40s you were no longer in any way that crazy guy that you were when you were a teen-ager.
``I found that not to be the case. I am as crazy as I was when I was a teen-ager, and as wildly romantic, and as emotional. I just know more stuff. I have acquired some wisdom - not enough, I want more - and I don't get as angry about nickel-and-dime stuff. I get angry about bigger things now.''
One of the bigger things Joel is angry about now provides a central theme of the album. Having spent much of the prior week giving depositions in his 4-year-old lawsuit against ex-manager and ex-brother-in-law Frank Weber, Joel acknowledges that ``River of Dreams'' partly concerns ``the foolishness of the search for justice. There is no justice. There is no justice.''
The depth of Joel's disillusionment surfaces in a musical hate letter, ``The Great Wall of China,'' clearly aimed at his former associate, whom he accuses of mismanaging and misappropriating his money. ``Your role was protective, your soul was too defective,'' he sings.
The stately and handsome ``All About Soul'' - which began as ``The Motorcycle Song,'' a fast number about ``middle-aged dentists and insurance salesmen getting themselves in biker gear and buying Harleys'' - bears some of the same frustration at venality, but mends the psychic wounds with love: ``She comes to me at night and she tells me her desires/And she gives me all the love I need to keep my faith alive.'' Through all the adversity, the love of a good woman - namely Joel's wife, Christie Brinkley, who painted the album's primitivist cover - comes to the rescue.
The crucial line of the song (if not the entire album) provocatively announces, ``Under the love is the stronger emotion.'' What does Joel consider the underpinning of love? ``The things that sustain love when you question love, when love alone isn't enough,'' he replies. ``The basic inner something which I refer to as soul, the inner core: what you call on when the ... really comes down. Soul is what each person has within before there is love, or even after there is love.''
Joel ultimately decided there was a ``lot more that could be done'' with the songs he had recorded. Enter producer-guitarist Danny Kortchmar, a New York-born veteran known for his work with James Taylor, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks and many others. Joel played Kortchmar his tapes. ``He listened to it and had some very, very strong ideas.'' The two decided to re-record the songs.
One of Kortchmar's ideas was to get Leslie West, the Mountain guitarist whose first band, the Vagrants, had a big local influence on Billy Joel's late-60s outfit, the Hassles.
``River of Dreams'' was more or less created in the sequence it appears. ``Each song got written in reaction to the song which came before it, and recorded likewise. Once I've gotten to a certain point, [an album] becomes its own entity, and I work toward the resolution, which is why I don't write that many more songs than are on the album.''
With the album likely to follow its title track - already No. 28 in Billboard - up the charts, Joel is rehearsing for a tour to begin Sept. 10 in Portland, Maine.
by CNB