A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Pros:  Simple but powerful lyrics, fine performance by the Piano Man Cons:  None...this is a gem of a cover! There is nothing that I wouldn't do To make you feel my love. One of the nicest surprises when I bought my Billy Joel: The Complete Hits Collection 1973-1997 Limited Edition was a trio of covers that closed the Volume III: 1985-1997 disc; I'm not much of a listener of rock or country, thus I'd never heard Hey, Girl, Light as a Breeze, or To Make You Feel My Love . I've also never paid much attention to Bob Dylan's music; I was too young in the 1960s to have heard him when he was popular and bewildering listeners with his folk-rock anthem The Times, They Are-a Changin' , and when I did hear it as a college student in the mid-1980s, I was not only bewildered by the lyrics, but I wasn't too thrilled by Dylan's nasal voice. With that in mind, when I looked at the booklet of lyrics and saw the songwriter credit under To Make You

I got to admit it...I almost didn't buy this album. When "Billy Joel Greatest Hits: Volume III" was released in 1997, I wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase it. I hadn't bought many of Joel's post-"An Innocent Man" albums (although a few good friends had given me "The Bridge," "Kohcept," and the "Greatest Hits: Vols. I & II" as presents); I'd heard the quality of the songs had veered from great to good to mediocre, and because I was building up my classical music CD collection, I wasn't about to spend my limited music-buying bucks on albums that would disappoint me. So when I read a review in my local newspaper that stated, in short, that Volume III wasn't exactly the most fitting "adieu" to pop/rock recording by "the Piano Man," I said to myself, "Nah, I better not waste my money on this CD; let's get Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields' A

Over 30 years have passed since Billy Joel debuted as a pop/rock singer with his "Piano Man" album  Listeners throughout the world know him as a versatile songwriter/singer with the ability to change styles almost effortlessly. And even in some of his "pop" songs, careful listeners can detect influences of such classical composers as Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin and Grieg.  Listen, for instance, to the doo-wop styled "This Night." The catchy chorus? The melody is from a Beethoven piano concerto. His "Lullabye (Good Night My Angel)" started out as a straightforward solo piano piece; owners of the Limited Edition box set can hear this version on the fourth CD of the collection. I have even heard that "Uptown Girl" was once a piano piece....I close my eyes and can hear the melody as a Mozart-like composition.  The 10 compositions for solo piano are played skillfully by Richard Joo, and they definitely show the influence of those compose

Part One: Lost in Let's Remember, or How I Became a Billy Joel Fan Without Really Trying.... Although my taste leans heavily toward the classical/symphonic end of the musical spectrum, there are a few other genres that I like to visit from time to time, and pop/rock is one of them. Granted, I  am  a bit narrow-minded when it comes to rock; I tend to meander about in the softer, more sentimental stylings of early rock 'n' roll from the Fifties and early Sixties, preferring to listen to the Platters, the Skyliners, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles rather than to KISS, Metallica, or Alice Cooper. Hell, I'll even try listening to Alan Jackson or Garth Brooks if given a good incentive...say, a romantic evening with someone special who likes those singers and will be patient and loving enough to play me her favorite songs by those country singers to share part of herself  with me. I've learned, from personal experience, that a positive introduction to unfamiliar musical st