Facts About Rock And Roll(By Mitch Masterson, guitarist of The Hardcore Jollies)

Fact #1)  Johnny Cash taught Billy Joel how to play the guitar. 

     The success of  Billy Joel's piano driven ballads,"Just the Way You Are," "She's Always a Woman" and "Honesty" never sat well with him. Critics were quick to assign these classic odes, '...mere passing fancies in an unfortunate world of balladeers...'  Irked by this seemingly demeaning assumption, Joel sought a re-invention of his musicality. It was for this reason that 1980 proved to be the cornerstone of Joel's career.  A meaningful and personal re-evaluation of his own musical exploits proved to be a necessary ingredient of future success.  For this reason, Billy Joel decided to learn how to play and perform music on an electric guitar!

     The  unusual dalliance between Billy Joel and Johnny Cash was spawned at a Grammy Award after-party hosted by Mike De Niro, brother of Robert De Niro in 1979.  Johnny's and Billy's love of the drink had brought them to the bar repeatedly that night.  Eventually a conversation was struck between the two.  Presumably the subject matter ranged from alcohol, to love, to life, to cocaine, to music, but not necessarily in that order.  It was this historic intercourse that led Billy Joel to reveal his shortcomings with 'piano music' to Johnny Cash.  Cash quickly decided to take Joel under his wing and arranged for the two of them to meet for weekly guitar lessons at the famed Electric Lady Land studios in the Village.  Besides Hendrix, who other than Johnny Cash, the man in black, would be a better teacher of the dark sided nuances of the six string?  Joel's efforts to learn a new instrument would eventually provide him with the grit and realness that he required to re-invent his sound entirely.

 (Notice the resemblance between Johnny Ramone in this photo, and the miniature silhouette of Billy Joel on the album cover of Glass Houses, above.)    

     Evidence of this  new 'edginess' is clearly demonstrated on the album, Glass Houses, with the tune, It's Still Rock and Roll to Me.  The album cover  effectively depicts Joel's new found rebellion.  In the foreground of the image is a man, presumably Joel himself, hurling an object at a house with enormous glass windows.  More interestingly, however, is the background.  Upon careful inspection one will notice a small silhouette of Billy Joel shredding on the electric guitar!  This seemingly inconspicuous reflection is no accident.  It is surely a tip of the cap to the now, late and great punk rock guitar icon, Johnny Ramone.  Any photo of Johnny Ramone circa 1977 will portray the rocker in a leather jacket and tight denim jeans much like  Billy Joel in his album cover.  This also is not coincidental, as Johnny Ramone and Johnny Cash had secretly collaborated together at around the same time that Glass Houses was being conceived by Joel.  Tim Yohannan, co-founder of Maximum Rock and Roll Magazine, reveals in his autobiography, that Johnny Ramone was extremely vocal about his distaste for Joel, but that Cash had somehow taken a liking to Joel's songwriting potential while keeping his opinion mum.   It is safe to say that Johnny Ramone's influence on Cash had also inadvertently crept into the musical styling of Joel during this era.

     On a side note, the unnamed recording sessions of Johnny Cash's and Johnny Ramone's were never heard.  To the dismay of music fans across the a earth, a fire in the basement of ABC No Rio in 1986 ensured that any documentation  of these two musical geniuses, together at work, would forever remain unheard.

This is a clip of Billy Joel playing Highway To Hell, by ACDC!