1950 Willy DeVille*
1976 Castro Coleman aka Mr. Sipp "The Mississippi Blues
Child!"*
1985 Dani Wilde*
2000 Allen Woody+
Erin Harpe*
Randy Bluesman Hock*
Happy Birthday
Willy DeVille *25.08.1950
Willy DeVille (* 25. August 1950 in Stamford, Connecticut; † 6. August 2009 in New York City, eigentlich William Paul Borsey junior) war ein US-amerikanischer Rock- und Bluesmusiker.
Willy DeVille kam als William Borsey in Stamford zur Welt und wuchs dort auf. Mit vierzehn Jahren zog er ins West Village in New York City.[1] Die musikalischen Helden seiner Jugend waren u. a. Bob Dylan und Jimi Hendrix, die in den Clubs der MacDougal Street, wo er lebte, auftraten, und von deren Einfluss sich DeVille nie löste. 1971 kehrte er nach einem mehrjährigen Aufenthalt in London nach New York zurück; reiste weiter an die Westküste und formierte in San Francisco die Band Lazy Eights.
1974 gründete er die Band Billy De Sade & The Marquis, die er 1975 in Mink DeVille umbenannte. Gleichzeitig wurde aus William Borsey „Willy DeVille“. 1977 erschien deren Debütalbum in Europa unter dem Namen Cabretta und in den USA unter dem Namen Mink DeVille. Das Album wurde vom Rolling Stone zum „Best Album of Year“ gekürt. Der Musikexpress kommentierte: „Willy ist der Prototyp eines Rock’n’Roll-Menschen. Seine Stimme ist rau, trocken, aufregend und dreckig, und in ihr schwingt die sinnliche Anmache, die uns Hörer zittern lässt“.
Sein Erscheinungsbild mit überlangem Jackett, einem Goldzähne-Lächeln mit im Schneidezahn eingefassten Diamanten, zeitweise Menjou-Bärtchen und schulterlangen Haaren war ausgefallen. Der Verlauf seiner Karriere war wechselhaft: Mal zum besten Sänger des Jahres geehrt, dann wieder Streitigkeiten mit der Plattenfirma. Seine Single Storybook Love wurde als Soundtrack des Kinofilms Die Braut des Prinzen für den Oscar nominiert, dann wieder stand DeVille ohne Plattenvertrag da.
Zu seinem 25-jährigen Bühnenjubiläum kehrte Willy DeVille zu seinen Wurzeln zurück und ging 2002 mit dem Pianisten Seth Farber und dem Bassisten David Keyes auf die Suche nach seinen Ursprüngen. Das Blues-Album The Willy DeVille Acoustic Trio In Berlin wurde am 21. März 2002 in Berlin bei einem Konzert aufgezeichnet.
Sein Album Crow Jane Alley aus dem Jahr 2004 war die erste Studioveröffentlichung seit Horse Of A Different Color im Jahre 1999. Die Crow-Jane-Alley-Tour durch Europa fand vom 15. März bis 18. April 2005 statt. In Amerika gab Willy DeVille ein Konzert: am 29. April 2005 im B.B.King Club in New York City. Mit Live In The Lowlands erschien zur entsprechenden Promotiontournee eine DVD, die im Herbst 2005 im Amsterdamer Paradiso aufgezeichnet wurde.
Vom 18. Oktober bis 18. November 2006 ging er mit dem Willy DeVille Acoustic Trio erneut auf Europatournee. Am Piano gab es dabei eine Umbesetzung. Für kurze Zeit gehörte Jeff Levine am Piano, der u. a. für Joe Cocker gespielt hat, zur Band.
2007 spielte er für den Soundtrack des Films Death Proof von Quentin Tarantino den Song It’s So Easy ein.
2008 erschien mit Pistola ein weiteres Studioalbum. DeVille setzte dabei seine erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit mit dem Produzenten John Philip Shenale (The Bangles, Tori Amos, Robert Cray) fort.
Eine für 2009 geplante Tournee wurde aus gesundheitlichen Gründen abgesagt; es war bei ihm zunächst Hepatitis C, später Bauchspeicheldrüsenkrebs[2] diagnostiziert worden. Am 6. August 2009 erlag er seinem Leiden in einem Krankenhaus in New York.
Es war Wunsch des Künstlers, auf Hepatitis C und die möglichen Behandlungserfolge bei frühzeitiger Erkennung aufmerksam zu machen.[3]
Musikalische Einflüsse
Bevor de Ville sich für R’n’B oder Rock’n’Roll zu interessieren begann, tanzte er nach eigenen Angaben Cumbia und Bolero. Spanische Elemente tauchen auch in seiner Musik mehrfach auf (Spanish Stroll, Spanish Harlem, Carmelita). Balladen, gepaart mit Blueselementen, Cajun-Klängen und Rock’n’Roll waren seine musikalische Heimat, die er mit Mundharmonika, Kuhglocken, Fiddle und Percussions untermalte. Aber DeVille spielte auch Latino-Songs, Tex-Mex und Southern Rock.
