Liberty DeVitto (born August 8, 1950) is an American rock drummer. He is best known as the drummer for Billy Joel, but has also played with the NYC Hit Squad and has been a session drummer on recordings of other artists.
DeVitto was born in New York City of Italian ancestry where his father was a police officer at the New York Police Department. He taught himself to play the drums after seeing The Beatles on their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Sh...
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Liberty DeVitto (born August 8, 1950) is an American rock drummer. He is best known as the drummer for Billy Joel, but has also played with the NYC Hit Squad and has been a session drummer on recordings of other artists.
DeVitto was born in New York City of Italian ancestry where his father was a police officer at the New York Police Department. He taught himself to play the drums after seeing The Beatles on their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964.
After working with Billy Joel for 30 years, Devitto was discharged from drumming duties for the 2006 Billy Joel tour. Up to that point, he had the longest running tenure in Joel's band, starting with the recording of 1976's Turnstiles.
On May 19, 2009, DeVitto filed a lawsuit in Manhattan's state Supreme Court claiming Joel and Sony Music owed DeVitto over 10 years worth of royalty payments. DeVitto has never been given songwriting credit on any of Joel's songs, but he claims that he helped write some of them. DeVitto's...
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