September 29, 1977: Billy Joel releases his album The Stranger, one of the greatest albums in rock and roll history. It was recorded for Columbia Records at A&R Recording, the A&R standing for partners Jack Arnold and Phil Ramone. They had bought Columbia's former Studio A at 799 7th Avenue at 52nd Street. (Joel's next album was titled 52nd Street.) Ramone produced every Joel album for Columbia through The Bridge in 1986.
With Cold Spring Harbor in 1971, Piano Man in 1973, Streetlife Serenade in 1974, and Turnstiles in 1976, Joel had built a following that wasn't very wide, but was rather deep.
He closed Turnstiles with a song titled "I've Loved These Days." But what he was writing in those days wasn't what was paying the bills, and hearing him close that chapter of his life was almost prophetic.
Joel knew he needed to leave that sound behind, saying, "I was recognizing that I was at the end of a certain point in my life. I didn't know it was going to be such a quantum leap with The Stranger album."
As a hardcore Beatles fan, he knew it was time for him to record "his Sgt. Pepper." He did so in 3 weeks of July and August 1977, as New York City went through a nasty heat wave that included a blackout and subsequent looting, and a crime wave that included the apprehension of David Berkowitz as the killer calling himself "The Son of Sam."
Billy recorded it with his touring band, which had settled as Hiram Bullock, Steve Khan and Hugh McCracken on guitars; Doug Stegmeyer on bass guitar, Liberty DeVitto on drums, Ralph MacDonald on percussion, Richie Cannata on saxophone, and Dominic Cortese the organ on "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant." Together, they produced a 42-minute, 34-second masterpiece.
Side One begins with "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" -- or, if ya gotta N'Yawk accent, "Antny's Song." It's a critique of consumer culture.
Then comes the title track, which opens with Billy whistling, and then the band kicks in. To me, this opening sounds like a New York taxicab, with a lit-up cigarette ad on the roof as many cabs had in those days, driving over a steaming manhole cover, with the lights of Times Square behind it. The song is about how we are never our true selves in front of others, especially in love, but the last verse suggests that it might be worth it to find out what the other's true self is.
"Just the Way You Are" was Billy's breakthrough single, reaching Number 3, a nice little love song that would have been a hit in any era. It's been covered by R&B singer Regina Belle and jazz singer Diana Krall.
Side One closes with "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant." Lots of people think it's his best song, and he agrees. It seems to be 3 songs in 1, with the opening and closing being 2 people meeting after not having seen each other in a while. The second part, lyrically, might be connected to the first, but the music behind it is a complete switch, and is a segue into the bulk of the song, known to fans as "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie" -- or "Brender an' Eddie," if you want to use the N'Yawk accent.
Some people believe the restaurant in question was on Joel's native Long Island. It wasn't: It was Fontana di Trevi (named for a landmark in Rome), at 151 West 57th Street, across from Carnegie Hall. It was where he met Ramone to discuss his vision for the album. It's not there anymore: The site is now occupied by the 1,004-foot residential skyscraper named One57, with the restaurant's space taken up by an art gallery. (It could be a lot worse. It could be a McDonald's. Or, worse, a bank. Much of the ground floor of the building where the studio was is now occupied by a Starbucks.)
Brenda and Eddie seemed like a great couple in high school, but they "had had it already by the Summer of '75." And yet, after the divorce, "they parted the closest of friends." So, before the marriage, great; after it, okay; during, not so much. With Billy, this was art imitating life, and eventually, life would imitate art.
(UPDATE: In 2025, someone made a "retro video," an animated version of the story, full of imagery of the City, and Long Island, in the 1970s. This video, which Billy approved, putting it on his YouTube channel, makes it clear that the 2 people meeting at the beginning are, in fact, an older Brenda and Eddie, each having found happiness, just not with each other, and they're okay with that.)
Side Two begins with "Vienna," which Billy called a metaphor for old age. Then he goes in the other direction with "Only the Good Die Young," about a teenage guy of unidentified religion trying to tempt a teenage Catholic girl into sex. This song was roundly condemned by priests and other conservatives, but Billy has said, "It's not anti-religion. It's pro-lust." It includes some of the best piano-playing and saxophone-playing in the post-doo-wop, after-The-Beatles-arrived 1964-present era.
"She's Always a Woman" sounds like a warning about an ex-girlfriend, with the kind of lines Bob Dylan would have enjoyed. "Get It Right the First Time" is about the uncertainty of new love, and "Everybody Has a Dream" is about the need for love amongst the uncertainty of life.
This album wouldn't seem to have anything to do with sports, but the cover does show a pair of boxing gloves hanging from a nail on the wall. Billy was an amateur boxer, but discovered that music did less damage to his face.
UPDATE: It took me until
2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were
Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, and, at the same time, not enough of it.
*
September 29, 1977 was a Friday. That night, at Madison Square Garden, a building Billy now owns as much as Willis Reed or Mark Messier ever would, Muhammad Ali barely hung onto the Heavyweight Championship of the World, needing to win the 15th and final round to win by a close decision over Earnie Shavers.
And there were 8 games were played in Major League Baseball:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 4-1 at Yankee Stadium. Free-agent miscalculation Wayne Garland struggled to outpitch Ed Figueroa, and raised his record for a bad Indians team to 13-19. Rick Manning hit a home run. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.
* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Terry Forster, better known as a reliever, went 8 1/3rd innings for the win, beating George "Doc" Medich. Willie Stargell did not play. Phil Garner went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3, but Jim Rice hit his 39th home run of the season, edging the Yankees' Graig Nettles with 37 as the American League home run leader. (Nettles had hit 32 the year before, but that was enough to lead the AL that time.) The Red Sox were barely hanging on in the AL Eastern Division race.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray, who would be named AL Rookie of the Year, went 2-for-4 with 4 RBIs. The O's were also barely hanging on, but would be eliminated when the Red Sox beat them the next day. The day after that, the Orioles beat the Red Sox to eliminate them, and give the Yankees the Division title.
* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 with a walk, and the Phils' runs came on solo homers by Greg Luzinski and Richie Hebner. They had already clinched the National League Eastern Division title.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 6-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett got the day off. The Royals had won the AL West, but the Yankees beat them for the Pennant.
* The Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. For a 1st-year expansion team, the Mariners did all right, going 64-98, and finishing tied with the Oakland Athletics for last place in the AL West, 64-98. Contrast that with the other AL expansion team, the Toronto Blue Jays, who went 54-107.
* And the Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The Dogers had already clinched the NL West, and would beat the Phillies for the Pennant, but the Yankees would beat them in the World Series.
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