Billy Joel is saying goodnight to an old friend.
The “Piano Man” singer paid tribute to longtime collaborator and former Attila bandmate Jon Small after his recent death.
Alongside an OG photo of Joel, 77, and the drummer, he captioned the Sept. 7 Instagram post, “RIP Jon Small.”
Small helped the “Vienna” singer find his river of dreams at the start of his music career by recruiting him into The Hassles, which they rocked out in from 1964 until they left to form Attila in 1969.
“We were like a pig in a blanket,” Small recalled in the 2025 documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes. “He was the pig, and I was the blanket. We did everything together.”
But their relationship hit rocky waters when Joel—who married Alix Roderick in 2015—admitted he had romantic feelings for Small’s wife Elizabeth Weber while he lived with the couple.
“Elizabeth was very important to me, but I think I was not the guy she hoped I would be,” Small reflected. “I kept seeing that Billy was not the same guy. Something was the matter.”
