Little Billy, (kinda) Happy at Last

''Christie's the one who's good at this — she just flashes that Christie smile,'' says Billy Joel, doing a fair imitation of his wife's million-dollar cover-girl grin. Joel is waiting to be photographed in the overdecorated and under-air-conditioned ballroom of New York City's St. Regis hotel. ''I coulda been a contendah!'' he mumbles hoarsely into the camera, a Brando imitation that's enhanced by his peculiarly 1950s physique: not muscle-bound exactly, but square, with the concrete gut and belligerent posture of a pre-exercise-revolution Jack La Lanne. He strides over to the piano and bangs out a little Fats Waller, a little Gershwin, a little Rossini while riffing cheerfully on topics close to his heart. Dealing with lawyers: ''Like being in one of those Hieronymus Bosch paintings, you know, where they're driving thorns through people's heads?'' His own looks: ''I have a half brother — he's got the Joel bug-eyes too.'' The heat: ''I can't take it. All the sheets are on Christie's side in the morning.''

Joel suddenly squats down and scuttles across the room, his fingers brushing the floor: ''Look, I'm one of those newsboys!'' It takes a second for the full twistedness of the allusion to sink in: He's imitating the legless newsboys from '30s gangster movies, pushing himself with his hands along the pavement on his little dolly. Nobody mistakes the gag for anything but a self-deprecating take on his own lack of height. But when everybody laughs, Joel looks self-conscious, perhaps realizing that humor can take on a different slant in print. ''That was bad,'' he says, still smiling but getting back to the business of picture taking. ''That was really bad.''

At the age of 44, on the eve of the release of River of Dreams, his 15th album, Joel has apparently learned not to depend on the kindness of strangers.

And the contents of the album, which hit the charts at No. 1 in its first week, show that it hasn't been an easy lesson. His first release since the triple-platinum Storm Front four years ago, River of Dreams opens with a surprisingly bitter set of songs: ''The Great Wall of China,'' a seething number about the betrayal of trust, and ''No Man's Land,'' a hard-rocking screed about the vacuous wasteland of American suburbia. The fury gives way eventually to the healing powers of love and family, most notably the title track and ''Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel),'' written for his daughter, Alexa Ray, 7. But for anybody who thinks of Billy Joel strictly as the hit machine who wrote ''Just the Way You Are,'' ''It's Still Rock and Roll to Me,'' ''Tell Her About It,'' and eight other top 10 singles over the past 20 years, there's bound to be a little credibility problem here. What could possibly have brought Billy Joel — self-made man out of Levittown, Long Island, multiple Grammy-award winner, zillion-selling recording artist, and husband of gorgeous supermodel Christie Brinkley — to the fit of bitterness that opens the album?

''Disappointments...anger...disillusionments,'' he says slowly, ''a loss of faith...a breakdown in confidence...betrayal. And a certain amount of depression over all those things.''

Since most people know about the problems Billy Joel has been having for the past four years, or think they do, he is asked the dread question: Is it The Lawsuit?

He squirms a little, then shrugs. ''I don't know if it's just the lawsuit,'' he says. ''That may have been a catalyst, but it's not the essence, what it is that's causing all this rage. I think it was basically the crushing realization that there are some people who are broken, corrupt beyond redemption.''

The Lawsuit. It began four years ago as a financial dispute and ballooned into a legal battle royal encompassing some of the recording industry's most powerful players. First, Joel fired his manager of nine years, Frank Weber — who is also the brother of his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and the godfather of his daughter, Alexa. Joel then sued Weber for a whopping $90 million, charging fraud and misappropriation of funds. Although a judge has awarded him $3 million in the suit so far, Weber declared bankruptcy before Joel could see much of it. Then Weber sued both Joel, for libel (the case was dismissed), and Brinkley, claiming she persuaded her husband to fire him (also dismissed). On top of all that, Joel is now suing his former accountants (for fraud, breach of contract, and negligence, which they deny).

But there's much more. Last September, Joel also sued his lawyer, Allen Grubman, who happens to be one of the most powerful attorneys in the record business; he represents Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Bolton, and Madonna, among others. Joel says Grubman paid kickbacks to Weber to keep Joel as a client; he also alleges that at the time Grubman was negotiating Joel's contract with CBS, he was representing CBS as well (depositions are currently being taken). Grubman's own lawyer, Bertram Fields, characterizes the charges as ''a nonsense suit.''

And finally, a new suit for $10 million was brought just three weeks ago by an aspiring Long Island songwriter who claims Joel managed to create not one but three songs — ''River of Dreams,'' ''No Man's Land,'' and ''We Didn't Start the Fire'' — out of a single tune called ''Nowhere Land,'' which he sent to Joel seven years ago. Calling the suit ''absurd,'' Joel issued a statement saying ''This is another example of why true, struggling songwriters can't get anybody, including me, to listen to their songs.''

Many people would be disinclined to care about a multimillionaire losing a few of his millions, but Joel has said more than once that he has had some rocky times financially and has had to spend years touring when he would rather be home with his family, watching his daughter grow up. ''I'm not gonna pretend I tour just to bask in the adulation of an audience. I have Christie, who loves me,'' says Joel, who will begin a year-plus-long tour for River of Dreams this month. ''I do like to play music, that hasn't changed. But why do you go out on the road? To earn a living.''

Yet even if some or all of his charges against Weber and the rest should prove true, one has to wonder how a person as intelligent as Joel could be so, well, dumb about business. This isn't the first or second time he has been burned — there's a history of it. In 1971 he signed his first contract with manager Artie Ripp, who ended up owning a serious piece of him for 15 years — long after the two stopped working together; it has been estimated that it cost Joel millions to break that agreement. After Ripp, Joel's first wife, Elizabeth, managed him; she took fully half his assets with her when they divorced in 1983. And who does he get to manage him next? Elizabeth's brother, Frank. What, one has to wonder, was he thinking?