Billy Joel comes alive with '2000 Years'

Joel offers up a brand new album in a year filled with confetti and kudos

May 16, 2000
Web posted at: 4:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Billy Joel fans have waited seven years for a new album, and now they finally have it: "2000 Years: The Millennium Concert." He released it a week ago, on his 51st birthday.

It features more than two hours of music from his New Year's Eve show, performed before a sold-out Madison Square Garden crowd. The cover shows a triumphant piano man in a shower of confetti -- perhaps too much confetti, Joel said.

"I was swallowing confetti," he recalled. "I was drowning in confetti. We're pulling it out of our hair, out of our teeth."

The concert gave him the opportunity to release a one-of-a-kind album, Joel said.

"We thought, 'We're doing a show that's completely different than any show we've done, and it is the millennium. You can't recapture that particular moment. Let's get it on tape.'

"We did, and listening back to it, we said, 'You know, this is pretty good.'''

Classic Joel vs. classical Joel

	AUDIO
"Happy new millennium!" Joel begins a new century with fans at New York's Madison Square Gardens 256K AIFF or 256K WAV sound The veteran songwriter says the tunes don't come easily 96K AIFF or 96K WAV sound

Many fans didn't expect to hear from Joel, who announced that his 1998 "Face-to-Face" tour would be his last. He was tired of the grind, he said at the time.

There was also the matter of his his personal tribulations. In 1989, he brought a $90 million lawsuit against longtime manager and former brother-in-law Frank Weber, whom he accused of fraud. (A judge awarded Joel $2 million two years later, in a partial judgment against Weber.)

Joel also divorced model Christie Brinkley in 1994. They have one daughter together, Alexa.

However, 1999 brought Joel accolades. Ray Charles inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, and a few months later came his inclusion in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Lately, Joel said he has been concentrating on writing classical music. "I'm not really writing rock 'n' roll," he said.

But that doesn't mean he'll never go back to the sound that made him famous.

"I haven't said I'm never going to do rock 'n' roll again," Joel said. "It's just I haven't been writing songs for a few years now. I think from time to time I'll pop up."

Music to my New Year's: Performers lead many celebrations
January 1, 2000
Billy Joel: This long tour may be his last
March 2, 1998

Official Billy Joel site

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