Billy Joel had his breakthrough hit in 1977 with a ballad that was hailed as a classic by one of his heroes, Paul McCartney. But as Joel reveals, he never believed in this song until another famous singer told him he would be crazy if he didn’t record it.
That song is Just The Way You Are, and Joel tells its story in a new interview with Rick Beato.
Joel struggled for hits in the early stages of his career. After his 1973 single Piano Man reached No 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, his record sales slowed to the point where – alarmingly – his fourth album, Turnstiles, peaked at No 132 on the Billboard 200 in 1976.
But his fifth album, The Stranger, was a runaway success, and Just The Way You Are was the song that made it happen.
As Joel tells Beato: “The first really big hit I had was a song called Just The Way You Are, which was a ballad. It’s a nice soft ballad, a love song.”
But he admits: “I didn’t even want to put it on the album because I thought it was too mushy. And then we were in the studio. Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow were in the studio, and we played the song for them.
“I said, ‘I don’t like this song that much.’ Linda Ronstadt goes, ‘Are you out of your mind? That’s a hit record. You got to put that on the album. That’s a great song.’ ‘Really?’ She talked me into it. So I have to thank Linda Ronstadt for that song.”
Just The Way You Are reached No 3 in the US, No 19 in the UK and was a top 10 hit in Australia, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand.
The parent album, The Stranger, was Joel’s first with producer Phil Ramone.
The saxophone solo in Just The Way You Are was played by jazz musician Phil Woods, but Joel says that it was Phil Ramone’s editing skills that really made that solo what it is.
Joel tells Beato: “Phil Ramone concocted that solo. It was six takes by by Phil Woods, and Phil [Ramone] figured out how to splice, cut it up, and splice them together.
“I was there when he was doing the cutting and the splicing, and I was scared to death. I said, ‘What are you doing? You’re going to cut that?’ He goes, ‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’ He had a razor blade and he cut the tape.”
Just The Way You Are was covered in 1978 by soul music legend Barry White.
In addition, Paul McCartney has stated that Just The Way You Are is one of the few songs he wished he had written.
Joel says of McCartney’s comment: “That blew me away. I mean, he’s like the melodic king. He he can do no wrong with melody, Paul. His melodic sense is incredible.”
Joel also tells Beato of the song in which he was directly and consciously influenced by John Lennon. The song is Laura, from his 1982 album the Nylon Curtain, and it was written shortly after Lennon’s death in 1980.
“I even wrote a song trying to sound like John Lennon called Laura,” Joel says. “The vocal delivery was very much like John.
“He had been shot just recently when I was writing that song. I started singing it, and I and it sounded to me like John Lennon, but I was channeling him. And my producer Phil Ramone says, ‘You know, you sound an awful lot like John Lennon.’ I said, ‘You know what? It feels right to me.’ I was trying to channel John.”
