![\"Billy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791692171_168_Billy-Joel-Musician-1978-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ Columbia Records<\/p>\n
Sun 11 October 2026 1:45, UK <\/p>\n
Billy Joel <\/a>was never going to tell anyone that he was the next rock and roll Pavarotti by any stretch. <\/p>\n Some of the greatest voices in rock and roll didn\u2019t necessarily have to be clean or anything, but when you look through some of the biggest tunes of his career, Joel knew how to copy all of his favourite artists and make them sound absolutely wonderful whenever he worked on his best impression of someone like Ray Charles or even John Lennon. But by the time that he worked on some of his greatest tunes, he still knew that he was far away from anything that the true legends were capable of doing.<\/p>\n Then again, the soft-spoken kind of voice that Joel had is one of the reasons why he is so beloved. He was the epitome of the everyman in a lot of his songs, and while he tried his best to make every one of his tunes work exactly like they should have, the reason why he sounded so great was because he genuinely sounded like that hapless pianist in the bar on \u2018Piano Man\u2019 or the lovestruck kid that found the love of his life on \u2018Just the Way You Are\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n His greatest songs felt like you were listening to an old friend half the time, but sometimes there\u2019s an appeal to going big whenever you make a record. Joel\u2019s albums certainly weren\u2019t lacking in melodrama when looking at some of the greatest ballads that he ever made, but when working on an album like The Stranger, \u2018Scenes From an Italian Restaurant\u2019<\/a> is the kind of tune that no one else could have made work the same way that he did through all seven minutes of the record.<\/p>\n But when he tried to follow up on one of his best works, he got the chance to spread out a little bit more. 52nd Street took influence from a lot of jazz, and while tunes like \u2018My Life\u2019 and \u2018Big Shot\u2019 were still the best kind of pop rock that he could make at the time, \u2018Until the Night\u2019 was a lot more ambitious from a vocal standpoint. That\u2019s because Joel had a very particular person in mind when sculpting that song: The Righteous Brothers.<\/p>\n Because when it comes to rock and roll melodrama, there aren\u2019t many people who could manage to make their songs sound as good as Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. Both of them were amazing vocalists when they started, but the idea of anyone being able to carry a song like \u2018Unchained Melody\u2019 for minutes on end would have never been able to make it work the same way they did.<\/p>\n There had already been other versions of the tune out there in the wild, but Joel felt that the Righteous Brothers had the best kind of vocal precision for that song, saying<\/a>, \u201cI don\u2019t know if anyone who doesn\u2019t sing understands how hard it is to sing a song like that in half time. It was great. This took phrasing [to a new level]. This took a real understanding of how to sing. The only thing I could compare it to was Roberta Flack\u2019s \u2018First Time Ever I Saw Your Face\u2019. It was hypnotic and it was delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n And what makes it so delicious, as Joel is wont to say, is the subtle inflexions in the voice. Anyone else would try their best to carry the tune for as long as they could, but when Hatfield is singing his part on the tune, hearing him get to the line \u2018I\u2019ve hungered for your touch\u2019 and make the final consonant sound as quiet and gentle as possible is something that only the greatest rock and roll stars are born with.<\/p>\n So while Joel has admitted to trying and failing to sing like the Righteous Brothers, that shouldn\u2019t really be that much of a knock against him. He was only trying to make something that could stand on their level, but no one really knows what they\u2019re getting themselves into with that band until they actually try to sing those tunes themselves and get their asses handed to them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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