Jon Small, who collaborated with Billy Joel in his early rock bands and later became an acclaimed music video director, has died.
Aside from his work with Joel, Small also worked with superstars, including Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Run-DMC and Aerosmith on music videos, TV specials and concert films.
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Small’s death was confirmed in a post on Facebook from a longtime friend who shared an announcement that Small died on Sept. 4. His funeral will be held on Sept. 9 in Great Neck, New York. A cause of death was not available. Small was in his late 70s.
Small, who was Joel’s best friend, first collaborated with Joel in the 1960s quartet the Hassles and psychedelic rock band that issued two albums and several singles on United Artists.
After the Hassles demise, Small and Joel formed the hard rock outfit Attila, with Small on drums and Joel on keyboards and vocals. They released a self-titled album in 1970, but the band split later that year after Joel fell in love with Small’s wife, Elizabeth Weber, who he later married.
The drama behind the love triangle was explored in the 2025 HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes. “I was just in love with a woman,” the singer revealed in the documentary. “And I got punched in the nose, which I deserved.”
Though that situation damaged their friendship, it did not end it. Small saved Joel after he tried to commit suicide during the romantic turmoil.
“He never really said anything to me,” Small said in And So It Goes. “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.”
Years later, they continued their creative partnership. Small became a music video director and produced Joel’s 1982 Live From Long Island video, 1990’s Live From Yankee Stadium and 2011’s Live at Shea Stadium.
Small’s other video work includes directing the landmark video for the Run-DMC-Aerosmith collaboration “Walk This Way,” as well as videos, TV specials and concert films for Luke Combs, the Beach Boys, Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, and dozens of others.
View this post on InstagramThough Attila remains a footnote in the careers of Joel and Small, their one record managed to invoke some passionate reactions, both positive and negative.
In a review for AllMusic.com, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that “”Attila undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll—hell, the history of recorded music itself. There have been many bad ideas in rock, but none match the colossal stupidity of Attila.”
However, a writer identified as Boy Howdy on cult artist Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website had a different take, writing that the album is “an extremely entertaining joke that Billy wasn’t in on. But I’ve gotta say, I dug his trip, and the record still puts me in a good mood every time.”
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