{"id":40151,"date":"2007-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/cold-spring-harbor\/"},"modified":"2007-02-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T00:00:00","slug":"cold-spring-harbor","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/cold-spring-harbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Spring Harbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Billy Joel portrayed himself as a premier piano player in his very early years. His 1972 debut album <place><\/place><placename><\/placename><i>Cold<\/i><i> <\/i><placetype><\/placetype><i>Spring<\/i><i> <\/i><placetype><\/placetype><i>Harbor<\/i><i> <\/i>showcases his expert piano playing, as well as introducing a kind of music (classical) that he would return to 25 years later. It just didn&#8217;t seem at the time that his kind of piano-playing would relate to classical, it reminded us more of the lone player in a smoke-filled barroom, collecting tips for playing some beautiful sounding tunes. <\/p>\n<p>For example, &#8220;She&#8217;s Got A Way&#8221; is a very touching song, and features Joel\u2019s vocals with only his piano. It is probably the only song on this album that most Billy Joel fans will remember right away. &#8220;You Can Make Me Free&#8221; starts out with just vocals and piano, then kicks in with the band. However, his vocals seem to struggle with some of the high notes here. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody Loves You Now&#8221; features a ragtime piano style. &#8220;Why Judy Why&#8221; is another touching ballad, featuring acoustic guitar and vocals. &#8220;Falling Of The Rain&#8221; returns to the piano, with a style that\u2019s closer to fast-tempoed classical than ragtime. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Turn Around&#8221; feels like early Elton John \u2013 one of Joel\u2019s models as he started out. &#8220;You Look So Good To Me&#8221; has a nice, bouncy pop beat, while &#8220;Tomorrow Is Today&#8221; is another ballad in the style of &#8220;She&#8217;s Got A Way&#8221; and &#8220;Why Judy Why.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nocturne&#8221; is a very beautiful classical music instrumental; it\u2019s easy to see why there aren&#8217;t any vocals in this song. It doesn&#8217;t need any.\u00a0 Interestingly, 25 years later, Billy Joel would return to this particular style of music with his <i>Fantasies And Delusions<\/i> album. And in looking at the liner notes, all of the songs on this album were written solely by Billy Joel. <\/p>\n<p>The album closes with &#8220;Got To Begin Again&#8221;, another ballads in the style of &#8220;She&#8217;s Got A Way.&#8221;\u00a0 The touching ballads are the ones that stand out the most on <i>Cold Spring Harbor<\/i>, as it focuses a promising young star (at that time) writing love songs for the piano. <\/p>\n<p>Billy Joel and his contemporary Elton John had one thing in common when they first started out in their early years: they both wrote (in EJ&#8217;s case, co-wrote) beautiful ballads that would spark anyone\u2019s interest in this kind of music. And they both went on to write songs in the pop\/rock style, while continuing to also write ballads. <\/p>\n<p>Billy Joel&#8217;s better-known second album <i>Piano Man<\/i> comes to mind when listening to <place><\/place><placename><\/placename><i>Cold<\/i><i> <\/i><placetype><\/placetype><i>Spring<\/i><i> <\/i><placetype><\/placetype><i>Harbor<\/i>; likewise the early works of Elton John. If this kind of music inspires and entertains you, then <i>Cold Spring Harbor<\/i> is worth giving some airplay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":28664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5760],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40151","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-joel","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40151"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}