Customer Reviews

Billy Joel: The Biography

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

First of all, a little context: There have been only 2 thorough bios of Billy, both in just the last couple of years. This one, and Hank Bordowitz's "Life of an Angry Young Man." As often stated, the bios are rare because Billy and his friends wouldn't talk. Now, thanks to Billy's alienation of those friends, they're talking. Of the two, Bordowitz has the better book, but it's worth comparing the two to get the full picture.

The story of Billy's grandparents is described in detail for the first real time in print (although Bego relies heavily on a PBS documentary of the Joels), and this was good to see. Unfortunately, Bego does a much less thorough job covering Billy's early years. Not only is it covered with less detail, but he seems to rely heavily on previously published interviews with Billy. And as Bego himself references, Billy's memory is not only bad but criminally selective. For example, Bego seems to take Billy at his word surrounding the events of Billy's attempted suicide circa 1969. Hank Bordowitz has a completely different description of the incident, but Bego doesn't even mention that there's a conflict between Billy's memory and the facts. Regrettably, there is also still very little about Billy's odd jobs between Attila and his first solo album. Granted, only Billy (who won't or can't recollect these events) could fully piece together that era, and maybe it's a small point, but it's a shame that time period of Billy's life still remains vague.

The rest of the book is basically a pastiche job of Billy's interviews and other publicly known material. But Bego has two things going for him: First of all, it's a very good compendium of the info that's out there; so even if you knew all this stuff, you finally have it in one read. Secondly, the newer, most revealing things come from interviews from former band members who actually go on record and recall specifics, which gives Bego, I think, a leg up over the Bordowitz book.

Some notable downsides: Bego makes some serious, hilarious goofs. One is to quote a National Enquirer story without any comment on how dubious the source material is (maybe he thought it wasn't necessary, I don't know). He also attributes a quote of Billy's to "The Nylon Curtain," even though the quote was clearly referencing "An Innocent Man"--with hilarious results. But the biggest weakness of the book are the song analyses: Not only are they weak and redundant--most fans don't need to be told what "Piano Man" is about--but he occasionally gets them wrong. In fact, at one point, he says "Temptation" is about Christie--and then 2 pages later quotes Billy as explaining that it's about Alexa!

Now for the technical writing complaints (some will say "nitpicking," but I gotta get 'em off my chest). I don't know how Bego got this book past an editor (presumably he had one??). He often wanders into odd segues and non sequiturs. And he's CONSTANTLY misusing the word "ironically." For example, he talks about how Billy couldn't graduate high school because of a missing English credit. Bego follows this up with, "Ironically, the principal who gave Billy his diploma was his former gym teacher." WHA--? On what planet is that "ironic"?! And, someone tell Bego to stop using a comma after "and" (like I just did). Sorry, but this had to be said.

And yes, Billy comes out looking bad after this. But maybe he should. The band members' stories seem to dovetail, and Bego is gentle in his soapboxing. It's not a hatchet job; it's not investigative journalism; but it is an interesting and revealing read.

This book isn't necessarily annoying because of an anti-Billy slant, but rather because of the absolute inept job done by the author and (perhaps) an editor. I find myself being a literary critic and proofreader with every turn of a page.

What can be said for a book that, on page 28, informs us that JFK was assassinated on November 21, 1963? Beyond that, in numerous situations, Bego follows one quote with another that essentially says the same thing, such as consecutive paragraphs that refer to when the Beatles wrote "Yesterday", or when he repeats himself from album to album: he quotes Billy following "An Innocent Man" about how much Billy hates videos because he doesn't have Cary Grant looks. Then Bego says exactly the same thing (again referring to Cary Grant) following the release of "The Bridge". Twice in the same paragraph (!) Bego tells us that Billy used jazz legends on albums up to and including "The Bridge". The typos are incredibly annoying (too numerous to mention just a few, but one unforgiveable example is that Flo Ballard's name is misspelled "Ballad" twice) and, as another reviewer has mentioned, sometimes the sentences just aren't sentences at all.

