Jon Small, a Grammy-nominated director of music videos and concert films, and an early bandmate and musical collaborator of Billy Joel, died on Sept. 4 in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 79.
Mr. Joel announced the death on Instagram on Monday. The cause was cancer, his son Sean Weber-Small said in an email.
Mr. Small and Mr. Joel had a tumultuous relationship, but their friendship would form the basis for launching one of the most successful and enduring careers in American pop music.
The two became close friends in the 1960s, when Mr. Small persuaded Mr. Joel to join his Long Island band, the Hassles, with the promise of being able to play a Hammond B-3 organ.
“I had super long hair,” Mr. Small told Newsday last year. When he went to Mr. Joel’s home for the first time, he recalled that Mr. Joel told his mother, Rosalind Joel, that he wanted to look like Mr. Small.
“And she looks at me and goes, ‘Oh, great,’” Mr. Small said.
The band released two albums. Though neither was particularly successful, the Hassles were inducted into the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame last year.
Afterward, Mr. Small and Mr. Joel broke off to form a heavy metal duo called Atilla. Mr. Joel played the organ and Mr. Small was the drummer. They released one self-titled album in 1970. Mr. Joel did not consider the album, which was full of screaming and distortion, to be among his finer works.
“I never stop denigrating my work from that period,” Mr. Joel told The Toronto Star in 2005. “Total crap.”
Around this time, Mr. Small introduced Mr. Joel to his wife, Elizabeth Weber. The three were living together when Mr. Joel and Ms. Weber began an affair.
“It was a very devastating thing for me, because these were basically my two best friends,” Mr. Small said in “And So It Goes,” a two-part 2025 HBO documentary about Mr. Joel.
Mr. Joel said in the documentary that he felt “very guilty” about the affair, which ended his musical partnership with Mr. Small.
“They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” Mr. Joel said, adding: “I was just in love with a woman and I got punched in the nose, which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I was very upset.”
Distraught, Mr. Joel began drinking heavily and twice attempted suicide. Mr. Small took Mr. Joel to the hospital after one of the attempts.
“Even though our friendship had blown up, Jon saved my life,” Mr. Joel said in the documentary.
Mr. Joel and Ms. Weber married in 1973 and she became his manager as his career took off. It was after meeting Ms. Weber that Mr. Joel started writing the more personal songs that would make him a household name. (Ms. Weber and Mr. Joel divorced in 1982, the same year that Mr. Small married Jeanine Lust, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life.)
Jonathan Craig Small was born on Long Island on Jan. 3, 1947, to Hy Small, a musician, and Sydelle Small, the owner of a wallpaper store in Syosset, N.Y.
After the dissolution of his marriage with Ms. Weber and his partnership with Mr. Joel, Mr. Small built a successful career as a self-taught director of live events and music videos, working with Enrique Iglesias, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill and many others. He directed the music video for “Highwayman,” a hit for the Highwaymen, a supergroup featuring Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, as well as the video for Run DMC’s collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way.”
But his most surprising video work might have been with a man he once punched: Mr. Joel. Mr. Small forgave Mr. Joel not long after their falling-out, and one of Mr. Small’s early directing projects was the 1983 music video for Mr. Joel’s hit song “Tell Her About It.”
He would collaborate on more of Mr. Joel’s projects, including the music video for “Baby Grand,” which Mr. Joel recorded with Ray Charles, and concert specials, including “Live at Yankee Stadium” (1990), which received a Grammy nomination for best music film, and “Live at Shea Stadium” (2011).
Mr. Small’s survivors include Sean Weber-Small, his son with Ms. Weber, and Allison Small, his daughter with Ms. Lust.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2002, Mr. Small said Mr. Joel “does take things harder than most people.”
“Emotionally, he takes things harder than I ever did,” Mr. Small said. “But all us guys in his inner circle always knew that Billy writes his best when he’s having problems. He works best in drastic situations, and those are always due to his relationships.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
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