Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville
Tony Mantor talks with entertainment industry people in the U.S. and internationally that have made a mark for themselves.
Conversations with those behind the scenes people that help them achieve their success along with up and coming entertainers as well.
Stories that give a deeper understanding on what it takes to achieve success in the entertainment industry.
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Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville
Steve Cohen: Behind the scenes: Billy Joel's And So It Goes HBO Documentary
Steve Cohen, Emmy award-winning producer and Billy Joel's longtime creative director, guides us through the creation of HBO's powerful new documentary "Billy Joel: And So It Goes," premiering July 18th and 25th as a landmark two-part film exploring the Piano Man's extraordinary life and music.
• Billy Joel initially resisted documentary proposals for years, believing "his life is in his music" until recently deciding the time was right
• The project came together when filmmaker Susan Lacey (creator of PBS's American Masters series) connected with Cohen through a series of fortunate coincidences
• Cohen served as executive producer while ensuring Billy maintained no editorial control to preserve the film's authenticity
• Susan Lacey and co-director Jessica Levin created an unexpected connection with Billy through their shared classical music backgrounds and Holocaust survivor family histories
• The documentary features 120 Billy Joel songs and reveals the personal stories and motivations behind his writing that he rarely discussed publicly
• Steve Cohen is transitioning from his 50-year rock and roll touring career to focus on film and television production as his "second act"
Watch "Billy Joel: And So It Goes" premiering on HBO July 18th (Part One) and July 25th (Part Two).
My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes and hear from people who helped them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. World of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville.
Speaker 1:Joining us today is Emmy award-winning producer, steve Cohen. We'll dive into the making of Billy Joel and so it Goes, the powerful new documentary premiering on HBO July 18th and 25th. As Billy Joel's longtime creative director and trusted friend, he was handpicked to guide this intimate cinematic portrait, working with acclaimed directors Susan Lacey and Jessica Levin to craft a film as honest as it is heartfelt, featuring never-before-seen footage, unreleased performances and soul-bearing interviews. It's a deep dive into the life and legacy of one of music's greatest icons. This project also marks a defining chapter in Steve's second act, as he shifts from a legendary five-decade career designing and producing for the biggest names in music to a full-time focus on film and television producing. It's a true pleasure to have him join us today. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm very happy to do this. I love talking about this project and I love talking about life, and I have a good time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. You've got a project going on with Billy Joel. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Speaker 2:Well, the HBO documentary and so it Goes is dropping for broadcast on July 18th. It's a two-part documentary, so the first part is July 18th, the second part is July 25th. It is what we believe is the definitive Billy Joel documentary. It traces his life and career from the beginning to present day and I am the executive producer for the project. I'm Billy's creative director. I've been with Billy for. My first gig with him as his lighting director designer was in November of 1974. And I know I don't look that old, but it's 50, 51 years of a fantastic journey and he's one of my closest friends and been a part of me and my family for most of my adult life. So this project is very near and dear to me because it's his story, but a good part of it is my story as well. I was there. So I feel very honored and very blessed that I was able to help these filmmakers bring this story to the screen.
Speaker 1:So what transpired? How did this all come about? I mean, everyone wants to do what they consider the ultimate story, whether it's about Billy or whomever it might be. So how did this all come together for you?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a fun journey. My role as creative director. I'm the visual guy, I do all the television projects and you know so it falls on my in my purview. Whenever anybody approaches any type of film, television project, billy sort of trusts me to sort of vet them and figure out if they make sense and then present to him a plan on how to execute it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure he's had many over the years come to him.
Speaker 2:He has gotten a lot of interest over the years to tell his story in a documentary form. He's basically not been interested because, as he has said many times, his life is in his music and you get all you need to know about me and my songs. It's basically been his mantra for years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Do you feel that maybe now that he's aged a little bit more, this made him a little more receptive to doing this?
