This edition of COLD SPRING HARBOR is an Enhanced CD containing both a full audio program as well as a video clip for the song "Everybody Loves You Now."

Personnel: Billy Joel (vocals); Larry Carlton, Don Evans, "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow, Sal De Troia (guitar); Al Campbell, L.D. Dixon (piano, keyboards, synthesizers); Rhys Clark, Mike McGee, Danny Siewell (drums, percussion).

Recorded at Record Plant West, Los Angeles, California & at Ultrasonic Studios, Hempstead, New York.

Digitally remastered by Ted Jensen (Sterling Sound, New York, New York).

A few short months after abandoning the heavy organ-and-drums duo Attila -- partially because their sole record flopped, partially because he stole the drummer's wife -- Billy Joel reinvented himself as a sensitive singer/songwriter. He had shown signs of McCartney-esque songcraft on Hour of the Wolf, the last Hassles album, but his debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, is where these talents blossomed. The record was uneven but very charming, boasting two of his finest songs -- the lovely "She's Got a Way" and the bitterly cynical "Everybody Loves You Now" -- and a score of flawed but nicely crafted songs that illustrated Joel's gift for melody, as well as his pretensions (the mock-gospel in "Tomorrow Is Today," a classical stab entitled "Nocturne"). In its own way, Cold Spring Harbor was a minor gem of the sensitive singer/songwriter era; Joel may have been in his formative stages as a craftsman, but his talents are apparent, and he never made an album as intimate and vulnerable ever again. Ironically, it didn't sound right upon its original release. Through a bizarre mastering error, the tapes were sped up -- legend has it that upon hearing the completed album, he ripped it off the turntable, ran out of the house, and threw it down the street. It wasn't until 1983 that Columbia released a corrected reissue. The speed wasn't the only thing changed -- some songs were edited drastically ("You Can Make Me Free," one of the standouts, was chopped by nearly five minutes) and instruments and backing vocals were stripped away from numerous tracks. It may be a bastardization of the original release, but it's an acceptable one, since these changes only accentuate the intimacy and vulnerability of the recording. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Billy Joel's melodic gifts were very much in evidence on his first album, more so because the rest of his talents still had some catching up to do. COLD SPRING HARBOR contains the lovely devotional ballad "She's Got a Way," which became a hit when a live version was released more than a decade later (on SONGS IN THE ATTIC). It also features a couple of frenetically catchy melodies in "Everybody Loves You Now" and "Falling of the Rain" (whose arpeggiated piano playing would become a Joel trademark).

The words often seem like afterthoughts--something to sing the melodies with--but there sure are a lot of them. "Everybody Loves You Now," about the isolation of fame (did he know something even then?), has more verses than you'd think anyone could fit into two and a half minutes. The original album was mistakenly sped up in the mastering process and was long a source of embarrassment to Joel. It quickly went out of print and remained so until Columbia released a corrected version in 1984, finally giving fans the chance to hear where it all began.