Billy Joel’s original band is still rockin’ on 52nd Street

The millions of Billy Joel fans around the world would agree that a major factor in his success – along with his talent and charisma, of course – was his hard-hitting band. They backed him on The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain, An Innocent Man and other multi-platinum albums.

The Billy Joel band laid down dozens of well-known songs with precision, finesse and unmatched dynamics. They all created the arrangements in the studio, with Joel and producer Phil Ramone.

The guys went with him on the road, too, playing every show, everywhere. They were a gang, a bunch of New York kids out to take on the world.

Drummer Liberty DeVitto went the longest distance of all. He and Joel had a private falling out – money, ego and hot flashes of pent-up emotion were certainly involved – in 2006. After 30 years, DeVitto was dismissed.

(A lawsuit over unpaid royalties was settled out of court in 2010.)

Along with guitarist Russell Javors and sax/organ player Richie Cannata, both of whom had left Joel’s employ years earlier, DeVitto is a founding member of the Lords of 52^nd Street, which plays only the songs they recorded as foundational members of Joel’s band.

So not a tribute band.

The Lords of 52^nd Street appear Friday at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater. Although illness has kept Cannata home in New York for this tour, the full band includes Dan Orlando, a former resident of St. Petersburg, on piano and vocals (“Dan’s great,” DeVitto says. “We love Dan”).

According to his website, Liberty DeVitto is credited as a drummer on records that have sold a combined total of 150 million units worldwide.

St. Pete Catalyst: Glad you see you were featured prominently in the HBO Max Billy Joel documentary. Still, I was kind of surprised, because I know it didn’t all end happily. Have you guys worked all that stuff out?

Liberty DeVitto: We did. As a matter of fact, right before Covid hit, we were playing in Florida – Fort Lauderdale or something like that – and I texted him before I came down. I said ‘You know, I was a little disappointed in how we ended.’ He wrote me back right away, and he goes ‘I was disappointed, too.’ We agreed to get a meal together. When I went down there, we had a little time off and we had breakfast together.

We didn’t talk about what happened, or anything like that. We were just like two guys standing on a bridge, with troubled waters going underneath it. Not knowing anything, you know what I mean?

So you didn’t feel uncomfortable being interviewed for the documentary?

Oh no, I was all in. Steve Cohen, who directed it, was our lightning designer all the years I was there. And he still works for Billy. He called me up and said hey, I’m doing a documentary – would you want to be a part of it? And I said, you had me at ‘I’m doing…’

In a nutshell, tell me why you three guys decided to do this project? You made huge contributions to those records, but some people would just say ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ You didn’t do that.

No we didn’t. Because first of all there are so many Billy Joel tribute bands out there. And we got inducted into the Long Island Hall of Fame, and we played two songs. Somebody said to us, ‘You guys are the real guys – why don’t you guys get yourself a Billy, and go out and do it?’

So we put it together, and we’ve been having a blast. All the time.

Did you have to get used to playing all these songs without Billy there? The guy that wrote them and sang them?

No. Here’s the thing. On one of the tours, we just did the Nylon Curtain album. And when you hear us play it, you hear the parts that we contributed to Billy’s music. And when we played it, people would come up to us and say ‘That’s not just Billy’s album, that’s YOUR album, too.’ Because you really get to hear what we did for Billy.

You three really can stake a claim to this music. But for you, after 30 years, to get shown the door must have sucked.

When it fell apart, I was so pissed off … what should’ve happened was, I should’ve gone to Billy’s house, stopped him in his driveway when he was pulling out, and said ‘What happened?’

Or he could’ve called me and said ‘Is it true what I’m hearing?’ And I would’ve said no, that’s not true.

But with two stupid, stubborn people, we just had to part ways. And I was very angry. And he was angry, because when I would do an interview with someone, I would diss him. And he would diss me in interviews. It got ugly.

But the thing that happened to me was … you know when you had a girlfriend at one time, and you broke up, and the breakup was really bad? You’re talking bad about her now, but you still have feelings for her? And you’re thinking, why am I saying this about this person?

That’s the way I felt about Billy. I was so angry that I would say things about him, but inside I was hurting because I really still loved him.

After the River of Dreams album in 1993, he stopped writing and recording pop music … did you see that coming?

He was very discouraged with the business of music. He was tired of exposing his life – he always wrote about what he felt in life, what life was really like or what he imagined life should’ve been like. So he was tired of doing that.

I remember walking into the dressing room at the David Letterman show – after we played ‘No Man’s Land’ – and I looked at him and said, you’re gonna stop writing? And he said well, if I need the money I’ll just write the ‘I love you’ song!

Tickets for Friday’s Lords of 52nd Street show (8 p.m.) are at this link.

1978: Richie Cannata, left, Russell Javors, Doug Stegmeyer, Liberty DeVitto, Billy Joel and David Brown.