Speaker 2:He turned 75. He turned 70, really when this project started and we were finishing up this run of this historic run at Madison Square Garden, and I just think he felt that it was time that he could sort of lift the veil and tell a little bit more of the story, because I don't know, I really don't know the motivation. I think at one point he just woke up and said yeah, I think it's okay to do now. So what ended up happening was, in the interim, before he had said yes, I had a meeting with a filmmaker named Susan Lacey. I live in East Hampton, she lives in Sac Harbor. She had an overall deal with HBO, had done Jane Fonda and Steven Spielberg, but prior to that she started the American Masters series that she ran for 30 years at PBS. She had gravitas as a filmmaker and as a documentary filmmaker to me because she did some of the most amazing documentaries over a 30-year period of the greatest artists in the world and I thought, well, you know, if someone's going to come in to do something and tell Billy's story, this would be a really nice baseline of filmmaking. So long story short. We had a meeting. We got along like a house on fire. She realized that I was the gateway to all the archives and that I was going to be able to deliver to her the materials she needed to tell the story. I thought that she had a real interesting take because she wasn't a praised Billy Joel fan. She knew his music but she really just knew, you know, the surface. And I thought this is interesting because as she starts to learn about Billy, she would uncover things from a different perspective than those of us lived in. So we shelved it. I said if we ever decide to do it, we will. A year later, you know, I would contact her A year later through Hazy Mills, sean Hayes and Todd Milner, who were also friends and also had presented a few scripted ideas to me.
Speaker 2:They came up with the idea of well, maybe we should consider, you know, pushing forward on a documentary. They the idea of well, maybe we should consider, you know, pushing forward on the documentary. They had a relationship with Tom Hanks and Gary Getzman and they called up and said would you be interested in having Tom Hanks participate in his company participate? And I said, oh, wait a minute, let me think about this for a minute. Yeah, yeah, I think their resume is great. And I thought, well, this is a really interesting combination. So they said to me we've got an idea of who we would like to direct, and it's a woman. And I said, oh, wait a minute, who could that possibly be? And they said it was Susan Lacey. So it's sort of like the gods conspired with people to get together to do it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome when something like that just kind of falls together. So, with all the pieces of the puzzle finally coming together, what happened next?
Speaker 2:One of the things that we decided was that, you know, hbo was a home for a story that has meaning. You know, hbo was a critically acclaimed network. It also wasn't a situation where Billy wanted to tell his own story and produce his documentary himself. He was. I'm not going to tell my story, that's not for me, that's for someone else. So Susan, having her deal with HBO, it just felt like we would be able to get a high quality film with a big enough budget to do it the right way. It would have a meaningful home and one of the things that was important when Billy and I talked about it, I said you know, you have to understand that if we go forward with this, we really can't have any editorial control, like we have to trust that she is going to tell the story because it can't have any reek of self, it can't be a self-promotional tool, otherwise people won't take it seriously. And then what's the point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes great sense. What was his response?
Speaker 2:All he said to me was and then eventually said to Susan look, just tell the truth. If you're honest, I got nothing to hide, that sort of set the tone for what this film. You know how this film developed. You know Billy has a career and a life that's been lived in public. His successes and failings have all been pounded by the press. He knew that if he was going to say tell the story, it was going to be. You know what's that expression Tell the story warts and all.
Speaker 2:And Susan, one of the reasons that we gravitated towards her is that she only wanted to tell the story as it related to the music and wanted to find out the direct connection between Billy's life experiences and his compositions. So we were in good hands, knew that there would be some uncomfortable moments that would have to be dealt with. We knew that there was going to be some things that were going to be hard to watch. Once again, billy was like you know what? I've said it all before. You got all these hours and hours of archives, you got my music, you got my compositions, you got my classical music, you got my life story. Tell the tale. And this is where Susan was so incredible.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So can you expand on what she did?
Speaker 2:First of all, she brought in a co-director named Jessica Levin, who was a producer who's been working with her for 25 years. And brought her in as a co-director because for all of the things that Susan Lacey didn't know about Billie, jessica Levin knew more. Like Jessica Levin, you know, knew almost more, certainly knew more than I did about the early years, but was a real Billy Joel encyclopedia. She knew all of the stories and she knew a lot of the catalog. She knew the B song. She knew a lot of the life experiences. So between the two of them they had a pretty full, well-rounded approach to the film. But what Susan said was I've got to talk to him, we've got to have Billy's observation of these things as he sees them through his lens today. I didn't think she'd get him. To be honest with you. I thought that Billy would push back on the multiple interviews and the sit-down conversations.
