{"id":691,"date":"2017-01-16T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=691"},"modified":"2017-01-16T13:00:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T18:00:17","slug":"the-lords-of-52nd-street-we-still-like-them-just-the-way-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/the-lords-of-52nd-street-we-still-like-them-just-the-way-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lords of 52nd Street: We still like them just the way they are"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Original<\/a>

Original Billy Joel band members Richie Cannata, left, Russell Javors and Liberty DeVitto, rock Havana in New Hope, PA, on Jan. 14, 2017.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Billy Joel had made four albums for Columbia Records in the early to mid-1970s – \u201cCold Spring Harbor\u201d in 1971; \u201cPiano Man\u201d in 1973; \u201cStreetlife Serenade\u201d in 1974: and \u201cTurnstiles\u201d in 1976. Joel had moderate success with a couple of those albums, but not enough for the Columbia suits. They wanted better sales results.<\/p>\n

Columbia thought that Joel needed a strong producer on his next album, which would be called \u201cThe Stranger.\u201d And Sir George Martin, the man who had produced the Beatles and was famous enough at that time to be known as \u201cthe Fifth Beatle,\u201d was interested. He was coming to see Joel and his band, which included Liberty DeVitto on drums, Doug Stegmeyer on bass, Russell Javors on electric and acoustic guitar and Richie Cannata on saxophone and clarinet, all of whom had contributed to the \u201cTurnstiles\u201d album.<\/p>\n

Martin liked what he saw and after the show told Joel that he\u2019d like to produce the next album. But Martin didn\u2019t want to use Joel\u2019s band, he wanted to use studio musicians instead.<\/p>\n

\"Liberty<\/a>

Liberty DeVitto
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Bill Joel said thanks but no thanks to George Martin.<\/p>\n

Enter Phil Ramone, a producer and engineer who by this time had worked with Peter, Paul and Mary, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Paul Simon, with whom he won a production Grammy for his work on Simon\u2019s 1975 album \u201cStill Crazy After All These Years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramone watched Joel and his band perform at Carnegie Hall and liked what he saw. In particular, he was impressed with the raw energy that Joel and the band showed during its live performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had playing down live. We could rock the place,\u201d said DeVitto. \u201cWhen Phil heard that, he knew how to get what he heard live onto a record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramone ended up producing \u201cThe Stranger\u201d and the rest is history. (An interview with DeVitto about the making of the album is featured in \u201cThe Vinyl Dialogues Volume III: Stacks of Wax.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The album reached No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Albums chart. Five singles from the album were released, four of which charted in the U.S., including \u201cMovin\u2019 Out (Anthony\u2019s Song),\u201d which reached No. 17 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 14 on the U.S. Cashbox Top 100 singles chart; \u201cJust the Way You Are,\u201d No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100 singles chart; \u201cOnly The Good Die Young,\u201d No. 24 on Billboard and No. 25 on Cash Box; and \u201cShe\u2019s Always a Woman,\u201d No. 17 on Billboard and No. 2 on Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart.<\/p>\n

\"Russell<\/a>

Russell Javors
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

The raw energy that Ramone saw live and was able to get onto \u201cThe Stranger\u201d is still evident 40 years later. It lives on in The Lords of 52nd Street, the name that Ramone bestowed on Joel’s band back in the day.<\/p>\n

And it was noticeably still intact Saturday night at Havana (a great venue with outstanding food) in New Hope, PA, as former Joel band members DeVitto, Cannata and Javors rocked the house. They have been joined by lead vocalist and pianist David Clark, guitarist Ken Cino, Malcolm Gold on bass and keyboardist Doug Kistner, all of whose contributions cannot be understated. Together, the current lineup of The Lords of 52nd Street complement each other superbly.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s difficult not to focus on the original Billy Joel band members. They make it clear that they\u2019re not a Billy Joel tribute band. And that\u2019s true. They\u2019re still playing their own parts on the songs that they originally recorded.<\/p>\n

\"Richie<\/a>

Richie Cannata
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s Richie Cannata playing sax on \u201cNew York State of Mind\u201d and \u201cScenes from an Italian Restaurant\u201d just as good, if not better, as he did on the original records. That\u2019s Liberty DeVitto with as much energy on the drums as we heard in 1977. That\u2019s still Russell Javors on guitar, with the added benefit of still having some of the greatest hair in rock and roll history. I particularly liked his lead vocals on \u201cUntil the Night,\u201d Joel\u2019s tribute to Phil Spector, a song that\u2019s on the \u201c52nd Street\u201d album.<\/p>\n

One cool aside from the show. Doug Stegmeyer died in 1995, but his presence was still felt during Saturday night\u2019s show. Stegmeyer\u2019s family had given Doug\u2019s bass guitar to DeVitto, and Liberty brought it along for Malcolm Gold to play, which he did quite well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing that we always had when we were with Billy – and me and Lib have been together since we were 15 years old – we click into this craziness and we\u2019re having a lot of fun with each other,\u201d said Javors. \u201cI think it comes across on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly does. Go see this band . . . they still might be the lunatics you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Joel had made four albums for Columbia Records in the early to mid-1970s – \u201cCold Spring Harbor\u201d in 1971; \u201cPiano Man\u201d in 1973; \u201cStreetlife Serenade\u201d in 1974: and \u201cTurnstiles\u201d in 1976. Joel had moderate success with a couple of those albums, but not enough for the Columbia suits. They wanted better sales results. Columbia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38,118,272],"class_list":["post-691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-billy-joel","tag-havana-new-hope","tag-the-lords-of-52nd-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}