Billy Joel has reportedly revived plans to write a memoir after cancelling the book in 2011. The news came the same day that he learned that he’ll be one of the Kennedy Center Honorees in December.
According to a source for TheWrap, the “Piano Man” singer will go back to writing the book, collaborating with ghostwriter Fred Schruers. The news was also confirmed by a source for The Hollywood Reporter.
Joel was famously paid $3 million in advance to write the book, but in April 2011, he decided to walk away. He agreed to return a portion of the advance to HarperCollins, which had agreed to publish the book back in 2008.
“It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I'm not all that interested in talking about the past, and that the best expression of my life and its ups and downs has been and remains my music,” Joel said in a statement at the time.
But in May, he brought the subject up with The New York Times, blaming the publisher’s marketing campaign as his reasons for pulling out.
“It wasn’t finished. Some of it hadn’t been filled out in detail, but there was a beginning, a middle and an end. Then I saw this marketing campaign — ‘Divorce, Depression and Drinking,’” he told the Times. “We talked about some of those things, but that’s not the essence of the book. I realized that was going to be the nature of the campaign. They wanted more sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, and there’s not that much in my life. What I wanted to do was have a book that set the record straight.”
Joel performed at the 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy relief show and is slated to start touring the U.K. next month. However, he hasn’t recorded a full studio album of pop songs since 1993’s River of Dreams.
Earlier today, the Kennedy Center announced that Joel will be a member of the 2013 class of honorees.
image: Wikimeida Commons