Speaker 2:But Susan Lacey has a particular warmth about her, you know made him feel very comfortable. On top of it, she comes from a classically trained family. All of her siblings play classical instruments. They're professional musicians. And then the other thing that was pretty interesting is that they share a common history with the Holocaust. Both their families are Holocaust survivors. So between the classical and the Holocaust history, she was able to make Billy feel comfortable enough to go places that he wouldn't have normally. And what you get out of this film, those are the people who are super Billy fans, who know his history will get a complete picture. Those who have no idea of the classical roots, as well as the Holocaust story, will be dumbfounded by the level of Shakespearean life experiences this man's been through that contribute to his, that contribute to his writing. So that's kind of the origin story.
Speaker 1:I think that's great. Sometimes the best stories are brought to you by those that don't know the whole story, because they're asking questions that they don't know and it really digs into what people want to hear.
Speaker 2:That is very true. And then the other part of it is she has such respect for the creative process. I've been in the room with the greatest composers, architects, choreographers, dancers, artists. She has such a respect for the process of creativity and such an interest in the motivations of what makes us artistic. You know, I think that that combination made her want to explore. She didn't know how funny he was, she didn't know how much she was a student of history. This guy read. You know he didn't have a TV until he was 15 years old. He read everything. He read history. He could be a professor about World War II. You know, he's just thought all of these layers to him that she discovered, as she discovered the songs and the materials and was able to connect the dots, his life experiences and his lyrics and his music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just so good. Now you produce this film. Now, with the production side, you let the people do what they do best, because that's the way you get the best project. So what did you find for struggles? Because they're always the bumps in the road. And once you found them, how did you overcome them?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the biggest struggle for me is because I know Billy so well and we were constantly, whether we were working or whether we were doing stadium shows or doing Madison Square Garden, scheduling his participation number one was very important, very sensitive thing, because I knew that I needed to be able to put Billy in a room with her when he was in the right headspace, sure. So the scheduling and that environment was really important. You know, for example, we did one interview in his house. She made a decision that any interview with Billy he had to be sitting at a piano because, as I say in the film, billy is not comfortable in a room until he sits behind a piano. It's not to perform, it's because that's his security blanket, that's where he's most comfortable. So she knew, and he refers to music so much that if with the instrument next to him, he can show examples. So it was really important that any interview with him was at a piano.
Speaker 2:We did one interview at his house in Florida. There was too much distractions, the kids were around and all that stuff. So what I ended up doing was we ended up filming almost all of his interviews at my homes. I have a house in East Hampton and I have a house in Florida and he lives in East Hampton. Well, he lives in Sac Harbor in the summertime and in Florida in the wintertime, so he would come over here, he would get away from the house. I have a piano, so he was very comfortable hanging out because he's hung out of my house for years. So that was part of the challenge which, once we established that that's what we were going to do it, and I think we did only one other interview at Susan's house because she has a beautiful piano, but it was always in that environment. That was a challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's always something like that, for sure. Now, were there any other challenges you had to address?
Speaker 2:I started to take over sort of the archive project after the person who had done archives had passed away about six years ago. Quite frankly, they were a mess. They were impossible to trace, they were impossible to find and I had a knowledge of a lot of the archive performances and interviews because, a I was either there. I either lit them, they were at shows that I participated in or I was there when those things were made. So my institutional memory of what existed in the archives was key to them when they started to talk about areas of segments that they were putting together there's this thing, there's that thing, there's this thing, there's that thing. So that was very important for me.
Speaker 2:And then the other that was challenging for me and the other biggest challenge was keeping my mouth shut because I have an opinion and it's not my film is my film, it's very much my film in soul and in spirit. But they're the filmmakers I had to be very mindful of if I had an idea or I had a message, or I had something that I felt they could have explored differently or that they needed a little bit. Of another side, I had to be mindful of how I A delivered the message and that B that I delivered it without an agenda, so it took a good deal of conscious effort.
Speaker 1:How difficult was it for you.
Speaker 2:It was easy because, you know, susan and I got along like a house on fire. Jessica and I became fast friends because it was a labor of love for all of us. So in some ways they sort of pushed me. They were sort of like what's your feeling about this? And I would have to like go. I have to keep my powder dry because, number one, I don't want the film to feel that because I've said something is not authentic, but at the same time I know that this thing is probably not the best example of the thing you want to use. So it was challenging to be as professional and as educated as I possibly could. It was a test and I learned a lot, but I think I navigated it pretty well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds like you did great. You brought up that you learned a lot. Sometimes you've worked with a person for a long time. You think you know everything. Then something comes up and you go. Is that so? Did you have anything come up during this whole process where you went? Whoa?
