(CNN) -- You might not have wanted to bet on Billy Joel in the summer of 1977.





If "The Stranger" hadn't been a success, Billy Joel suspects he would have been dropped from his label.





For a guy whose career had started out promisingly, he'd undergone more setbacks than a wild-armed pitcher. In his teen years he was a session pianist on Shadow Morton-produced records (including, allegedly, the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack"), but failed with his groups, including a heavy-metal duo.





He followed his first Top 40 hit, "Piano Man," with a bitter second one, "The Entertainer" (in which he sang, "If I go cold/I won't get sold/I'll get put in the back/In the discount rack/Like another can of beans," over an incongruous synthesizer track). He was considered a singer-songwriter with great potential but bickered with his label and his producers.





Making 1976's "Turnstiles," he fired producer James William Guercio -- a consistent hitmaker with Chicago -- and took the helm himself, with uneven results.





And yet he still had something, remembered Phil Ramone, who was to produce Joel's 1977 breakthrough, "The Stranger."





At a 1976 Columbia Records convention in Toronto, Joel opened a musical showcase and "ripped the crowd up," Ramone recalls in a phone interview from Connecticut. "My friends said, 'Watch this guy.' "  Watch Joel perform "Piano Man" »





And then there was a series of concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall in early June 1977, featured on the new anniversary edition of "The Stranger" (Columbia/Legacy), out Tuesday. (A special edition of the release also includes a DVD of other Joel performances.) Known then, as now, as an exciting live performer, Joel and his band gave a series of performances that impressed Ramone -- though, he noted, the recorded versions paled in comparison.





"I watched what he had done and tracked his past records," he says. "Everything I'd seen hadn't been captured on record."





"The Stranger" turned out differently.





Joel came through with a top-notch set of songs, and four of them -- "Just the Way You Are," "Movin' Out," "She's Always a Woman" and "Only the Good Die Young" -- became hits. "The Stranger" established Joel as a best-selling artist -- reportedly, upon release, it was the biggest-selling Columbia album in history -- and propelled him to his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career.  Watch Joel perform "Only the Good Die Young" in Russia »





At the time, he just wanted to make a consistent record.





"I don't recall feeling this was going to be the breakthrough. We were just happy with the album we were making at the time," Joel says in the press materials for the "Stranger" re-release. (Joel wasn't available for an interview with CNN.)





He acknowledges, though, that "The Stranger" could have been his last stand.





"I didn't know this at the time, but had it not been a successful album, the label probably would have dropped me. 'Cause you have to remember, this was my fifth album without having had a major hit," he says.





Joel interviewed several producers, Ramone recalls, including the Beatles' George Martin. Ramone, known for his graceful touch in the studio, was coming off Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" and the Barbra Streisand "A Star Is Born" soundtrack. He and Joel hit it off at "an Italian lunch that took forever," Ramone says, and in July went into the studio to record. The album was recorded in three weeks -- very quickly, says Ramone.





The producer remembers the sessions as full of humor, with his most
Billy Joel found himself at what in 1977? What was his breakthrough album called? What was the name of the album that propelled Joel to success
New York's Carnegie Hall "The Stranger" "The Stranger"
question: Billy Joel found himself at what in 1977?, answer: New York's Carnegie Hall | question: What was his breakthrough album called?, answer: "The Stranger" | question: What was the name of the album that propelled Joel to success, answer: "The Stranger"