VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 12345678[9]10 ]
Subject: An Innocent Man Smoothfm Wednesday 14/8/2013 Valentine timline


Author:
Thursday 2013
[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
Date Posted: 05:22:36 08/14/13 Wed

An Innocent Man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the Billy Joel album. For the title track, see An Innocent Man (song). For other uses, see Innocent Man.
An Innocent Man

Studio album by Billy Joel
Released August 8, 1983 (1983-08-08)
Recorded Chelsea Sound and A&R Recording, Inc., New York, NY Spring, 1983
Genre Rock, pop rock
Length 40:25
Label Family Productions/Columbia
Producer Phil Ramone
Billy Joel chronology
The Nylon Curtain
(1982) An Innocent Man
(1983) Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 (1973-1985)
(1985)


Singles from An Innocent Man
"Tell Her About It"
Released: July 1983
"Uptown Girl"
Released: September 1983
"An Innocent Man"
Released: December 1983
"The Longest Time"
Released: March 1984
"Leave a Tender Moment Alone"
Released: July 1984
"Keeping the Faith"
Released: September 1984
"This Night"
Released: November 1984

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
Rolling Stone [2]
An Innocent Man is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on August 8, 1983. The album is a tribute to the American popular music of Joel's teenage years with Joel paying homage to a number of different popular American musical styles from the late 1950s and early 1960s, most notably doo-wop and soul music (see each track listed below for specific homages).[3] The album cover artwork was taken on the front steps of 142 Mercer Street, just north of the intersection of Mercer and Prince Street in the SoHo neighborhood in New York City.[citation needed]

Contents [hide]
1 Chart performance
2 Awards
3 Background
4 Track listing
4.1 LP track listing
5 Personnel
6 Production
7 Accolades
7.1 Grammy Awards
7.2 American Music Awards
8 Charts
8.1 Peak positions
8.2 Certifications and sales
8.3 Year-end charts
8.4 Decade-end charts
9 References
Chart performance[edit source | edit]The album featured three Billboard Top 10 hit singles: "Tell Her About It", which reached #1, "Uptown Girl", which peaked at #3 and "An Innocent Man", which peaked at #10. Four other singles were released from the album: "The Longest Time" (number 14), "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (number 27), "Keeping the Faith" (number 18) and "This Night" (US B-Side of "Leave a Tender Moment Alone"). "Tell Her About It" and "Uptown Girl" garnered international success — "Uptown Girl" reached #1 in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. An Innocent Man entered the U.S. Pop chart for 111 weeks, becoming Joel's longest charting studio album behind The Stranger. For over a year, the album remained on the charts in the UK, Japan, and Australia.

Awards[edit source | edit]Like his three previous efforts, Joel's An Innocent Man received a nomination for the 26th Grammy Award for Album of the Year although Joel lost the award to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Joel was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Uptown Girl" but Jackson won in that category as well.

Background[edit source | edit]In an interview about the making of the album, Joel talks about the fact that at the time that he was recording An Innocent Man, he was newly divorced from his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and was single for the first time since achieving rock star status. So he had the opportunity to date supermodels like Elle Macpherson and Christie Brinkley, and because of these experiences, he said, "I kind of felt like a teenager all over again." [3] And so he started writing songs in the same style as pop songs that he remembered from his teenage years, citing pop music from the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "early R&B songs and The Four Seasons, and the Motown music, soul music."

Joel explained, "When you're gonna write [songs for a new album], you write what you're feeling. And I didn't fight it. The material was coming so easily and so quickly, and I was having so much fun doing it. I was kind of reliving my youth. . .I think within 6 weeks I had written most of the material on the album." Joel also said that he was pleasantly surprised to have hit records in the 1980s with retro songs like the mostly a cappella doo wop song "The Longest Time."[3]

Track listing[edit source | edit]All songs by Billy Joel, except for the chorus for "This Night," which is credited on the sleeve to L. V. Beethoven.

The track listing on the LP is slightly different from that on the cassette and original CD pressings, with the latter swapping "The Longest Time" and "Uptown Girl"'s places respectively. However, on the actual cassette shell and disc label, the songs are listed (and play) in the correct order as printed on the LP.

LP track listing[edit source | edit]Side One
No. Title Length
1. "Easy Money" (Homage to James Brown and Wilson Pickett[3]) 4:04
2. "An Innocent Man" (Homage to Ben E. King and The Drifters) 5:17
3. "The Longest Time" (Homage to doo-wop) 3:42
4. "This Night" (Homage to Little Anthony and the Imperials) 4:17
5. "Tell Her About It" (Homage to Motown girl groups like The Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas) 3:52
Side Two
No. Title Length
1. "Uptown Girl" (Homage to Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons[4]) 3:17
2. "Careless Talk" (Homage to Sam Cooke) 3:48
3. "Christie Lee" (Homage to Little Richard) 3:31
4. "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" (Homage to Smokey Robinson) 3:56
5. "Keeping the Faith" (Homage to late 1950s-early 1960s R&B) 4:41
Personnel[edit source | edit]Billy Joel - Baldwin acoustic piano (SF-10), Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3, vocals, background vocals
Liberty DeVitto - drums
Doug Stegmeyer - bass
David Brown - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead guitar
Russell Javors - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar
Mark Rivera - alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, percussion
Ralph MacDonald - percussion on "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" and "Careless Talk"
Leon Pendarvis - Hammond B-3 on "Easy Money"
Richard Tee - acoustic piano on "Tell Her About It"
Eric Gale - electric guitar on "Easy Money"
"String Fever" - strings
Ronnie Cuber - baritone saxophone on "Easy Money", "Careless Talk", "Tell Her About It" and "Keeping the Faith"
Jon Faddis - trumpet on "Easy Money"
David Sanborn - alto saxophone on "Easy Money"
Joe Shepley - trumpet on "Easy Money", "Careless Talk", "Tell Her About It" and "Keeping the Faith"
Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone on "Careless Talk", "Tell Her About It" and "Keeping the Faith"
John Gatchell - trumpet on "Careless Talk", "Tell Her About It" and "Keeping the Faith"
Tom Bahler - background vocals
Rory Dodd - background vocals
Frank Floyd - background vocals
Lani Groves - background vocals
Ullanda McCullough - background vocals
Ron Taylor - background vocals
Terry Textor - background vocals
Eric Troyer - background vocals
Mike Alexander - background vocals
Solos

"Toots" Thielemans - harmonica on "Leave a Tender Moment Alone"
Mark Rivera - alto saxophone on "Keeping the Faith", "This Night" and "Christie Lee"
Production[edit source | edit]Producer: Phil Ramone
Engineers: Jim Boyer, Bradshaw Leigh
Assistant engineers: Mike Allaire, Scott James
Production coordinator: Laura Loncteaux
Mastering: Ted Jensen
Horn and string arrangements: David Matthews
Background vocal arrangements: Tom Bahler
Musical advisor: Billy Zampino
Photography: Gilles Larrain
Cover design: Christopher Austopchuk, Mark Larson
Recorded at Chelsea Sound and A & R Recording, Inc., New York, NY
Mixed at A & R Recording, Inc., New York, NY
Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, NY

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]


[ Contact Forum Admin ]


Forum timezone: GMT+10
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.