By Larry Bernard
The "Piano Man" played to a packed house at Cornell, April 16, but there was only a little bit of piano playing and a great deal of talking.
In a show billed as "An evening of questions and answers . . . and a little music," Billy Joel was greeted with a standing ovation at an appearance sponsored by the Cornell Concert Commission and the Cornell University Program Board.
Part stand-up comedy, part music lesson, the singer-songwriter-keyboard master said he wanted to offer young people a chance to learn from his experience of almost 30 years in the entertainment business.
"I want to help people," he said early in his three-hour routine, which had him moving from a center microphone to an upright piano and a synthesizer throughout the evening. "I've got all this experience, it's all up here in my head, so ask me about the job I do, for it is a job."
The performance featured questions from the sold-out Bailey Hall audience, as Joel peppered his presentation with details about his career, his fame and his experiences with bad managers and lost wives.
He told budding entertainers not to expect fame and fortune. After first advising a young woman that the best way to achieve fame was to "sleep with a lot of powerful people," he said: "If you are really, really good, you can get recognized. But most people don't get famous and make a lot of money. Get into it because you love it, not for the money. Do what you love, get really into it, and you can make a living."
He described how he started, playing at churches, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Sweet 16 parties, then moving to clubs in Greenwich Village, on to small theaters until he got on as the opening act for such groups as Loggins and Messina, the Beach Boys, the Eagles and the Doobie Brothers.
In 1977, he wrote "Just the Way You Are," which went on to become one of his biggest hits. But, "I wasn't even going to put it on the album," he said. "Linda Ronstadt came in into the studio and said, 'I loooove that song. You have to put it on the album.' So if it weren't for Linda Ronstadt, I wouldn't have included it."
Joel made light of many facets of performing and his rock-star persona, playing the tune "Just the Way You Are" but telling the audience that in his head, instead of the lyrics, he is thinking about what to eat after the show.
Saying he always writes music first then the lyrics, Joel also paid tribute to Mozart and Beethoven, who he said had a tremendous influence on him. His routine, which he called "Beethoven's Night Out," showed the passion of music without lyrics by using Beethoven's third symphony, the Eroica, as a platform to show what was happening in Beethoven's love life.
Such was the case with "She's Got a Way," which Joel called "Ersatz Mozart." "My heart was trying to reach out to someone else. This is music that has passion, that has love in it," he said.
Asked which of his songs are his favorites, he likened song writing to childbirth. "I went through childbirth with each song. It's a very painful process to write. Some of these songs grow up to be doctors, accountants, Indian chiefs, and some grow up to be bums and dope dealers. But I love them all; they're all my children."
Playing a bit of his newest works -- classical pieces and a hymn -- he said that he would never stop writing music, but that he would not be performing as much as he used to.
He finished the show with a full rendition of "The Piano Man," which was met with another standing ovation.