Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. I'm doing a series called What Makes
This Singer Great and next up to the plate is Billy Joel. It'd be awesome if
you would please like and subscribe to my channel, that'd be really cool and don't
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have a singing course it's called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else, you can
find it right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com for anyone interested in
learning how to sing, become a better singer or become a great singer alright
but what makes this singer great Billy Joel. So wow, very talented dude. I know
about his early struggles in fact where the song "Piano Man" came from was him
taking on a pseudo name, pseudonym pseudo name and playing in LA just to make
ends meet you know trying to make it as a piano you know bar, piano guy into the
big, big stage so that's certainly one thing he definitely came, has come a
long way. I think of him as an East Coast guy of course very East Coast guy and
kind of celebrates that and kind of plays into it a bit. I think of his
storytelling of course, what an incredible songwriter, incredible
lyricist, incredible storyteller and his ability to communicate that. It's one
thing to just be able to write a song, it's another thing to write that song
and really intrigue you and suck you into the story so that's absolutely
Billy Joel. I know I've said that about a few other artists but very, very unique.
I often in times say where did he get his influences because he's got so many
diverse influences in, and of course we think of him as a piano player so
singer-songwriter, piano player so he's not, but he's not just a
singer-songwriter because that implies that the mechanics of his singing isn't
all maybe that great but he actually is, is really great his note choices and
things are really interesting. So I wonder you know kind of where his
influences came from, great pitch. He's a very articulated vocal, vocalist
so more like on the theater side where he wants you to understand every single
word you know, "We Didn't Start The Fire" you know all these different songs you
know he wants, he really wants you understand what his lyrics are saying
which is interesting. I know he's inspired a lot
of people and his music is timeless and legendary of course and then you know
let's think about some of the songs "Longest Time", "Piano Man" which we just
talked about "We Didn't Start The Fire" which we just said "New York Stat Of
Mind", "You May Be Right", "Honesty", "Big Shot", "She Has A Way About Her",
"She's Always A Woman". I mean just incredible, incredible repertoire of
music and then we're gonna take on one or two the songs here. I haven't
seen these so we're just gonna fire this up here take a listen, make some
comments along the way. So this is "She's Got A Way", here we go.
It says live in
Philly.
1998
I'm drawn in immediately right.
Very down to earthy performer guy. I don't know if that's his personal life but I know
that, that he puts that out there.
Beautiful. Little inversions.
Now I find it interesting, a lot of these performers that had to start out with
such meager means and just you know from a meager starting point, they have this
ability to just make you feel like you're right in the room with them and
I've said this about other artists too but it's really true, they just are so
winsome and engaging and intimate and warm and when you just kind of hear him,
you just feel like you know it's, it's it's uncle, uncle Billy coming over to
play piano on Christmas or something right, in front of the fireplace. Don't you sort
of get that feeling. It's not this ah how you doing out there, alright Los Angeles
you know I don't get that at all. I get this, wow that's cool you know have a
glass of wine or a cocktail. I don't drink anymore but you know you have to
sort of you know just bring him in, just have a good time, everyone's sitting around
the campfire.
Great lyrics.
Cool changes.
See what I mean like where did he get, it's like, it's like someone
that writes for Broadway, it's like a composer writing for a Broadway play or
musical or like a movie soundtrack or something. So if you go and listen to his
inversions, his compositions, they're like, where did you get that influence. I
really don't know, it's kind of crazy but they're there and he's really good at it
and, and that's what makes him, another thing that makes him really unique. Now I
know on the dark side this isn't What Makes Him Great but I know this is true
about a lot of type-A personality people, is he's had some really severe alcohol
issues, anger issues. I know he lost Christie Brinkley and some other thing. I
mean I know he's had some, a lot of, lost a lot of relationships over that so
um I know that those kinds of, that kind of brilliance also has a dark side to it
too because they don't know how to manage all those voices, creative voices
in their head and so they take it out on other people, they can't handle it
themselves and so forth so I know he's he's struggling and I know he's overcome
this a bunch of times. I don't know where he is right now personally but there is
a, there is another side to this for this genius also has to be dealt with in how
we can reconcile that in the real world, in an everyday living so you're actually
watching the embodiment of that genius play out on one hand on the stage and
then we don't really see behind the scenes of that how that affects everyday
personal life also.