When Bego's not quoting someone, his own comments are insipid - they're really weak, stating the obvious very awkwardly, or trying to be dramatic: "Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, this was to be the last studio album that Billy would record with Phil Ramone", or "What no one realized at the time was that "The Bridge" was to become one of the last three pop-rock albums Billy Joel was to record." (So what? Is this where the plot thickens?) And his musical knowledge: from somewhere Bego gets the expertise to tell us that "Laura" lies somewhere between "Dear Prudence" and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"; to my ears, however, it sounds like neither song at all, but rather is very much like "Strawberry Fields Forever", with the critical diminished chord.

The photos included in the book are nothing special, either, with really dumb captions. There are no family-based photos included here; you can find them in the liner notes of "Songs in the Attic", by the way.

The introduction isn't really an introduction, either. It pretty much tells the entire BJ story, along with the present whereabouts (or ultimate fates) of the band members. Isn't that what I'm reading the book for??? Bego has apparently written fifty books in a very short period of time. He should have read what he's written and published here.

Finally, and most importantly, I hope Liberty and Billy can become friends again. As Doug Stegmayer showed us, life is too short.

Don't waste your money. If you really want to read this go to the library or wait to see if it ever becomes a paperback. If you don't know the importance of a good editor then read this book. It is a terribly written book, almost to the point that it was hard to read. I will leave it to other smarter people to give specific details. But the entire time I was reading I felt the author was told. "Hey the book needs to be 330 to 350 pages". If you tell the reader that he grew up with out a TV you don't have to mention that 10 more times over the course of the chapter. Or give 8 to 10 examples of musical contemporaries when 2 or 3 will do.

As for the content, well now I will be eagerly waiting for an autobiography, then the truth will be between the two books. If Billy's ex band mates were to form a band it should be called the "Sour Notes". It is telling that no one associated with Mr. Joel currently was interviewed directly by the author, or if they were their interviews contradicted those of Mr. DeVitto and were omitted. I also thought is was curious that the author omitted whether or not it was a normal business practice not to have session musicians or touring musicians under contract? Billy Joel is a solo act with a backing band. He has never been like Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band or Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band. Perhaps that is a fact lost on the author and Mr. DeVitto. The disgruntled band members Mr. DeVitto et al. seem to take a lot of credit for influencing the music. But none have ever equaled the success they had when with Mr. Joel. Mr. DeVitto and his cohorts found a sympathetic ear in Mr. Bego, who managed to compile a book made from jaded memories of disgruntled former employees, gossip column snippets, and music reviews.

Of course you will say the book is wonderful, Derek, and the photos are great. They are your photos. The author does speak with band members, former band members. They are very angry and seem extremely pleased to have the opportunity to bash Billy Joel. If the author had spoke with current band members, or even Billy himself, it would add a great deal of credence to the book.

This is the worst book I have ever seen in print. It is obviously cut-and-pasted from a mishmash of online interviews and other unreliable sources. Bego repeats the exact same information and phrases in various chapters, supposedly talking about completely different things. He uses an incredible amount of cliches and his explanations of Billy's songs read as though a five year-old child had written them. There are numerous typos and errors that even a half-witted editor would notice. As if all that isn't bad enough, the second half of the book is basically the Liberty DeVitto whine-fest. Maybe the drummer didn't get paid as much as he thought he should have, but shouldn't he write his own book, rather than taking over someone else's? As a fan of both good writing and Billy Joel, I am very sorry to have wasted my money on this tripe. Bego is not a writer, and his editor should be fired.

As a Billy Joel fan, I appreciated the unknown tidbits, such as Billy's attempted suicide and that "Rosalinda's Eyes" was a tribute to his mother.

