Even the title track, a breakthrough hit based on his weeks as a saloon singer, focuses on the colorful patrons, not the singer. Clearly inspired by Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, not only musically but lyrically, as well as James Taylor, Joel expands the vision and sound of Cold Spring Harbor, abandoning introspective numbers (apart from “You’re My Home,” a love letter to his wife) for character sketches and epics.

Through a combination of touring and constant hustling, he landed a contract with Columbia and recorded his second album in 1973. He didn’t abandon his dreams – he continued to write songs, including “Piano Man,” a fictionalized account of his weeks as a lounge singer. It may be a bastardization of the original release, but it’s an acceptable one, since these changes only accentuate the intimacy and vulnerability of the recording.Įmbittered by legal disputes with his label and an endless tour to support a debut that was dead in the water, Billy Joel hunkered down in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, spending six months as a lounge singer at a club. The speed wasn’t the only thing changed – some songs were edited drastically (“You Can Make Me Free,” one of the standouts, was chopped by nearly five minutes) and instruments and backing vocals were stripped away from numerous tracks. It wasn’t until 1983 that Columbia released a corrected reissue.

Through a bizarre mastering error, the tapes were sped up – legend has it that upon hearing the completed album, he ripped it off the turntable, ran out of the house, and threw it down the street.

Ironically, it didn’t sound right upon its original release. In its own way, Cold Spring Harbor was a minor gem of the sensitive singer/songwriter era Joel may have been in his formative stages as a craftsman, but his talents are apparent, and he never made an album as intimate and vulnerable ever again. The record was uneven but very charming, boasting two of his finest songs – the lovely “She’s Got a Way” and the bitterly cynical “Everybody Loves You Now” – and a score of flawed but nicely crafted songs that illustrated Joel’s gift for melody, as well as his pretensions (the mock-gospel in “Tomorrow Is Today,” a classical stab entitled “Nocturne”). He had shown signs of McCartney-esque songcraft on Hour of the Wolf, the last Hassles album, but his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, is where these talents blossomed. A few short months after abandoning the heavy organ-and-drums duo Attila – partially because their sole record flopped, partially because he stole the drummer’s wife – Billy Joel reinvented himself as a sensitive singer/songwriter.

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