He could sit there by himself in front of a giant audience.
He's got a great band
but he's solo piano, singing, piano playing, encaptivating everybody.
Because it's a great song and a great performance.
Ok so now we've got, we've got this item and now I know that he has a doo-wop background,
I heard that from someone else and my editor dialed me into something else
here so I'm just gonna fire this up, it's about a minute 23 into this video here.
He does some really funny dialogue or monologue at the front and and cracks
some jokes and whatnot so you see his personality come out in this video. I'm
not gonna show that right now I just want to get to the music part, well sure
why not. This is what makes him great I'm gonna
go and fire it up. So, so this is actually the, the funny Billy Joel that is not
just, by the way I've said this in other videos not to be redundant but it's not
just his singing or his songwriting that makes him great, it's his personality
that's what, people bring their personalities into their singing, into
their songwriting, into their you know showmanship, into their entertaming,
entertaining so, so let's check this out here. I haven't seen this I just was told that
it exists so.
This is "The Longest Time" by the way.
I'm doing a song a capella.
You know.
He kinda sounds like Rocky Balboa.
You know what I mean, you know what I'm saying.
Andrew Dice Clay right.
You, you, you worry.
What are you doing you there then.
See. Exactly .
Yeah exactly for the diapers.
See he's down-to-earthness right.
I haven't seen this, it's cool.
See doo wop.
Barber shop.
Little pitchy there.
That was cool.
Very improvisational.
He's conducting.
Cool notes.
That was cool.
Playing and sing in major sevens you know. Seventh chords.
I wonder how much the Jersey Boys influenced him early on right.
There's that over annunciation of the vocals.
Great changes.
Good pitch man. Good blending.
Live folks.
No tracks.
Now I wanna point some really interesting little side note about the time that
Billy Joel grew up okay and we can hear the whole song of whatever but way back
when I grew up and yeah I think he's older than me, I'm 56. Believe it or not, in school, we
had something called band and it wasn't all bad,
like there were good band teachers. In fact we'd have bands that, you know it
was called band competitions, kind of like, a lot of the sporting events you
know have sort of taken over that in schools but, where we'd have competitions,
national band competitions, straight up. You'd learn to read music in school,
you'd learn to play multiple instruments at school, you got to pick your
instrument, if you didn't like it you could move on to another instrument. You
had choir, you had all these different things so you learned about you know a
spectrum of music, a whole different you know a wall, a spectrum of music and so
during his time I'm not sure if this was his influence but he was even saying you
know back in school you know when we used to sing back at school, back, so he referred to
that a few times. I'm not saying that that's where he learned this, I'm sure he
got most of it on his own but we used to be a nation at least the US did, I'm
not sure about the rest of the world where they taught art and music in
schools and it was really cool and it kept a lot of kids off the street too I
mean you know right so you got to learn drums, you get to learn maybe a wind
instrument or trumpet or bass or guitar or whatever it was and then you know I
mean and some of it was hokey and some of it was like kinda weird standards and
stuff but you learned you know the whole spectrum of music or a lot of the
spectrum of music especially if you had a good band leader,
bandmaster and so I just, I see that in this kind of coming out and I wanted to kind
of mention that as just like a little in passing side note on Besant but you
guys tell me, what do you think of when you think of Billy Joel, what makes him
great, what songs did I miss that you love, have you seen a concert of his that
just wowed you. Please put that in the comment section and I'm doing most of
this by request so this was a definite request and I'm trying to get to these,
as many as I can and whatever videos I can find also because they're kind of
hard to find and or we're not allowed to use a lot
stuff so I can only use what I can get that I think is worthy so with that said
definitely check out my next video.