Billy Joel on Twyla Tharp: 'An irresistible force of nature'

Billy Joel recalls his Broadway collaboration with modern-dance icon Twyla Tharp in the PBS documentary "American Masters: Twyla Moves," airing Friday at 9 p.m. on WNET/13.

"Twyla Tharp is an irresistible force of nature," the 71-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, who was raised in Hicksville and has homes in Sag Harbor and Centre Island, tells Newsday in an exclusive statement. "She is a visionary who believes that sheer will and dedication can make anything possible."

In the 90-minute documentary, Tharp, 79, recalls of her 2002 jukebox musical "Movin' Out" that she had choreographed some dance movements to Joel's music and showed them to him. She says, "Billy says, ‘I like that. What do you want from me?’ I said, ‘All your music.’ He said, ‘OK.’ About three hours later, I have every single album he ever made. I put them in chronological order. I listen to them from first to last. I call him three days later. I said, ‘OK, I have it.’ "

"She had a vision in her head about what she wanted," Joel says on screen. "It was so intense, it was something I couldn't say no to. A lot of energy in a small woman. Almost intimidating. And I thought, ‘Oh, this is somebody [of whom] you don't want to get in the way.’ Like, get out of the way," he said appreciatively. "And that's how the collaboration worked. I pretty much stayed out of the way. And she ran it."

The result opened Oct. 24, 2002, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre after 28 previews and ran for 1,303 performances — earning nine Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, and winning for Best Choreography (Tharp) and Best Orchestrations (Stuart Malina and Joel). An allegory of American soldiers returning home from the Vietnam War to a changed country, changed neighborhoods and changed relationships, it included such Joel hits as "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," "We Didn't Start the Fire," "Angry Young Man" and "Innocent Man," and, at conclusion, an ironic counterpoint reprise of the first act's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant."

"I'm a songwriter [who is] literal," Joel says in the documentary. "I didn't really know where she was going, how to connect the songs and make it work as all as one piece. Because they're individual songs. But she was doing an allegory with the lyrics. That had never been attempted before."

He recalls, "I was scared to death. But she had the confidence and the vision to know it was going to work."

Joel also marvels at the terpsichorean abandonment with which the dancers performed. "These people are throwing themselves around the stage! I was worried about people getting injured," he says on screen. "It was so energetic and so physically demanding. I felt like, ‘Take it easy! Watch out for the edge of the stage.’ They were risking life and limb every night."