Jon Small, the drummer and early Billy Joel bandmate whose musical and personal history with the Piano Man stretched from Long Island rock clubs to one of Joel’s most painful early chapters, has died.
Joel announced Small’s death in a tribute shared on social media. Small’s age and cause of death were not known at press time.
Before Joel became one of pop and rock’s most recognizable singer-songwriters, he and Small played together in the Hassles, a Long Island band that released two albums in the late 1960s. The pair later formed Attila, a hard-rock duo built around drums and organ, releasing a self-titled album in 1970.
Their partnership ended abruptly after Joel fell in love with Small’s wife, Elizabeth Weber, while Joel was living with the couple. The episode — long part of Joel’s lore — is revisited in the recent documentary And So It Goes, where both men reflected on the fallout with striking candor.
“Elizabeth was very important to me, but I think I was not the guy she hoped I would be,” Small said in the documentary. “I kept seeing that Billy was not the same guy. Something was the matter. And Billy one day came up to me, became a little honest, and said to me, ‘I’m in love with your wife.’ So it was a very devastating thing for me, because these were basically my two best friends.”
Joel also addressed the affair in the film, saying, “I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker. I was just in love with a woman, and I got punched in the nose, which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I was very upset.”
The affair led to Attila’s breakup and temporarily ended Joel and Small’s friendship. Joel later married Weber in 1973; the couple divorced in 1982.
Despite the rupture, Small and Joel eventually reconciled. In And So It Goes, Small said he came to understand the pain Joel carried from hurting him.
“He never really said anything to me,” Small said. “The only practical answer I can give as to why Billy took it so hard was because he loved me that much and that it killed him to hurt me that much. Eventually I forgave him.”
Small later worked behind the camera on several Joel projects, including the concert films Live From Long Island and Live at Shea Stadium. He also directed Joel’s “Baby Grand” video and went on to direct music videos for Reba McEntire, Enrique Iglesias and Brooks & Dunn.
Small’s death comes as Joel’s early years have been revisited through And So It Goes, which traces the singer’s rise from his pre-fame bands through the career that made him one of the most successful recording artists of his generation.
Joel’s Billboard history includes 43 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, including 13 top 10 hits and three No. 1s: “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “Tell Her About It” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.
At the time of publication, additional details about Small’s death had not been announced.
