{"id":72238,"date":"2026-09-07T20:30:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/07\/billy-joel-announces-death-of-early-bandmate-jon-small\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T20:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:30:33","slug":"billy-joel-announces-death-of-early-bandmate-jon-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/07\/billy-joel-announces-death-of-early-bandmate-jon-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Joel Announces Death of Early Bandmate Jon Small"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tJon Small, an early band mate of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/billy-joel\/\" id=\"auto-tag_billy-joel\" data-tag=\"billy-joel\">Billy Joel<\/a> whose friendship temporarily ended after Joel fell in love with Small\u2019s wife, has died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBilly Joel revealed Small\u2019s death with a small tribute on social media; Small\u2019s age and cause of death was not known at press time.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram wp-block-embed-instagram\"\/>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tJoel and Small were band mates in the Hassles in the Sixties and then formed the hard rock duo Attila; after the latter released their debut album in 1970 \u2014 and while Joel was living with Small and his wife Elizabeth Weber \u2014 the future Piano Man fell in love with Weber, a situation examined at length in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-reviews\/billy-joel-documentary-review-1235382259\/\">recent documentary <em>And So It Goes<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;01 Wonder Woman&quot; - ATTILA (ATTILA - 1970)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sWvjb4I8lIY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cElizabeth was very important to me, but I think I was not the guy she hoped I would be,\u201d Small said in the documentary. \u201cI 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, \u2018I\u2019m in love with your wife.\u2019 So it was a very devastating thing for me, because these were basically my two best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cI felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,\u201d Joel said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe affair resulted in Attila\u2019s breakup, the (temporary) end of his best friendship, and Joel getting evicted from Small\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSmall added in the documentary, \u201cHe never really said anything to me, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tJoel and Weber eventually reunited, and the pair wedded. The marriage lasted from 1973 to 1982.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSmall and Joel would also eventually reconcile, with Small working on the Piano Man\u2019s concert films like <em>Live From Long Island<\/em> and <em>Live at Shea Stadium<\/em>, as well as directing the \u201cBaby Grand\u201d video. Small also directed music videos for Reba McEntire, Enrique Iglesias, and Brooks &amp; Dunn.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Billy Joel - Baby Grand (Official HD Video) ft. Ray Charles\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XUNOmN3YVL0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/jon-small-billy-joel-early-band-mate-dead-obituary-1235622476\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Small, an early band mate of Billy Joel whose friendship temporarily ended after Joel fell in love with Small\u2019s wife, has died. Billy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":72239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}