Remembering That Time When Billy Joel Wanted To Punch Greedy Smith

“I learned that life is a fight,” Billy Joel says in the new documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which is a five-hour trip through his remarkable career.

The film is filled with terrific tales. Did you know that Billy Joel was on the run from a bad record deal when he created his signature song Piano Man? 

The singer escaped to Los Angeles, where he got a gig at a piano bar under the name of Bill Martin. “They were all real people, and that was an actual gig I had in 1972,” he explains.

The song gave Billy his nickname, though he did the piano gig at the Executive Room on Wilshire Boulevard for only six months. “Before that, I’d always played in rock ’n’ roll bands.”

The staff and patrons included a bartender named John, a guy named Davy who was in the navy, and a real estate broker who was trying to write the Great American Novel. And the waitress practising politics? That was Billy’s first wife, Elizabeth, who was working as a waitress at that cocktail bar.

(Fun fact: Elizabeth Weber was the American manager of Australian band The Sports, who gave Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group their first Top 50 hit in the US with Who Listens To The Radio.)

And So It Goes features a stellar cast of talking heads, including Sir Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Jackson Browne, Sting, Garth Brooks and Pink. McCartney says he wishes he’d written Just The Way You Are.

Aside from a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em cameos by Ian “Molly” Meldrum, the documentary fails to cover Billy Joel’s close relationship with Australia, where he’s had 12 Top 10 albums, including four chart-toppers, and 17 Top 40 singles, including two number ones (Uptown Girl and The River of Dreams).

“Australia actually picked up on my music even before it became popular in the States,” Billy pointed out when we chatted about the release of his Greatest Hits Volume III.

“We all go way back. As I said, I was probably more well known in Australia before I became that well known in the States.

“So,” he laughed, “it’s your fault.”

Australia’s Elle Macpherson is mentioned in the documentary. Billy dated the supermodel, and she inspired the song And So It Goes (as well as This Night and This Is The Time and was one of the inspirations for Uptown Girl).

Molly and Countdown helped break Billy in Australia, but their relationship got off to a rocky start when the singer first appeared on the show in 1976.

“In fact, it was a disaster,” Molly recalls. “He didn’t want to be there. And I guess my first question didn’t help.”

This was Molly’s opening salvo:

I, um, over the last couple of weeks, um, we’ve had many, many international tours coming through – we’ve had Boz Scaggs, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys. Some have been good, some have been bad, right. But I have never, like, last week I went on the, ah, Countdown Council to Perth and to Adelaide and you’re leaving a day earlier and you’ve just done a concert that night and then Adelaide, you’ve just done a concert the night before etc. And I have never read reviews, rave reviews, for any artist that I’ve read for you.

Billy’s response to that 96-word “question”?

Just two words: “All right.”

The producers cut to a clip … and then Billy started talking. Molly shrieked at Countdown’s floor manager, Ted Emery. “He’s talking! For God’s sake, come back to us!”

Molly reminded Billy of that awkward encounter a decade later. “When I first met you, you seemed to be almost an introverted character, and then I’d see you on stage and I’d think, ‘That couldn’t be the same person.’”

“Really, was there a big difference there?” replied Billy, though he admitted: “Sure, I’m a lot happier now.”

Molly had many more memorable meetings with the artist. After one interview, about the River Of Dreams album, Billy remarked, “Molly, you have unlocked me.”

On Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Molly caught up with Billy and Elton John when they performed at the MCG in 1998. All the cricket references left Billy confused, as he admitted he only knew Jiminy Cricket.

“I tell you what, Billy, you may not follow cricket,” Molly joked, “but you have one thing in common with cricket that Elton and I have never really experienced … you’ve bowled a maiden over.”

Molly made Billy an honorary member of the St Kilda football club while he anointed Elton as an actual saint.

The Rocket Man and the Piano Man have enjoyed a rollercoaster-like relationship, with Billy always resenting being compared to his English counterpart.

“I always felt sorry for the bloke because everyone said, ‘Poor man’s Elton John’,” Elton said on Countdown in 1978. 

“I thought that was really rubbish because the guy writes really great songs. But this album [52nd Street], I’ve never heard such blatant copying of a vocal style ever: My Life … and you listen to Big Shot – it’s Bennie And The Jets backwards … he’s probably been listening to outtakes that we did.”

When Billy and Elton toured Australia together in 1998, Molly took great delight in showing Elton his TV Week column from July 26, 1980. It was headed “Bitter Duel At Piano Stool”. 

The story ran: “Arch enemies Billy Joel and Elton John are enjoying a battle royal on the charts at the moment. Both megastars have expressed their dislike for one another on more than one occasion … An even more interesting battle between Billy and Elton could develop if it’s true that both are going to tour the Land of Oz later this year. Wouldn’t it be delicious if they hit in the same week? After all, there is a limited number of Steinway pianos available for hire in this country.”

In the documentary, Billy talks about falling out with Elton when the English singer suggested he had a drinking problem.

“Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab,” Billy says. “He chalked it up to, ‘Oh, he’s a drunk.’ And that really hurt me.”

The New Yorker says he felt “clobbered” by the comment. “There was bad blood for a little while … it was rock bottom [for me].”

Billy also had a short-lived feud with one of the nicest blokes in Australian music.

When Mental As Anything’s Greedy Smith was hosting Countdown in 1981, he back announced Sometimes A Fantasy by saying, “Well, that was Billy Joel, for better or for worse.” 

Later in the show, when Molly quizzed him about his indifference to the American artist, Greedy replied, “I haven’t heard any of his records, but he was a boxer who wasn’t very successful … Is he a good singer?”

Unbeknownst to Greedy, Billy was touring Australia at the time and watching Countdown. And he didn’t appreciate the comments. The next day, live on radio, Billy snapped: “Failed boxer? I’ll go a few rounds with him!”

But Greedy was a lover – and an eater – not a fighter.

The Mentals manager responded to the fight request by telling the press: “Greedy will go a few rounds with Billy – a few rounds of sandwiches.” 

There’s certainly been a few bumps along the way, but Billy Joel has had an enduring love affair with Australia, playing 119 shows here, having toured 11 times.

He forged friendships with the local Sony staff (the doco features a photo of Billy with former Sony boss Denis Handlin) and his Australian promoters. After Michael Gudinski’s passing, Billy paid tribute. “He was a great guy to hang out with. He loved music. He loved musicians. And musicians loved him right back.

“Michael was a nut, but he was a good nut. He was a lot of fun to hang out with. Michael was high energy, high voltage, and always wanting to do crazy things.” 

Michael Chugg reveals that Billy Joel would even cook for the touring party. “Whenever Billy was staying in an apartment or villa rather than a hotel, he would invite a bunch of people from the entourage, including myself, and cook up a storm.”

The 76-year-old singer sadly missed the documentary’s premiere at the Tribeca Festival because he is suffering from a brain disorder called normal pressure hydrocephalus, which affects his hearing, vision and balance. He sent a message: “Getting old sucks, but it’s still preferable to getting cremated.”

There’s still some fight left in this old boxer.

Billy Joel: And So It Goes is streaming now on HBO Max.