Billy Joel
Just The Way You Are

THE REVIEW

Finally, the deep sensitivity of a man, expressed in the most harmonious and genius possible way, vigorously explodes through the notes of "just the way you are." William Martin Joel, better known as Billy Joel, a man from the Bronx, introverted, with easy but vulnerable enthusiasms, was born in 1949 and until '77 saw a fluctuating career, amid mediocrity and small successes: he often returned to play piano bars, his first music school, because he was convinced he didn't have the right character and spirit to accept those compromises that would have opened the door to success.

In '73, he created an album that broke into the top 20 in America, which couldn't help but be called "piano man," but something was still missing; success required a lot more work. Only in '76 did he meet the artists that would accompany him in a band forever (it wasn't easy to gain his friendship), and in '77, the album "the stranger" came out with our single, and the wind now blows in the stern initially, but then it becomes a true hurricane: the album sells over 10 million copies of records, a record never seen by Columbia Records (only "born in the usa" by the "boss" in 1985 barely surpassed it!) In short, the album circles the planet and comes back crowned with 2 Grammy Awards for best song and best album of the year for "just the way you are," which, besides turning it into his first gold record, earns a bronze medal in the famous "BILLBOARD HOT 100" (the most sold and heard singles in America). And to think that the record was born as a birthday gift for his first wife... from there on, our singer, composer, and pianist sails away, that wind at his back will never leave him again.

"Just" is simply stunning, piano, and sax create an intense and elegant atmosphere, the voice, warm and scratchy, makes even more noble a text that speaks of love, softly wrapped by a perfect orchestral arrangement. Perhaps the love our Billy never found, not even in the three women he married and then divorced, that love and that sensitivity that, starting from the heart and through his hand, wrote the most beautiful notes of his career. How many covers, countless, by world-famous artists and incredibly of every genre: first of all Barry White, Frank Sinatra, Jose Feliciano, Shirley Bassey, Diana Krall, our very Italian and great Mina and Mia Martini. I listened to all the versions, each with its style, each with its reason why, but there is a strong sensation of listening to sounds and words lent, waiting to return, soon, to the original version.