For the first time ever, all of Billy Joel's albums will be collected in a single package with The Complete Albums Collection, available November 8 through Columbia/Legacy Recordings.
Included are Joel's fourteen studio albums along with a fifteenth disc that contains rarities from throughout his career.
"This has been a long time coming, putting all my albums into one package," said Billy in a recent in-depth interview for The Complete Albums Collection. "I'd never seen them all together in one place until I got the box set. It represents a lot of work! It's a little overwhelming, actually, looking at each individual album and remembering how much writing and recording, the time spent arranging and producing everything that went into each album."
In addition to offering brand-new remasters of every Billy Joel studio album, Billy Joel - The Complete Albums Collection includes two lavish 60-page booklets, printed lyrics to every Billy Joel composition, a new Q&A with Billy conducted by noted music journalist Steve Morse, and a bonus disc of 17 rare and non-album recordings including Elvis Presley Boulevard (B-side of the Allentown single, 1982); the live cover version of the Beatles' I'll Cry Instead (B-side of An Innocent Man, 1983); House Of Blue Light (B-side of We Didn't Start The Fire, 1989); and You Picked A Real Bad Time (B-side of All About Soul, 1993). You're Only Human (Second Wind) and The Night Is Still Young are outtakes that did not see light of day until 1985.
Several tracks on the bonus disc originated as Billy Joel's contributions to various multi-artist movie soundtracks, notably his covers of the Elvis Presley hits Heartbreak Hotel and All Shook Up, both from 1992's Honeymoon In Vegas. Billy covered Lloyd Price's 1959 hit, Where Were You On Our Wedding Day, for the 1999 movie, Runaway Bride, and Duke Ellington's In A Sentimental Mood for A League Of Their Own in 1992. In 1982, Billy Joel contributed his original Nobody Knows But Me to In Harmony II, a Columbia LP to benefit Sesame Street/Children's Television Workshop.
Other cover tunes on the bonus disc range from Bob Dylan's To Make You Feel My Love and Leonard Cohen's Light as the Breeze to the Gerry Goffin-Carole King standard Hey Girl (Freddie Scott, 1963). In 1991, Billy Joel contributed When You Wish Upon A Star to Columbia's Disney tribute album, Simply Mad About The Mouse. And in 2001, Billy Joel sang the Beach Boys' Don't Worry Baby at the Radio City Music Hall All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson concert.
The contents of the box:
Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Piano Man (1973)
Streetlife Serenade (1974)
Turnstiles (1976)
The Stranger (1977)
52nd Street (1978)
Glass Houses (1980)
Songs In The Attic (1981)
The Nylon Curtain (1982)
An Innocent Man (1983)
The Bridge (1986)
Storm Front (1989)
River Of Dreams (1993)
Fantasies & Delusions (2001)
Collected Additional Masters (1985-2007)
Each album has been remastered in 24-bit audio and are housed in a cardboard jacket replicating the original album cover.
Also being released on November 8 is Piano Man: Legacy Edition with a remastered version of the original album plus a second disc with the April 15, 1972 radio concert Joel performed at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studio. That concert includes three songs, Long, Long Time, Josephine and Rosalinda, which were never released on any of Billy's studio albums.
The track list:
Disc One - The Original Album
Travelin' Prayer
Piano Man
Ain't No Crime
You're My Home
The Ballad Of Billy The Kid
Worse Comes To Worse
Stop In Nevada
If I Only Had The Words (To Tell You)
Somewhere Along The Line
Captain Jack
Disc Two - The Sigma Sound Studios Performance
Introduction
Falling
Travelin' Prayer
The Ballad of Billy the Kid
She's Got A Way
Everybody Loves You Now
Nocturne
Turnaround
Long, Long Time
Captain Jack
Josephine
Rosalind
Tomorrow is Today
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