Billy Joel’s Musical Director and Keyboardist David Rosenthal has attentively arranged all the tracks from Joel’s final pop studio album to combine the piano parts and vocal melodies into playable arrangements with accurate transcriptions of those classic piano parts that are integral to each song. It also includes a foreword by David Rosenthal, some thoughts from Billy Joel about the lyrics to the title track, and great photos of Billy. Songs include: All About Soul • Blonde over Blue • Famous Last Words • The Great Wall of China • Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) • A Minor Variation • No Man’s Land • The River of Dreams • Shades of Grey • Two Thousand Years.
click here to read David’s Foreword
Released in 1993, River of Dreams was Billy Joel’s 12th studio album. It entered the Billboard charts at #1 where it remained for 3 weeks and has sold more than 6 million copies worldwide.
The album yielded 4 singles: “The River of Dreams”, “All About Soul”, “Lullabye” and “No Man’s Land”. The biggest hit was the title track which peaked at #3 on the US charts and reached #1 in Australia and New Zealand. Its bouncy rhythm and singable gospel choir answers make the song a crowd favorite every time we play it live.
Having played keyboards in Billy Joel’s band since 1993, I have an inside perspective into his music. Accordingly, Billy asked that I review every note of the sheet music in his entire catalog of songs. As a pianist myself, he entrusted me with the task of correcting and re-transcribing each piece to ensure that the printed music represents each song exactly as it was written and recorded. This is the latest edition in our series of revised songbooks in the Billy Joel catalog.
The challenge with each folio in Billy’s catalog is to find musical ways to combine his piano parts and vocal melodies into playable piano arrangements. First, the signature piano parts are transcribed and notated exactly as Billy played them. The vocal melodies are then transcribed and incorporated into the piano part in a way that preserves the original character of each song. Billy’s piano embellishments between his vocal phrases are also included wherever they’re playable along with the vocal melodies.
All of the songs in this collection received the same astute attention to detail. The result is sheet music that is both accurate and enjoyable to play and remains true to the original performances.
Billy and I are pleased to present the revised and now accurate sheet music to the classic album River of Dreams.
Enjoy,
David Rosenthal
July 2022
