I outgrew/got bored with Billy Joel decades ago and now find him to be a disinctively unpleasand and downright creepy person..He was one of the first popular musicians I listened to a lot as a youngster....regardless,. this album really is gold and says NYC/Philly/NJ 1970s popular culture like few others...really incredible stuff...Billy's core band supplemented by the usual roster of session musicians/pros (CTI, etc.)... this is the peak of Billy Joel....the first side is one of the great LP Side One's....
What prompted me to listen to this after many many years was that I noticed it has the rare Robert Ludwig RL on the deadwax... its not the first mastering (although came out same year of release) but is pretty hard to find and I've noticed so many of the great records sound best when Robert Ludwig had a role.. think Zeppelin's Brown Bomber, AC/DC Back in Black, etc etc.. I forget the story of why this mastering was done...I'll have to go back to the Steve Hoffman site to research it... you see this record in the dollar bins all the time.. but almost every time it is not the RL master...
