Billy Joel has announced the death of Jon Small, his early bandmate in a relationship that helped shape the singer’s first years in music and later turned deeply personal. Joel shared the news with a small tribute on social media, but did not say when Small died or what caused his death.
Small’s name is back in focus because his story is inseparable from Joel’s. The two played together in the Hassles in the Sixties, then formed the hard rock duo Attila, which released its debut album in 1970. Their history was laid bare again in the recent documentary And So It Goes, where Small described the moment Joel told him, “I’m in love with your wife.”
That admission was devastating for Small because, as he said in the film, Joel and Elizabeth Weber were basically his two best friends. Joel has said he felt “like a homewrecker,” and also that he was “just in love with a woman” and got “punched in the nose,” which he said he deserved. The affair broke up Attila, ended the friendship for a time and led to Joel being evicted from Small’s house.
But the story did not stop at the breakup. Joel and Weber later reunited and married from 1973 to 1982, and Small and Joel eventually reconciled. Small later worked on Joel’s concert films Live From Long Island and Live at Shea Stadium, and directed the Baby Grand video, evidence that the two men found a way back to one another after one of the hardest chapters in Joel’s life.
Small also built a career beyond Joel’s orbit, directing music videos for Reba McEntire, Enrique Iglesias and Brooks & Dunn. Even so, his death now closes the loop on a friendship that began in a band rehearsal room, shattered in private, and ended, at least publicly, with Joel’s quiet tribute and the unanswered question of when Small died.
