MusicMonday—Just Watch This Crazy Chain of Events

On the weekend, Gary and I were driving into town.  Billy Joel’s You May Be Right came on the radio. 

Me:  Did you have this album? 

Him:  Who didn’t?! 

Me:  I know!  Glass Houses--it was my favorite album.  I played that thing to death.

[Suddenly Amerigo Vespucci pops into my head.

 

I’m trying to remember the drummer in Billy Joel’s band.

I recognized that Amerigo wasn’t correct since he was, duh, an explorer.

 

Just look at his impressive journeys, all happening in a time span around 1500!  No wonder he has some continents named for him.  But no drumming career that I know of.]

 

Me:  You remember the drummer, what was his name?!   Remember on the record jacket he was wearing a watch around his leg?

Him:  No.  (laughing)  But funny you should say that.

Me:  Why?  I remember I thought he was so cool.

Him:  Well, I was trying to look different in high school so one day I wore my watch around my ankle and you saw it and went like this (does side-glance skeptical face and shakes head back and forth, no-style).

Me:  Hilarious!  I don’t even remember that. 

 

But I do remember this! (sound of breaking glass)  It was 1980. This was Billy’s real house, btw, on the Glass Houses cover. 

 

Album back side: 

 

And do you know why I love Internet so much? 

 

Because I could totally see this image from the album liner in my head, even though I haven’t actually seen it in like 30 years, but I definitely wanted to just see it again.  Mostly to know I wasn’t crazy making up this watch on the ankle thing. 

And btw, his name was Liberty DeVitto.  Not sure where I got Amerigo, but apparently they are filed near each other in my brain under Italian names. 

Here’s Liberty’s story.  Born in New York City of Italian ancestry, he taught himself to play the drums.  After working with Billy Joel for 30 years, he was let go for the 2006 Billy Joel tour for an unknown reason.  He had been the longest–playing member of Billy Joel's band, dating back to 1976.   DeVitto filed a lawsuit saying Joel and Sony Music owed him over 10 years worth of royalty payments. DeVitto has never been given songwriting credit on any of Joel's songs, but he claims that he helped write some of them. In April 2010, it was announced that Joel and DeVitto "amicably resolved" the lawsuit. 

Whew, I was worried that I wasn’t going to like the outcome, and that wouldn’t be right knowing they were such long-time buds.

So, anywho, I found this Q and A when I finally remembered his name and Googled him.  It’s the real story about the watch!

Q: Did you really wear a watch on your ankle? ~Matt Johnson (via Facebook)

Liberty: We were such a boring bunch during that photo session that the photographer finally said, “Can you guys please do something different?” So I took off my glasses and put my watch on my ankle. When the photo came to the studio it was still boring, so Billy took the grease pencil and wrote our names and instruments on the picture. That’s what you get in the sleeve [of the Glass Houses LP].
And that’s the story, starting with a little Saturday drive into town.