logo
Billy Joel ‘And So It Goes' Directors on 'Vienna,' Nas and the One Legendary Artist Who Turned Down an Interview for the Doc

Billy Joel ‘And So It Goes' Directors on 'Vienna,' Nas and the One Legendary Artist Who Turned Down an Interview for the Doc

Yahoo6 days ago
'Music saved my life,' Billy Joel admits in HBO's And So It Goes. 'It gave me a reason to live.' That stark, emotional admission sets the tone for the powerful two-part documentary premiering July 18 and 25, offering an intimate portrait of the six-time Grammy Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer.
Directed by Emmy winners Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, the film traces Joel's journey from his childhood in Long Island through his slow and steady rise as a hitmaker — ultimately revealing the 'heart and soul' behind decades of iconic songs.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Alan Bergman, Oscar-Winning Lyricist, Dies at 99
With His New Album, Alex Warren Isn't Broken Anymore
KCON L.A. Returns - How to Secure the Best Ticket Deals (and Stream the Festival Online for Free)
'Our abiding principle was to let the music lead so that people could understand what made this artist tick, and what went into his music, and to get a peek behind his process but also an understanding of how his real-life experiences fed his music and his lyrics,' Levin tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Joel has written 121 songs, and the film includes 110 of them, Levin says.
'One of the things that we are really proud of is that the entire film is scored,' Lacy says. 'Including much of his classical music.'
And So It Goes explores the forces that shaped Joel's artistry: his deep roots in classical music, the trauma of his father's family and their flight from Nazi Germany and the often volatile dynamics behind the scenes. Rare archival footage, home movies and candid interviews paint a fuller, more complicated picture of the Piano Man — brilliant, driven, combative, sometimes conflicted and ultimately enduring.
The women closest to Joel in his life like ex-wife and former manager Elizabeth Weber, his daughter Alexa Ray Joel and his current wife Alexis Roderick opened up about the family man behind the spotlight, while legends like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and Don Henley reflect on Joel's legacy as a songwriter.
Ahead of Part One's Friday release, Lacy and Levin spoke with THR about getting Joel to open up, exploring his influence on contemporary music and reframing his catalog.
Billy Joel is famously private. How did you get him to trust you with his life story?
Lacy: He actually said to me, 'it's not my film, it's yours. The only thing I ask is tell the truth. Just tell the truth.' And he came to the table with that, and I did about 10 very long interviews with him, and he delivered. I don't know that he was actually really ready at the beginning to tell his story, but he came to realize that we were making a very deep film, a very serious film, the one that was really going to explore his music and how it connected with his life.
We were interested in his craft and his process and where his inspirations came from, and where his musical training came from. And, it wasn't a fly-by-night, drive-by portrait, as many people do. He recognized that this was serious, it was also going to be long. So at one point, he said to me, 'You going deep?' And I said, 'Yeah, and you know you're going to go deep too.'
You brought on a lot of stars, the biggest names in music. What was the outreach process like? Were they immediately on board, or did it take persuasion?
Lacy: I think musicians love Billy, and they recognize his genius. The only person who turned us down was Elton John.
You had Nas in there, and Pink and Garth Brooks. Nas sampled 'Stiletto' in a song. How important was it to have artists from different generations and genres?
Levin: We are always interested in how an artist permeates culture on different levels and in different generations. We were doing some research and I just came across the fact that Billy's music had been sampled a lot — and I'm not surprised because he's written a lot of great hooks, he's written some incredible melodies that are very hummable.
We had the idea to interview Nas because he sampled Billy, and we thought maybe he would talk about Billy's music being sampled in rap — which he did talk about but didn't quite make it into the film. Instead, we discovered a really eloquent talker about Billy Joel's music.
You focused on some of the critics — like Dave Marsh — who were negative about . Then you cut from that review to a funny comment from Bruce Springsteen. Was that intentional?
Lacy: We actually wanted to interview some of the critics of Billy, and most of them turned us down. I guess they just didn't want to go on record for the definitive piece. But also, I think that a lot of the critics came around. I think it was hard for critics to understand Billy because he wasn't typically rock and roll. I mean, as Bruce says, he didn't have that 'rock-and-roll-y stuff.'
You also addressed his psychology — his search in Vienna, discovering his father and his family history dating back to the Holocaust. How did that feed into 'Vienna?'
Lacy: It speaks to that underlying rage, the thought that 'I would've liked to have known my family, they were wiped out in the Holocaust.' Many of them were in Auschwitz. He didn't know most of that. He had complicated feelings about going to Vienna because it was a seat of Nazism, but it was also the home of the composers he loved, and it's a city surrounded by music.
I think people will not hear that song the same way again after they see this film, when they see the connections to his history, to that city and his own connection to his father, or lack of connection to his father. In the film, Howard Stern says he thinks that the driving force in Billy's life was trying to connect with his father through music. I think Billy's story is way deeper psychologically than Billy wants to know.
You structured the doc chronologically by album but slipped in emotional flashbacks. How did that work?
Lacy: I didn't want to go completely linear. So that's why the childhood — the real childhood, the mother, the father, the abandonment, his mother's bipolar issue, all that — doesn't come in until he comes back to New York writing 'New York State of Mind.'
I think once you start with the baby pictures, you kind of lose people. But by the time we got there, I think people would be interested in knowing that early childhood, and because it's so intrinsic to who Billy became. And the other thing that's really completely nonlinear was when he did The Nylon Curtain — when he began to write about things other than himself, about the steel mills closing and Vietnam vets. And even though it's traumatic, that's the moment where he walks out on stage wearing a yellow star. He never wanted to be particularly political, but that this was a bridge too far, and he had to begin to comment on it. And that takes us back to his ancestors' story.
Have you talked to Billy since the revelation of his ?
Lacy: I haven't spoken to him. He did write to me when he saw the film to express his feelings about it, which were very positive and very nice to thank me for 'connecting the dots of his life.'
What do you want people to take away from watching?
Levin: The takeaway for a fan is going to be a completely new lens on his catalog, and a revisiting of many of the songs and seeing them in a completely new way.
The takeaway maybe for a non-fan is maybe to understand and appreciate who Billy is as a musician, even if you don't love his pop songs. That he's a really gifted musician who is influenced by so many different genres of music, and he followed his heart musically. They'll get a glimpse into why people connect with Billy so much, and why he's an enduring and important part of American musical history.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
From 'Party in the U.S.A.' to 'Born in the U.S.A.': 20 of America's Most Patriotic (and Un-Patriotic) Musical Offerings
Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More
Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025
Solve the daily Crossword
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Jazz legend Chuck Mangione, known for ‘Feels So Good,' dies at 84
Jazz legend Chuck Mangione, known for ‘Feels So Good,' dies at 84

