Listen To A Very Early Version Of “New York State of Mind” By Billy Joel

Check It Out

Billy Joel released a live performance of his classic hit “New York State of Mind” recorded at a 1975 concert in San Francisco. He dropped the early version of the track just ahead of the release of his The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1 which is set to arrive on November 5. This will be featured on the collection’s unreleased live album, Live at the Great American Music Hall – 1975.

Compared to the one Joel recorded for 1976’s Turnstiles, this one is slightly quicker.

“His roots are in New York and he missed it a lot”, engineer Brian Ruggles and Joel’s live sound producer told Rolling Stone. “He came up with the idea for the song as he rode — on the Hudson River Line, actually — to his house in Highland Falls, New York; he wrote the song down when he got home. This was months before we recorded Turnstiles.”

“We rehearsed the song and played it at the show one of the first times it was ever performed live, before it was recorded for the album,” he continued, “Billy liked the arrangement, so they recorded it that way on the album. I remember that the recording truck was owned by the drummer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and it was parked outside the Great American Music Hall. It was old school recording, but we were able to put together a pretty good recording for this special release.”

Listen to it below.