Elio Pace - Interview

by Nick Dent-Robinson

published: 26 / 11 / 2022

Pianist Elio Pace talks to Nick Dent-Robinson about his latest tour in which he interprets and plays the songs of Billy Joel.

Article

Pianist Elio Pace talks to Nick Dent-Robinson about his latest tour in which he interprets and plays the songs of Billy Joel. Pianist Elio Pace, 54, was a teenager when he first “stumbled across” Billy Joel's music. The son of Italian parents, born in Woking and raised in Surrey and Hampshire, Elio decided then that he wanted to showcase the songs of the American performer who quickly became his idol. Elio was an accomplished pianist as a child and went on to study at Leeds College of Music. As he explained to me at the start of his current UK ‘Billy Joel Songbook Tour’, ahead of its 15 September performance in Oxford, Billy Joel means a great deal to Elio. “I have been performing Billy Joel's songs for nearly 40 years! The back catalogue of the Piano Man star is just so amazing! I was at Sixth Form College in Hampshire when I heard one of Billy's songs and I was just hooked. I was already music mad and had even started gigging, playing in clubs from the age of 15 or so. But when I first heard Billy, it was like a light went on. His writing, his singing, his piano-playing influenced me so much and I really wanted to emulate him. Everything changed. Right from then, I started to envisage one day performing my favourite Billy Joel songs on stage to live audiences.” “I went through music college and was later doing a lot of professional writing and arranging plus session work. But I always had that one primary, ultimate goal. By the early 1990s I had pitched the idea for a whole Billy Joel show concept to a top theatrical producer....I'd even drawn up a poster and called the show ‘Piano Man’. The producer looked through everything carefully and could see my passion and agreed it was a brilliant idea. But he said there was one big problem: Billy Joel was still out there, still doing it - and maybe I was twenty years too early. I was hugely disappointed but, you know, he wasn't wrong. Exactly twenty years later, almost to the month, in 2013, I started booking shows for ‘The Billy Joel Songbook’. Initially audiences were small but word soon spread and quite quickly I was playing to audiences of 1,500 or more – usually to full houses! Billy Joel had never toured the UK - but once people were introduced to him by us, the shows rapidly became popular.” “By then I had done quite a bit of work in the music industry – in the past I have accompanied and arranged music for Shirley Bassey, Art Garfunkel, David Soul, even Les Dawson - and so many more! So I had good contacts and was able to put together a band of superb musicians for my shows. I have also had a lot of experience in musical theatre, on TV and on the corporate circuit too.” “A big break came for me in 2010 when the late Sir Terry Wogan heard my work at an event where I was performing and then insisted I front the house band for his “Weekend Wogan” show on BBC Radio Two. This included performing live arrangements for the weekly special guests – like Brian May, John Legend, Debbie Reynolds, for example. But Terry also insisted I was featured as an artist in my own right....now I am the record holder for the musician making the most live radio performances in a single year! Wogan was a great champion for me as a musician and he also opened so many doors for me as a singer-songwriter and promoter of my own Billy Joel-themed shows. I will always be eternally grateful to Sir Terry Wogan for that. “Of course, with hits like ‘Piano Man’, ‘She's Always A Woman’, ‘Tell Her About It’ and “We Didn't Start The Fire”, Billy Joel's song catalogue is a great resource for any musician. I actually believe Billy is the greatest pianist-singer-songwriter there has ever been and it is an honour and privilege to be up there behind the piano, performing his songs. I feature all his big hits and I like introducing audiences to some of his lovely album tracks too. My favourite Billy Joel song is actually ‘Lullaby’ - always a powerful moment in every show we do. In 2009, when my daughter Marcella was born, that song really took a big place in my heart. It had been written by Billy for his daughter when he was splitting up with the child's mother - and as I felt that new and special love of a father, then that song suddenly took on a different and wonderful meaning. It floored me! “Most of all I do just respect Billy Joel's music. I am absolutely not a Billy Joel tribute artist though. I don't wear a goatee or black glasses. My mission is to be out there as me, paying the best tribute I know how to the music – and celebrating the greatness of that music and the musician who wrote it! Some people know and love the songs but they have forgotten that it was Billy Joel who wrote them. I love being the person who gets the brilliant Billy Joel noticed again, enjoying all the prominence and credit he so richly deserves. That's the prime purpose of what the band and I are doing!” The Billy Joel Songbook UK Tour began in August in Bath and will end on 22 October in Liverpool. Details at www.eliopace.com/tours