Billy Joel has inspired many a thing over the course of his illustrious career, most of them bad cover sets at your local tav. Now, his music serves as the inspiration for a new TV show commissioned by Universal Music Publishing Group.
The series —Scenes From an Italian Restaurant— will be based on stories and characters from Billy Joel songs. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the title is taken from Joel’s favourite song from his enormous catalogue.
Each episode of the anthology will be based on lyrics from his discography and will be populated by the characters he writes about, including the Stranger, the Piano Man, Mamma Leone and Sgt. O’Leary. The songs are set to be “reimagined and rearranged by Joel’s music team—with his input—and take his tunes in new directions.”
The series will be created by Kevin Fox (Law & Order: SVU) and will be executive produced alongside Joel and his producing partner, Steve Cohen.
“Billy Joel is a beautiful storyteller, and it just so happens that his stories are accompanied alongside remarkable songs,” MGM TV president of development and production Steve Stark told The Hollywood Reporter. “This series is going to focus less on Billy’s life and more on the stories inside his catalogue of classic songs.”
Listen: Billy Joel – ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’