Boston Globe

timean hour ago

  • Boston Globe

Jazz legend Chuck Mangione, known for ‘Feels So Good,' dies at 84

'It identified for a lot of people a song with an artist, even though I had a pretty strong base audience that kept us out there touring as often as we wanted to, that song just topped out there and took it to a whole other level,' Mangione told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2008. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up He followed that hit with 'Give It All You Got,' commissioned for the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, and he performed it at the closing ceremony. Advertisement Mangione, a flugelhorn and trumpet player and jazz composer, released more than 30 albums during a career in which he built a sizable following after recording several albums, doing all the writing. He won his first Grammy Award in 1977 for his album 'Bellavia,' which was named in honor of his mother. Another album, 'Friends and Love,' was also Grammy-nominated, and he earned a best original score Golden Globe nomination and a second Grammy for the movie 'The Children of Sanchez.' Advertisement Mangione introduced himself to a new audience when he appeared on the first several seasons of 'King of the Hill,' appearing as a commercial spokesman for Mega Lo Mart, where 'shopping feels so good.' Mangione, brother of jazz pianist Gap Mangione, with whom he partnered in The Jazz Brothers, started his career as a bebop jazz musician heavily inspired by Dizzy Gillespie. 'He also was one of the first musicians I saw who had a rapport with the audience by just telling the audience what he was going to play and who was in his band,' Mangione told the Post-Gazette. Mangione earned a bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music — where he would eventually return as director of the school's jazz ensemble — and left home to play with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He donated his signature brown felt hat and the score of his Grammy-winning single 'Feels So Good,' as well as albums, songbooks and other ephemera from his long and illustrious career to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2009.

