‘He told us to just tell the truth’ – behind a revealing Billy Joel documentary

In HBO’s five-hour portrait, the chart-dominating singer-songwriter gives unusual insight into his career with support from his A-list friends and collaboratorsIn 2011, singer-songwriter and pop legend Billy Joel returned a multimillion-dollar advance paid on a memoir to his would-be publisher, HarperCollins. He had apparently co-written an autobiographical book as planned, but ultimately decided that he didn’t want to publish it. “It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I’m not all that interested in talking about the past,” he said at the time, “and that the best expression of my life … has been and remains my music.”Billy Joel: And So It Goes, a two-part feature documentary premiering this week on HBO, feels like an attempt to stay true to that same basic ethos while not shying away from Joel’s public and private life over the years. The five-hour project tells Joel’s story, but does so by prioritizing his music, in content and in form. “He has 121 songs in his catalog and we used over 110,” said Jessica Levin, who directed the film with Susan Lacy, describing just how many Joel tunes wound up somewhere in the movie. It’s tempting to study the credits and figure out the unlucky 10 that didn’t make the cut, but in effect it’s all here. There are also a few non-Joel compositions in the film, but the vast majority of the music is his, including some adaptations of his melodies into subtle underscore. “It was a goal of ours to use it as score, not just throw it in,” said Levin. “It’s a testament to the depth and breadth of his catalog that we were able to do that.” Continue reading...

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