Limited performances keeping singer fulfilled
ATLANTA — Billy Joel wanted to be clear: No, he wasn’t on tour.
Yes, the veteran rock superstar performed last month before thousands in SunTrust Park, the Atlanta Braves’ gleaming new baseball stadium.
And on Saturday, he will take his show to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Joel insists that such performing differs from touring.
“Touring is when you go out and you stay out,” said the 67-yearold singer. “You miss your family; it goes on and on and on and on. Now I play, and then I go home. It’s a pussycat schedule.”
So what exactly is Joel doing, and why?
In 2014, he launched a monthly residency at New York’s vaunted Madison Square Garden that made him the fourth-highest-paid musician of that year and the next, according to Billboard — which means he is hardly doing stadium dates (spaced a few weeks apart) for the money.
And Joel has no new album to promote, and hasn’t since 1993, when he put out his last record of pop songs, “River of Dreams.” He gives the impression that he’s playing these shows because he hasn’t stopped being knocked out by the fact that he can fill a ballpark.
Because he doesn’t have anything new to perform, his set list has to strike just the right balance of novelty and familiarity, he says.
How often do you think about the “Piano Man” phase of your life? (He wrote the song about his experience working in a bar during an early-1970s stint in Los Angeles.)
All the time. As a matter of fact, I was just thinking about it the other night.
What do you think about?
I wonder what happened to the people I knew — the people in the bar in “Piano Man.” It was the Executive Room in the Wilshire district. I got tips and made union scale, and I was able to afford an apartment in Studio City. The weather was great; the people were nice. I said, “What’s wrong with this?” So I stayed for three years.
Your song “Los Angelenos” — that’s a good one.
I thought about Rod Stewart when I wrote that. That particular time in my life, it was the early ’70s; it was what they now call the singer-songwriter era. And I thought of myself more as a songwriter than a singer. I still don’t like my voice; I’m always trying to sound like somebody else.
What else did you write with a specific singer in mind?
Just about every song. I wrote “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” I thought about the Ronettes — “Be My Baby.” And Ronnie Spector covered it.
When did you start thinking, “You know what? These songs are for me.”
Let’s see, there was “Cold Spring Harbor,” which was not good. Then there was “Piano Man,” which was OK. “Streetlife Serenade” was a bomb. I think by the time I got to “Turnstiles,” when I had my own set band and I was trying to find a producer ... I produced the album; I didn’t do a very good job. But I thought the songs had taken kind of a lift. And I realized: Maybe I could do this; maybe I am a recording artist. So on the next album I’ll get a real producer. Which I did. I got Phil Ramone.
Do you use a prompter onstage?
I have one, yeah — I’m hooked on it.