Speaker 2:is that so? I don't know, I don't think so. Billy and my relationship is a very current relationship. It's ongoing. We don't go through long periods of time where we don't talk and we don't connect. We're pretty current in our life stuff and I knew most of these stories because he'd either talk to me about them or I'd experience them with him.
Speaker 2:I didn't have really those moments, but what did surprise me? This is a guy who never expressed how he felt out loud. He just never. He was never that kind of guy. You know those people that love. You know I'm one of those guys that I'll tell you everything. He's one of those guys that just like doesn't talk about that stuff.
Speaker 2:So my biggest aha moment in all this was observing him becoming so willing to talk about things that he never talked about throughout all those years. You know the motivation for the songs, the subject matter of the songs. He was always very much deflecting. You know they're not about me, they're about my life experiences, but I think in a lot of ways there were specifics. He lets you know a little bit more of what you thought was going on in his head that he kept close to the vest, why he kept it close to the vest is his choice. But you know, I don't know what his motivation is. Sometimes he just prefers not to talk about it, or sometimes he just thinks it's better for you to figure it out. That, I think, was the biggest thing, was seeing how the emotions of his life experiences that he was forthright in talking about that.
Speaker 1:So, with all the effort that you've put into this film, the time that it's taken to record it, the time that it's taken to edit it, all the little things that you have to do to make a great product, what do you think and, of course, what do you hope that the person that watches this? When they're finished, how are they going to walk away and what are they going to be thinking?
Speaker 2:Well, I hope that after you walk away and you experience this guy's life and you experience the lives of all of the people that participated in the film, that talk about their relationship with him, that talk about their feelings about what happens when they have heard these songs, I hope what you walk away with is a deeper love for the material. I think Billy has given all of us a gift, and I think he gave Susan and Jessica an even bigger gift by allowing them to sort of get under the hood and mine the motivation and the life experiences that he put into these songs. It's interesting about Billy he's got a finite catalog. You know he stopped writing popular songs in the 90s, wrote a couple of songs here and there over the years, but his songwriting career was over. So we're presented with 150, 160 songs as the totality of his catalog and we know them. We know most of them.
Speaker 2:What I'm hoping people walk away from is an introduction to a lot of the songs that they may not have known because they were album tracks or they were deep cuts that are used to score, and you know we use 120 songs in this film.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping that they rediscover, that they discover some of the older stuff or some of the other stuff that is least played and that the songs that they really know the Piano Man's Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, the New York State of Minds, the Still Rock and Rolls, the Big Shots that they get a deeper understanding of those songs as they relate to your life. It's one thing when you hear a song like Big Shot and you identify with the characters in Big Shot. Now you know a little bit more about that particular song because of Billy and in this case his first wife, elizabeth, who was his manager at the time, and their life when that song was written. The next time you hear it you'll get a different feeling from that song. It's almost like you're hearing it for a new time. So that's what I hope. I hope that everybody goes back and goes. You know, I really loved it before. I really loved it before, but now I really love this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So have you had the screening for it?
Speaker 2:We screened part one at. We opened the Tribeca Film Festival on the 4th of June and we screened only part one and it was, you know, in New York. It opened the Tribeca Film Festival Billy's the New York guy, so it was really a magical, magical evening, and the part two is just going to be dropping on HBO on the 25th of July.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just so good. Now, as in anything, there's always things you look at and say, oh, I wish we'd said this or I wish we'd done that. Was there anything after you'd seen it that you had regrets on? That wasn't in it.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's an hour and a half of film on the cutting room floor. I wish was in the film. This is where the filmmakers are so good at cutting away and carving away so that the essence of the story is understandable and emotionally resonant. I could watch a seven hour version of this because I think some of these scenes and scenarios and experiences are very worthy to observe. So, yeah, I mean, there's so much more to the story. Will there be a director's cut with all of this stuff? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Is there material for a deeper dive into, for example, his stadium tours of the 2000s? Or Russia, which we went to, which had two films? Is there more to be told there? Is there more to be told about the early years? Probably, but I think, as a whole, these filmmakers got to the core of the essence of what Billy is, which is an artist who channels his life experiences into this incredible musical fabric. That gives us a gift that we can once again identify our life experiences with. It's the purest form of art and communication to me, and when you get to observe it and you get to see a guy's life in front of you, it enriches you because you relate to that experience as you relate to your own life. I think that's mission accomplished to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the beauty of music Any single song can take you back to any single point in your life. That's the one thing Billy has is so many songs that people know and that will bring them back in time as well. So how did you feel when you actually sat down and you screened the film? You look at all the work you put into it, all the time editing that they put into it. So what emotions went through your mind knowing that all this time and effort was put into this project and now it's finally there for everyone to see.
