Billy Joel is to be the subject of a two-part HBO documentary, which is set to drop this summer.
It’s directed by Susan Lacy, who’s also helmed HBO docs Jane Fonda in Five Acts and Spielberg. Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a full career retrospective job that includes never-before-seen performances, home movies, personal photographs and one-to-one interviews.
Joel has been the subject of documentaries before, but 2010’s The Last Play At Shea was, as the title suggests, centred around his 2008 concert at Shea, the final one before the iconic baseball stadium was demolished. There was also A Matter Of Trust: The Bridge To Russia, which looked at his late-'80s trip to the Soviet Union.
He’s certainly an interesting subject for a documentary. Joel was one of the generation of American musicians whose lives were changed forever by seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in February 1964. Aged 16, he reputedly played on The Shangri-Las’ Leader Of The Pack, but it wasn’t until the rise of adult-orientated rock in the mid-1970s and albums like Turnstiles (1976) and The Stranger (1977) that his solo career began to catch fire.
He’s always been an artist to follow his own nose, unafraid to do whatever he wants, whether that means writing a belligerent response to punk (It’s Still Rock N’ Roll To Me) or a homage to the Four Seasons and pre-Beatles pop (the 1983 album, An Innocent Man). Or indeed stopping recording pop albums entirely after 1993’s River Of Dreams - his only new album in the last thirty years has been a collection of classical piano pieces, Fantasies and Delusions, though he did release a new single, Turn The Lights Back On, in 2024.
Susan Lacy said, “For those who think they know Joel’s story, as well as those who are not as familiar, I believe this two-part film is both a revelation and a surprise. I was drawn to his story as someone who knew little at the outset, and was astounded at how autobiographical his songs are and how complex his story is. We are gratified that Bill trusted us with his story, which we have told as honestly as possible, diving into territory which has not been explored before.”
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