Billy Joel's 1982 album "The Nylon Curtain" was a very heavy album with topical songs like "Allentown" and "Goodnight Saigon." He had seen the slipping of what we call "The American Dream" with the presidency of Ronald Reagan meaning that the next generation was never going to have it quite as good as the previous generation.
As much as Joel said he loved doing that album, calling it "the recording I'm most proud of and the material I'm most proud of," he wanted to get back to a peppier album, one where his influences were all artists he listened to on the radio as a child.
So in the spring of 1983, Joel, closing in on 34 years old, recorded "An Innocent Man." Each of the 10 tracks on the album paid homage to his musical heroes. And the album would be a rousing success on the charts for Joel as it peaked at No. 4 and would sell over 7 million copies in this country.
And the album would spawn six Top 40 hits, each with a unique sound to them:
Keeping The Faith: The sixth and final Top 40 hit from the album was spawned by the pop songs of Joel's youth before the Beatles landed in the United States in 1964.
Leave A Tender Moment Alone: The fifth hit from the summer of 1984 was an ode to the soft music of William "Smokey" Robinson of Motown fame, complemented by a harmonica throughout.
The Longest Time: This spring of 1984 hit and the fourth single from the album was an absolutely unabashed tribute to the doo-wop music of the 1950s that helped create the basis of rock 'n roll and pop music.
An Innocent Man: Joel called this Top 10 hit from the winter of '84 an homage to the sounds of Ben E. King and the Drifters, almost to a fault.
Uptown Girl: Joel's tribute to his future wife Christie Brinkley (though it started as a song about his girlfriend at the time, model Elle McPherson) was a spot-on tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, arguably the greatest song the Four Seasons never recorded.
And then there was the first single release from the album, the Motown-splashed "Tell Her About It," full of horns and soul-sounding backing vocals. If you closed your eyes, you'd swear you were back in the 1960s during the heyday of the Motown sound and those great songs coming out of Detroit.
Phil Ramone, Joel's longtime producer, felt strongly that "Tell Her About It" should be the first release from the album. The song centers around a man having to find the right words to tell a woman what he truly thinks about her and wanting to find that way before it's too late and she's gone. As a matter of fact, according to Joel's book The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man, Joel said it was his time spent with Brinkley that inspired the song because all they would do is spend time talking with one another and learning about each other. Joel said he believed at that point, you could have a "soul mate." He would marry Brinkley in 1985.
As the song was being released, the music video was also released to make it look as if Joel was a guest on the old The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, July 31, 1963, 20 years ago (which is completely false since July 31, 1963 was a Wednesday, not a Sunday, but July 31, 1983 was a Sunday). Sullivan, played by comic actor-impersonator Will Jordan, introduces Joel to the stage as "B.J. & The Affordables" after the legendary Topo Gigio had gone before him. Decked out in a sparkling suit and wearing sunglasses, Joel runs through the song, while various scenarios take place away from the performance (even showing Joel delivering pizza to a sorority party and playing a bartender for a second while singing the song). Actor Phil Foster, who played Frank DeFazio, Laverne's dad on Laverne and Shirley, is also in the video.
Also appearing in the video, waiting in the wings to perform, is comedian Rodney Dangerfield ... who gets cast aside by Petrushka the Dancing Bear at the end of the video. Talk about no respect!
"Tell Her About It" made a spectacular debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 38 on July 30, 1983 and shot up to No. 29 the next week. Three weeks later, the song leaped from No. 22 to No. 12. One week later on September 3, 1983, "Tell Her About It" was in the Top 10 at No. 7. From there, the song jumped to No. 5, then up to No. 2 before landing at the No. 1 spot the week of September 24, 1983, spending one week at the top. It would be Joel's second No. 1 hit after his 1980 chart-topper "It's Still Rock 'n Roll To Me." It also gave Ramone his second straight No. 1 hit as he also produced the song that got knocked out of the top spot, Michael Sembello's "Maniac" from the Flashdance soundtrack.
As mentioned before, "Tell Her About It" sent the ball rolling for the album "An Innocent Man." Unlike "The Nylon Curtain," the commercial appeal was far more apparent in this album. Even on the songs that weren't released, they had an influence, too: "Easy Money" was very much a ripoff of the music of James Brown, "Christie Lee" had Little Richard's influence all over it, "Careless Talk" was a tribute to Sam Cooke and "This Night" was a tip of the hat to Little Anthony & The Imperials.
Joel's legend as a star was cemented for life with the album's success. And to think, all he wanted to do was make an album that paid tribute to his heroes musically.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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