Speaker 2:Well, I've got to be honest with you. I probably screened this film three dozen times, maybe more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that feeling.
Speaker 2:It affected me emotionally. Every single time I watched it. I was almost shocked at you know, like, you know the car's coming around the corner, oh, what it's going to look like and you know how fast it's going. You like know it's coming and that it still affects you and surprises you. I was amazed that my constant, immersive experience in watching these cuts didn't change too terribly much. From cut to cut to cut, they were better and they were more effective and I enjoyed the storytelling. I enjoyed these filmmakers taking the story and honing it and crafting it and cutting it and carving it. But I never got that aha, you know, every time I watched it it was like wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great place when you can look at something you've done and still enjoy what you've done.
Speaker 2:I've been with my partner, my husband, for 22 years. He sat and watched it with me probably 15, 16, 17 times and he cried every time and he knows the story, so I knew that there was something special here. I've never had that experience on any project I've ever worked on before.
Speaker 1:Not only that, a big part of it is this is not just Billy Joel's story, this is also your story, too, true. So when you're watching this, this is not just taking you back in time with just music. It's taking you back in time in something that you've done and something you've accomplished throughout that whole process of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it also it takes me back, it puts me in that same place. And you asked about the challenge. Part of the challenge was separating that from the participant to the observer, from the participant to the producer. Sure, If there was any challenge on top of all those challenges, it was to imagine if I wasn't there. How would this affect me? I know I'm fortunate that my ego never really got invested in the story. You know, it didn't really matter. What really mattered to me was him and his story and the gratitude I feel for being a participant in this Shakespearean drama. His life is Shakespearean, there's no two ways about it. When you see this film, you're gonna be like whoa, this is the stuff that great theatrical stories are made of.
Speaker 1:So, in closing, is there anything that we didn't touch upon that you think the listeners should hear?
Speaker 2:I just hope that through this film people get that their preconceived notions about what Billy Joel is and who Billy Joel is get confounded a little bit, that they're surprised and that they see that the songs you know resonate in a different way and sound fresh and new to them. I hope that that's what happens. The other thing I hope is that people just really, really like the filmmaking, really really like the filmmaking. I'm so proud of Susan and I'm so proud of Jessica and Stephen Ross, our editor, and James Pielat, our editor, and Chrissy Lime, our other editor, and our research staff, the archive producers that really found the greatest examples of performances and photographs that no one's ever saw. You know the craft of the film. I just hope people walk away and go yeah, that's a damn good movie, like one that you can watch again, even though you know the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic. We all love movies like that, and I'm sure that you've created something that's really really good. Before we leave, let's focus on you just for a brief moment. What else have you got coming up in the near future?
Speaker 2:I've got a couple of other things. You know I'm focusing on television and film production right now. I have a couple of projects that are in various forms of development. You know I've learned the difference between live rock and roll is that you show up at eight o'clock at night, the house lights go out and you got to do a show In television and film. It is development to development to development. So it's a different metric. But you know I'm 71 years old. I've been doing rock and roll touring for 50 years of my life. My second act is telling stories. You know I have the energy for it, I have the joy. You know I got a couple of Billy Joel related projects. A friend of mine's a writer. I've got two of his books that are option that I'm developing. So we'll see what lands You'll be seeing me somewhere.
Speaker 1:That's great. I'm so, so glad for you. Well, this has been awesome Great information, great conversation. I really enjoyed having you come on. Thanks for taking the time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Tony. I can't wait to maybe listen to my blathering again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been great. I really appreciate it. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media at platomusiccom.