New Billy Joel song

I've been a fan of Billy Joel's work since he released "The Stranger" back in 1977. He was the kid from the Island who made good, and I loved his music. I stayed faithful until "River of Dreams" was released in 1994. A couple of friends gave me sh*t for staying the course when it seemed like it was no longer cool to do so, but such is the nature of a fan. He was One of Ours in my mind and, like I said, I loved his music. And then he decided to retire at least for a while and go do his own thing. He's done a lot of good in the last decade or so, promoting music literacy for kids in New York City by supporting music programs in schools, performing Charity Begins at Home concerts to help support the Long Island fishing industry, and so on.

It seems Mr. Joel's come out of retirement. He's got a new song available on the Web called All My Life, an unabashedly romantic love song written for his wife. The site describes it as a pop song, but what I'm listening to sounds like Billy's decided to channel his inner Frank Sinatra and just croon. (Joel has an uncanny ear for mimicry, so if you hear a little Sinatra in there, I'd bet good money it was a deliberate choice.) Really, for a man who's lived as hard as he has, his voice sounds smooth and rich and disciplined with just enough tatters at the edges to give it character. I don't know how much of what I'm hearing has been cleaned up in the studio, but it's really very fine.

If you dig this sort of thing, go listen.

Flickring and Mooing

Tower,
originally uploaded by scarlettina.

It's all ironymaiden's fault. First, she indulges me by gifting me with a Pro Flickr account. Then she tells me that one can make mini business cards via Moo.com with photos pulled from Flickr. So now, not only do I have beautiful new cards on order that feature my own photography (which I hope to have by RadCon but can't be sure about), but I've also uploaded a bunch of old travel photos to my Flickr site. This shot is the first of eight, so if you click through, you can get a small taste of some of my travels, or you can click here to see the pix as a slide show.

Enjoy!