My Billy Joel story.
In 2009 I was working with Vanilla Fudge keyboardist/lead singer Mark Stein on his own autobiography called “You Keep me Hangin’ On.” Mark set me up with dozens of interviews-—Deep Purple, the Rascals, the Doors, on and on. I interviewed Joel for almost an hour. Very gracious. He was one of only two rockers I either personally interviewed or read about who did NOT cite the Beatles as their inspiration for going into rock (Keith Emerson was the other). Joel cited Dave Brubeck Quartet. I can’t argue with that.
Joel agreed to be in our 2010 documentary “Rockin’ the Wall” but in the window we needed to film him, he had to have back surgery. Our loss.
The only popular singer I’ve actually met was Al Stewart and I didn’t even know it was him at the time... long story...