Chuck Mangione, jazz icon known for "Feels So Good," dies at 84
Chuck Mangione, jazz icon known for "Feels So Good," dies at 84

CBS News

timean hour ago

  • CBS News

Chuck Mangione, jazz icon known for "Feels So Good," dies at 84

Two-time Grammy Award-winning musician Chuck Mangione, who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-flavored single "Feels So Good" and later became a voice actor on the animated TV comedy "King of the Hill," has died. He was 84. Mangione died at his home in Rochester, New York, on Tuesday in his sleep, his attorney, Peter S. Matorin of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, told CBS News. The musician had been retired since 2015. Perhaps his biggest hit — "Feels So Good" — is a staple on most smooth-jazz radio stations and has been called one of the most recognized melodies since "Michelle" by the Beatles. It hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top of the Billboard adult contemporary chart. "It identified for a lot of people a song with an artist, even though I had a pretty strong base audience that kept us out there touring as often as we wanted to, that song just topped out there and took it to a whole other level," Mangione told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2008. He followed that hit with "Give It All You Got," commissioned for the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, and he performed it at the closing ceremony. Mangione, a flugelhorn and trumpet player and jazz composer, released more than 30 albums during a career in which he built a sizable following after recording several albums, doing all the writing. He won his first Grammy Award in 1977 for his album "Bellavia," which was named in honor of his mother. Another album, "Friends and Love," was also Grammy-nominated, and he earned a best original score Golden Globe nomination and a second Grammy for the movie "The Children of Sanchez." Mangione introduced himself to a new audience when he appeared on the first several seasons of "King of the Hill," appearing as a commercial spokesman for Mega Lo Mart, where "shopping feels so good." Mangione, brother of jazz pianist Gap Mangione, with whom he partnered in The Jazz Brothers, started his career as a bebop jazz musician heavily inspired by Dizzy Gillespie. "He also was one of the first musicians I saw who had a rapport with the audience by just telling the audience what he was going to play and who was in his band," Mangione told the Post-Gazette. Mangione grew up in Rochester and was a graduate of Benjamin Franklin High School, CBS affiliate WROC reported. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music - where he would eventually return as director of the school's jazz ensemble - and left home to play with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. "Chuck Mangione was a larger-than-life composer, trumpet and flugelhorn player, band-leader, recording artist and mentor," Bob Sneider, an Eastman Jazz faculty member who toured with Mangione, said in a statement. "He inspired generations of kids to play instruments in a variety of musical styles." He donated his signature brown felt hat and the score of his Grammy-winning single "Feels So Good," as well as albums, songbooks and other ephemera from his long and illustrious career to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2009. That same year, two of Mangione's bandmates were among 50 people killed when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo. Gerry Niewood and Coleman Mellett were on the plane that was headed to Buffalo Niagara International Airport from Newark, N.J. When it crashed, killing all 40 people on board and one person on the ground.

Jazz musician Chuck Mangione dies at 84
Jazz musician Chuck Mangione dies at 84

UPI

timean hour ago

  • UPI

Jazz musician Chuck Mangione dies at 84

Jazz legend Chuck Mangione cradles his horn and smiles with satisfaction after just having enthralled the crowd at Madison Square Garden with his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner preceding the New York Knicks Victory over the Washington Wizards 98-86 in 1999. File Photo by Ralph Ginzburg/ UPI | License Photo July 24 (UPI) -- Grammy Award-winning jazz icon Chuck Mangione died at home Tuesday. The music artist, well known for his 1977 album Feels so Good, died in his sleep of natural causes, according to multiple reports. He was 84. "Chuck's love affair with music has been characterized by his boundless energy, unabashed enthusiasm and pure joy that radiated from the stage," his family said in a statement, per KUTV. "His appreciation for his loyal worldwide fans was genuine as evidenced by how often he would sit at the edge of the stage after a concert for however long it took to sign autographs for the fans who stayed to meet him and the band." He played the flugelhorn and trumpet, and his career spanned some 30 albums and included creating songs during the 1976 and 1980 Olympic games. Mangione was a Rochester Music Hall of Fame inductee in 2012. He also starred on the animated series King of the Hill as himself. Notable deaths of 2025 Hulk Hogan Retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan reaches out to fans as he arrives at Randall's Wines and Spirits for a signing appearance in St. Louis on in July 2024. Hogan, whose real name is Terry Gene Bollea, Retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan reaches out to fans as he arrives at Randall's Wines and Spirits for a signing appearance in St. Louis on in July 2024. Hogan, whose real name is Terry Gene Bollea, died July 24, 2025, reportedly of cardiac arrest, in Clearwater, Fla., File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store