By Bill Smith I Go to Extremes: The Billy Joel Story Hardcover – 15 Mar. 2007

Easy to read story of a nice man and great entertainer thoroughly enjoyed the book. Would recommend to any fan

A good read about Billy's life, from his childhood as a happy,popular boy,close to his mother and older sister. Learning the piano and boxing in his teens....right through the early years and his emergence in the mid seventies as one hell of a singer songwriter.The battles with unscrupulous music business types including Billy's first wife's husband.The Grammy's, the record critics, the triumphant record breaking 12 sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.While I felt slightly uncomfortable reading the break up letters to a love lost, I thoroughly enjoyed the read and even I, a lifelong fan, came across some new episodes that add to the great man's apeal. One particular part where the head of Columbia Records intervenes on Billy's behalf and gets his early rights back from rip off merchants, the royalties back where they belong! Thanks Bill Smith....and thankyou Billy.

I first got into Billy Joel during a 4 month visit to the USA in late 1977 just after The Stranger was released. I went to see his 1st concert at the Drury Lane Theatre in February 1978 which is one of the best concerts I have ever seen. I have seen him on each of his UK tours since then.I have just played all the albums over the last 4 weeeks and realised that I had never read anything about him. I got this and the Mark Bego book and have read them both.Bill Smith has known Billy for a number of years and has quotes from him so maybe he has had some say in the content.I read the Mark Bego book first and found myself referring back to it several times as there are a lot of differences.This book spends more time covering the early days and there is less discussions of the songs.Billy's grandfather got stitched up when selling his business in Nazi Germany and Billy also had 2 bad contracts. I guess it was common in the late 60's/early 70's for artist to get ripped off by their managers.The big disappointment to me was the way that Billy treated his long time band members. They had stuck with him for a long while, had performed on several albums but were just on salaries and got no royalties. The way they were sacked was very poor and Doug Stegemeyer's story is tragic.I would recommend this book. It is a difficult choice to say whether this is better than the Mark Bego book. It is worth while reading both. It is difficult to recommend which one to read first. It may be worth while leaving a gap between reading them both rather than doing both in a week.

I could not put this book down! It is full of never before read information on Billy Joel's life, written in a professional and appealing manner that kept me turning page after page all day. Unlike other Billy Joel 'biographies' which are nothing more than cut and paste efforts, this book is the real deal, the book that Billy Joel fans like myself have waited for decades to read.The information never before known about Billy's life spun through some amazing antedotes not only defines one of the great musical voices of our generation, but will the authors tireless research and personal interviews, including those with Billy, we finally get to see the definitive work on Joel's incrediable life and career.Fairly written and exhaustivly researched, this book is destined to be a best-seller and to remain the Billy Joel biography! Bravo to Smith for his obvious tireless work and presenting his subject fairly and in an objective manner.Billy Joel fans and those just interested in the world of music should buy this book! You won't be sorry!

As a long time rock music fan and a devottee of Billy Joel's music, I like many others have wondered when a biography worth reading on Billy's life would come along. Well here it is! I was fortunate to receive a review copy and could not put the bloody book down!This biography on Billy's life and music is not only written in a refreshingly professional manner, but the extensive research that went into the book is clearly evident as well. Bill Smith should be proud of this book and Joel fans I'm sure will love it. It is an amazing read FULL of material never before known about Joel's life and his music. Equally as important it is fairly written and gives the reader a look inside Joel's life and mind that we have until now never known.Buy this book. You will not be sorry. I wasn't. In fact, I'm going to read it again!

In fast allen steht das gleiche. Für mich ist es zum english lernen. Der Inhalt ist ähnlich wie bei den anderen Biographien, dieses Mal mit Abdruck seiner Liebesbriefe. Kann nicht nachvollziehen ,dass ein so toller Musiker sein gesamtes Privatleben ausposaunt.Es wäre besser gewesen, eine Grenze zu setzen, das spricht nicht für ihn. Auch der Suizid, all dies ist intim und gehört nicht in die Öffenlichkeit. Als Musiker bekäme er von mir mindestens 10 Sterne, als Mensch???