BUT (and this is a very strong negative) the writing style is awful. As other reviewers have said, Bego consistently repeats himself (using the same adjective 2x in one sentence, rehashing the same theme within the same paragraph or page). In addition, he dedicates a book to a photographer friend, he widely quotes this same friend as if he has firsthand knowledge of Billy, and not surprisingly most of the photos in the book are from the same source. Journalistic integrity? Gone.

Bego provides scant detail into Billy's upbringing (with no childhood/family photos) and regurgitates historical and musical details that do not deepen the reader's understanding of Billy Joel. Does having Watergate explained in detail, or knowing Whitney Houston's height, or having a sentence list more than a dozen of Elvis' song titles drive the narrative forward? I think not.

In my opinion, this under-edited book is solely to be skimmed to ferret out details unfamiliar to the reader. Too bad, I was expecting much more.

While it's nice to have a biography about Billy Joel on the shelves, author Mark Bego leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to not only how he compiled the book from various interviews, but his poor writing style as well. As a diehard Billy Joel fan, it was really weird to see Bego misplace quotes Billy made at the time for the Innocent Man album into the portion of the book regarding The Nylon Curtain album.

Bego also doesn't seem to know squat about the Beatles, calling Abbey Road their "most psychedelic album" at the time, and one that was "filled with backward messages." Any Beatles fan worth their salt can only shake their head at such incorrect "facts." But Bego does the same thing to Billy's own catalog, even going so far as to say the little ad libs at the end of "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" on the Turnstiles album was him talking to his bandmates. Apparently Billy saying "Hey! Where you going?" went completely over Bego's head within the context of the song.

There are also typos galore. It's amazing that this book even made it to print. While reading the interviews with bandmates Liberty, Richie, and Russell do make some interesting reading, Bego's prose surrounding those moments reads like a 6th grader's hastily written biography of the artist instead of someone who's apparently published many books on rock artists. But one look at Bego's picture on the back inner dust flap pretty much says it all: A goofball sitting eating a plate of spaghetti with his shirt unbuttoned to show off his ample chest hair and gold necklaces. Dude, it's not 1978 anymore.

All that said, Billy Joel fans may find a few things worth delving into here that they might not have known previously, but a serious biogprahy or autobiography even needs to be written about Billy after this long. Unfortunately, we'll only have books like Bego's half-hearted attempts to fill the book shelves. A pity.

A better title for this book would have been "Liberty Devitto trashes Billy Joel." The beginning of the book is very thorough and interesting, but when it comes to talking about the bands' beginnings and endings, the author speaks with band members only. When Billy is quoted, it's only from previously published articles. The majority of the band members spend their interview time doing nothing but bitching about Billy and criticizing non-stop. When you look at the list of acknowledgments, no one who is currently in the inner circle is interviewed, which should have clued me in that this was going to be the Billy Joel version of the Goldman book on John Lennon. There are quite a few misinterpretations of songs and their meanings. Quite a few insinuations of physical abuse that no one has confirmed. If you're a Billy fan, this book is just plain mean and I almost want to hear Billy respond to it, but I also know that he often does not respond to such criticism anymore. If you're not a real Billy fan, you won't be reading this anyway, but you may find it interesting. It just pissed me off that most of the book nothing but trying to ruin Billy's reputation.

Mark Bego can, on the strength of this book, be justifiably regarded as an opportunist with little grasp of english grammar.

This is a poor book in so many ways. Poorly written, poorly edited, a sour, second-hand reading of the supposed facts regarding Billy Joel's life.

As a jounalistic effort, you be forgiven for thinking it was an interim school project by a fifteen year old whose main reference source was Google.

Given Mr. Joel's respect for history, I believe it may be worth holding our collective breath for an autobiography.

Meanwhile, I guess we can look forward to Mr. Bego's inevitable "stories about" Eminem, Lady Ga Ga et al, ad nauseum.

Go for it Marky.

I bought this book for my husband who doesn't read much for Christmas. He had it almost read by new years day! Very informative!