Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
I just watched the “Billy Joel 100th consecutive sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden” TV Special and for me, it was a 2 hour smile fest. Billy Joel is only 2 years older than me and if you were to listen to the soundtrack of my life, it would be full of his music. Now I wasn’t a superfan of his, but I liked his songs and the show took me right down the fast lane of my memory.
I grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and music was a big part of my life. In 1974, Bachman-Turner Overdrive had a hit song called “Taking Care of Business” which had a line in it that stuck in my brain. They sang “it’s as easy as fishin’ you can be a musician, if you can make a sound loud or mellow. Get a second-hand guitar, chances are you’ll go far, if you get in with the right bunch of fellas”. I dreamt of being in a band, but I never really got in with the right bunch of fellas.
When I was in high school, I spent some time with a friend that taught me how to play the guitar. After graduation, I went to Chicago to attend the DeVry Institute of Technology. I had some roommates that also played guitar and we messed around with it. I wasn’t there that long before I left that school to join the military. While I was in USAF Avionics Tech School in Denver, I started singing with another roommate that was a very talented musician. We did some Simon and Garfunkel stuff and he was the first guy I met that told me I could sing. But Tech School was also temporary and before long we too went our separate ways. Again, so much for getting in with the right bunch of fellas.
After my military stint, I went to Junior College and majored in music. I was honing my skills but that also did not work out for long. As I approached my 10 year high school class reunion, I ran across a friend who had a band that would be providing music for the event. I asked him if I could sing a song with his band at the reunion and he agreed. I practiced with them and was prepared to sing the Billy Joel song (Just the Way You Are). The band started at 10pm but I didn’t get a chance to sing until midnight. But I did it, and it was good, but a lot of the attendees had already left by then. Still, it was my first public performance and I was thrilled to do it. But that was a one time thing and I still wasn’t in with the right bunch of fellas. I got some more experience singing with a church youth group and I got a lot of solo work with that, but it just wasn’t the same.
My life wasn’t giving me the opportunities to do serious singing so I was left with my Karaoke a few decades later. Meanwhile Billy Joel was busy with songs that spoke to me and where I was in life. I had many memories tap in to my brain watching his show. His music was so relatable to me, my life’s stories for many decades came back to me.
It was interesting, seeing all these old guys rocking the house with the great songs of my youth. I remember when I was a teenager listening to this new British band called the Rolling Stones, and thinking to myself “are these guys going to still be rocking it when they are old men? Funny, that’s exactly what happened. And Billy Joel too. He’s a bald old man in his seventies but he’s still got it. I found comfort in that fact. I was so lucky to have grown up when I did and experienced, first hand, all these incredible entertainers. As Billy Joel closed out his concert with “Piano Man”, I was taken back to the days when I was hosting Karaoke shows in bars and restaurants as a side gig. I could really relate to many of the song’s lyrics. While I was not a piano player, I was the entertainment for the evening and I saw similar patrons. I also relate to the microphone smelling like beer.
It was the closest I ever got to being an entertainer. Karaoke provided me with “the right bunch of fellas” technologically, and that was good enough for me. It’s been a long time since I have attended a concert like Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden, and I’m so glad I got the chance to watch it. Music is the best, be it Rock and Roll, Classical, Jazz, Big Band, or Country. It’s wonderful to be able to smile for 2 hours straight.
