Billy Joel

Happy 76th Birthday to Billy Joel!

The theme from Bosom Buddies! Wanna see a young Tom Hanks? Check out the original opening: www.youtube.com Wanna be our BFF? Donate now! www.kexp.org

Shout Out Will! --- "Yes, there was a Virginia. Billy Joel based his 1977 song 'Only The Good Die Young' on an actual high school crush named Virginia Callahan. After Joel wrote the song about this Catholic girl’s reluctance to enjoy some lustful moments instead of praying all the time, he asked his drummer for his input. 'I showed the song to Liberty (Devitto), who’s Catholic,' Joel recalls in the liner notes to a 2008 rerelease of The Stranger. 'He said, ‘Well, it’s true.’” americansongwriter.com

"I lost my dad in 2021 (not to mention my sister this past June.....but that still doesnt even seem real.) Was not an easy relationship with Dad. I'm learning to choose love over anger. It just feels better. They say we choose our parents for the lessons we need to learn. Thanks Dad! Lots of Billy Joel and Simon & Garfunkel growing up. Great memories of him from youth, not so much the latter years. And so it goes sometimes. If there's a spot for Only the Good Die Young, that'd be cool. Thanks YET AGAIN for the music and the mission. I'm a true believer!" Kelly in Sequim ======= Music heals...This playlist from over a year ago hit home with my son and I. My dad is still so present in our hearts. The human spirit is meant to be free. His physical being was holding him back. Could you play Billy Joel’s “Only The Good Die Young” Jessica in Colorado

Opening track of Billy Joel's 1977 album The Stranger.

The song was a stab by Joel at the new music genres that were around in the late 1970s (punk, funk, new wave) and uses a new wave sound, and was inspired by the realization that, after reading a review about a particular (unnamed) band, Billy had no idea what their music sounded like. The music video depicted Joel mixing elements of new wave, punk, and funk as he records a music video.: www.youtube.com

For "The Nylon Curtain" album, Joel wanted to experiment with different vocal effects, which accounts for an unusual horn-like exclamation on this track, which was made all the more prominent when he made a fortuitous mistake in the studio. "On 'Pressure,' the noise that sounds like the horn of a French taxicab - that strange, breathless staccato beep - is actually a tape of me singing every note in my repertoire," he explained. "We recorded me singing the notes, and then loaded the tape into an effects gadget called an Emulator. Then, we overdubbed me hollering, 'PRESH-AR!' with the same inflection that a Royal Air Force captain might use to bark out a command like 'TEN-HUT!'" But here comes the gaffe: "While the master tape was running, I impulsively hit all the buttons on the tape machine to punch out everything but the section with the yelling. Phil [Ramone, producer] was dumbstruck. 'God! What did you do? You erased part of the song!' Phil was right: for that one segment everything stops dead but my voice, but it was just what the track needed."

Playing tonight at T-Mobile!

Happy Birthday Billy Joel! Born on this day in 1949. "Yes, there was a Virginia. Billy Joel based his 1977 song 'Only The Good Die Young' on an actual high school crush named Virginia Callahan. After Joel wrote the song about this Catholic girl’s reluctance to enjoy some lustful moments instead of praying all the time, he asked his drummer for his input. 'I showed the song to Liberty (Devitto), who’s Catholic,' Joel recalls in the liner notes to a 2008 rerelease of The Stranger. 'He said, ‘Well, it’s true.’” americansongwriter.com