The first part of Billy Joel’s documentary ends with the musical titan noting, “I realize life doesn’t always have a happy ending.”
The second half of the engrossing “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” wraps with a similar sentiment of realism sprinkled with optimism.
“I’m not finished … I’m still looking. I’m still searching,” Joel, 76, says with watery eyes as he sits in front of a piano in his home. “I may not ever figure it all out. But I’m tryin’.”
The 2 ½-hour continuation of Joel’s life story premieres at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) July 25 on HBO Max (Part One was released July 18) and picks up in 1982, after Joel broke his wrist in a motorcycle accident that threatened his career.
Directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin crafted a comprehensive dive into his later history, leading to his record-setting residency at Madison Square Garden. It is likely not a coincidence that this final chapter – the two parts of the film total five hours and include 110 Joel songs – arrives exactly a year after Joel played his last show of the decade-long run at the hallowed New York venue.
The documentary was completed prior to Joel’s recent diagnosis of normal pressure hydrocephalus, but there are candid assessments of other struggles he’s endured, including depression, bankruptcy and alcoholism.
Much like Part One includes input from Joel’s first wife, Elizabeth Weber, an integral engine of his early career, this installment offers sympathetic and sometimes emotional commentary from ex-wives Christie Brinkley and Katie Lee, along with daughter Alexa and current wife Alexis Roderick,.
Other music luminaries, including Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Sting, Garth Brooks, Jackson Browne and Nas also pop in to expound on what has made Joel one of the preeminent musicians of the past 50 years.
Here are some highlights from the film.
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Billy Joel, his father and his heritage: ‘I will always be a Jew’
Joel fans know that his profound ballad “Vienna” was written for his father, Howard, who left when Joel was a child.
Longtime friend Howard Stern shares, “You see the glimpse of the trauma Billy had in his life in his songs … I think his drive is wanting to know his father through music.”
Joel did find his dad – in Vienna, naturally – when he was a young man playing clubs in Europe. The pair had a standoffish relationship that eroded Joel’s soul as he repeatedly tried to pierce the emotional armor between them until Howard’s death in 2011.
Joel also shares the intense backstory of his family history in Germany – his father grew up under Hitler’s reign – and explains why he wore a yellow Jewish star on his suit during a 2017 concert following a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“I’ve never been political onstage … but I was angry. When (President) Trump comes out and says there are ‘very fine people on both sides’ … the Nazis are not good people, period.”
Joel is resolute as he looks into the camera and says, “No matter what, I will always be a Jew.”
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A vacation led to a love affair with Christie Brinkley
From their first public photos together in 1983, people pegged Joel and Brinkley as an odd couple – the Everyman New Yorker with the radiant supermodel.
Their meeting in St. Barts, where Joel escaped following his exhausting tour behind “The Nylon Curtain,” was a lesson in choosing someone for their heart, not their hairline.
“There was something sweet and old-fashioned about him,” the still-luminous Brinkley says in current day.
Joel was equally smitten. “She was a muse. It was like being a teenager again.”
Their union produced not only daughter Alexa, now 39, but Joel’s wildly successful “An Innocent Man” album that includes the Brinkley-inspired “Uptown Girl.”
Personal videos of the pair on Joel’s boat, carrying a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner, singing Joel’s songs together in the car and doting on Alexa spotlight a couple enthralled with life.
It was Brinkley who brought to Joel’s attention that his manager, Frank Weber (his former brother-in-law) was spending his fortune indiscriminately, a fact that Joel initially refused to believe.
“He trusted (Frank) more than he trusted me, which hurt me,” Brinkley says through tears.
Joel’s moves to rebuild his career, including the “Storm Front” and “River of Dreams” albums and subsequent tours, led to severe drinking. That, coupled with his work consumption, escalated into an untenable situation for Brinkley.
“I don’t think he knew how he could hurt people,” she says.
The pair divorced in 1994 after nearly 10 years of marriage.
Joel’s struggles with addiction and homebody tendencies also prompted his split with Food Network chef Katie Lee more than 20 years later.
Joel and current wife Alexis married in 2015 and have two young daughters, Della Rose and Remy Anne.
“I still believe in love,” he says of his current home life.
How Hurricane Sandy led to Billy Joel’s MSG residency
After Hurricane Sandy decimated parts of Long Island in 2012, Joel, a native entrenched in his hometown, took the stage for the first time in years as part of the “121212” relief concert at Madison Square Garden and realized, “there’s still gas in the tank.”
His booking agent suggested a regular return to performing with a monthly stint at the venue. Joel figured he and his longtime band would play six shows and ticket demand would cease.
Instead, he performed 100 sellouts over 10 years.
As footage plays of Joel strapping on his harmonica – the telltale signal that “Piano Man” is looming – during an MSG show, the film cuts to video of him in 1973 at his signing day at Columbia Records, singing what became his signature song.
His voice is higher, his hair shaggier and his future uncertain.
But Joel came to a realization through the next 50-plus years: “Music saved my life.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Billy Joel doc Part 2 delves into addiction, divorces and MSG shows