Beeinflusst wurde er von den Großen der 1950er und 1960er Jahre: „Wenn ich von großer Musik rede, dann meine ich Leute wie Buddy Holly, Édith Piaf oder Muddy Waters. Leute, wie es sie heute kaum mehr gibt … Es gab Zeiten, da hörte man Brenda Lee, Elvis Presley, James Brown und Conway Twitty …“ Auf die Frage, wer ihn in seiner Jugend beeindruckte, antwortete er in einem Interview: „John Hammond, John Lee Hooker … nicht die Beatles.“
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_DeVille
Willy DeVille (August 25, 1950 – August 6, 2009) was an American singer and songwriter. During his thirty-five-year career, first with his band Mink DeVille (1974–1986) and later on his own, Deville created original songs rooted in traditional American musical styles. He worked with collaborators from across the spectrum of contemporary music, including Jack Nitzsche, Doc Pomus, Dr. John, Mark Knopfler, Allen Toussaint, and Eddie Bo. Latin rhythms, blues riffs, doo-wop, Cajun music, strains of French cabaret, and echoes of early-1960s uptown soul can be heard in DeVille's work.
Mink DeVille was a house band at CBGB, the historic New York City nightclub where punk rock was born in the mid-1970s. DeVille helped redefine the Brill Building sound. In 1987 his song "Storybook Love" was nominated for an Academy Award. After his move to New Orleans in 1988, he helped spark the roots revival of classic New Orleans R&B. His soulful lyrics and explorations in Latin rhythms and sounds helped define a new musical style sometimes called "Spanish-Americana".[1]
DeVille died of pancreatic cancer on August 6, 2009 in a New York hospital. He was 58 years old.[2][3][4] Although his commercial success waxed and waned over the years, his legacy as a songwriter has influenced many other musicians such as Mark Knopfler and Peter Wolf.
Early life
Willy DeVille was born William Paul Borsey Jr. in Stamford, Connecticut.[5] The son of a carpenter,[6] he grew up in the working-class Belltown district of Stamford. His maternal grandmother was a Pequot,[7] and he was also of Basque and Irish descent. As he put it, "A little of this and a little of that; a real street dog."[8] DeVille said about Stamford, "It was post-industrial. Everybody worked in factories, you know. Not me. I wouldn't have that. People from Stamford don't get too far. That's a place where you die."[9] DeVille said about his youthful musical tastes, "I still remember listening to groups like the Drifters. It was like magic, there was drama, and it would hypnotise me."[6]
DeVille quit high school[10] and began frequenting New York's Lower East Side and West Village. "It seemed like I just hung out and hung out. I always wanted to play music but nobody really had it together then. They had psychedelic bands but that wasn't my thing."[11] In this period, DeVille's interests ran to blues guitarists Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker,[12] and especially John Hammond.[13][14] "I think I owe a lot about my look, my image on stage, and my vocal riffs to John Hammond. A lot of my musical stance is from John," Deville said.[15] He credited Hammond's 1965 album So Many Roads with "changing my life."[13]
Career
As a teenager, DeVille played with friends from Stamford in a blues band called Billy & the Kids, and later in another band called The Immaculate Conception.[16] At age 17, he married Susan Berle, also known as Toots, and they had a son named Sean in 1970.[17] DeVille struck out in 1971 for London in search of like-minded musicians ("obvious American with my Pompadour hair"), but was unsuccessful finding them; he returned to New York City after a two-year absence.[13]
His next band, The Royal Pythons ("a gang that turned into a musical group"[18]), was not a success either. Said DeVille: "I decided to go to San Francisco; there was nothing really happening in New York. Flower power was dead. All the day-glo paint was peeling off the walls. People were shooting speed. I mean, it was real Night of the Living Dead. So I bought a truck and headed out west. I traveled all around the country for a couple of years, looking for musicians who had heart, instead of playing 20-minute guitar solos, which is pure ego."[19]
The Mink DeVille years
By 1974 Willy DeVille (under the name Billy Borsay) was singing in a band with drummer Thomas R. "Manfred" Allen, Jr., bassist Rubén Sigüenza, guitarist Robert McKenzie (a.k.a. Fast Floyd), and Ritch Colbert on keyboards.[20] The band called themselves Billy de Sade and the Marquis, but changed the name to Mink DeVille the year after; at the same time lead singer Borsay adapted the name Willy DeVille. The same year, DeVille persuaded the band members to try their luck in New York City after spotting an ad in The Village Voice inviting bands to audition. Guitarist Fast Floyd and keyboard player Ritch Colbert stayed behind in San Francisco, and after arriving in New York, the band hired guitarist Louis X. Erlanger, whose blues sensibilities helped shape the Mink DeVille's sound.[21]
During three years, from 1975 to 1977, Mink DeVille was one of the original house bands at CBGB, the New York nightclub where punk rock music was born in the mid-1970s.[21] Their sound from this period is witnessed by Live at CBGB's, a 1976 compilation album of bands that played CBGB and for which the band contributed three songs.
Louis X. Erlanger (left) and Willy DeVille of Mink DeVille in 1977.
In December 1976, Ben Edmonds, an A&R man for Capitol Records signed the band to a contract with Capitol Records after spotting them at CBGB.[22] Edmonds paired Mink DeVille with producer Jack Nitzsche who had apprenticed under Phil Spector and helped shape the Wall of Sound production technique. Assisted by saxophonist Steve Douglas and a cappella singers the Immortals they recorded the band's debut album Cabretta (simply called Mink DeVille in the U.S.) in January 1976. Cabretta, a multifaceted album of soul, R&B, rock, and blues recordings, was selected number 57 in the Village Voice's 1977 Pazz & Jop critics poll.[23] Its lead single "Spanish Stroll" reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart, the only Willy DeVille recording to ever hit the charts in the United Kingdom.[24]
The band's follow-up album, Return to Magenta (1978), continued in the same vein as Cabretta, except that Willy DeVille and producers Nitzsche and Steve Douglas employed string arrangements on several songs. On this album Dr. John played keyboards and, once again, Douglas played saxophone. To promote the album, Mink DeVille toured the United States in 1978 with Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. Return to Magenta reached number 126 on the Billboard 200, making it Willy DeVille's highest charting album ever in his home country.[25]
In 1979, Willy DeVille took his band in a new direction and recorded an album in Paris called Le Chat Bleu. For the album, DeVille wrote several songs with Doc Pomus who had previously seen the band play in New York City.[26] DeVille hired Jean Claude Petit to supervise string arrangements, and he dismissed the members of the band except for guitarist Louis X. Erlanger in favor of new musicians: Accordionist Kenny Margolis, Jerry Scheff (bass), Ron Tutt (drums) and, once again, Steve Douglas (saxophone), who also served as producer. Capitol Records was not happy with Le Chat Bleu, believing that American audiences were incapable of listening to songs with accordions and lavish string arrangements; consequently they initially released the album only in Europe, in 1980. However, the album sold impressively in America as an import and Capitol finally released it in the United States later the same year.[27] Ironically, Rolling Stone yearly critic’s poll ranked Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980,[28] and music historian Glenn A. Baker declared it the tenth best rock album of all time.[29]
By this time no members of the original Mink DeVille save Willy DeVille remained in the band, but DeVille continued recording and touring under the name Mink DeVille.[30] He then recorded two albums for Atlantic Records, 1981's Coup de Grâce—on which Jack Nitzsche returned as producer—and 1983's Where Angels Fear to Tread. Both sold well in Europe but fared less well in the United States. Coup de Grâce was DeVille's last album ever to enter the Billboard 200, peaking at number 161.
Mink DeVille's last album, Sportin' Life, was recorded for Polydor in 1985. For this album, DeVille penned two more songs with Doc Pomus. The album was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and DeVille and Duncan Cameron producing. The album was a hit in some European countries, entering the top 20 in Switzerland and Sweden.[31][32] In 1986, DeVille filed for bankruptcy as part of what Billboard called "a major restructuring of his career". He fired his personal manager, Michael Barnett, and announced that he would "put Mink DeVille to bed" and start a solo career. Consequently, Mink DeVille played its last concert on February 20, 1986 in New York City.[33]
"Storybook Love" collaboration with Mark Knopfler
Although Willy DeVille had been recording and touring for ten years under the name Mink DeVille, no members of his original band had recorded or toured with him since 1980's Le Chat Bleu. Beginning in 1987 with the album Miracle, DeVille began recording and touring under his own name. He told an interviewer, "Ten years with the band was enough for Mink DeVille; everyone was calling me 'Mink.' I thought it was about time to get the name straight."[34]
DeVille recorded Miracle in London with Mark Knopfler serving as his sideman and producer. He said, "It was Mark (Knopfler’s) wife Lourdes who came up with the idea (to record Miracle). She said to him that you don't sing like Willy and he doesn't play guitar like you, but you really like his stuff so why don't you do an album together?"[35] "Storybook Love", a song from Miracle and the theme song of the movie The Princess Bride, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987; DeVille performed the song at that year's Academy Awards telecast.
Knopfler heard ("Storybook Love") and asked if I knew about this movie he was doing. It was a Rob Reiner film about a princess and a prince. The song was about the same subject matter as the film, so we submitted it to Reiner and he loved it. About six or seven months later, I was half asleep when the phone rang. It was the Academy of Arts and Sciences with the whole spiel. I hung up on them! They called back and Lisa (his wife) answered the phone. She came in to tell me that I was nominated for "Storybook Love." It's pretty wild. It's not the Grammys — it's the Academy Awards, which is different for a musician. Before I knew it, I was performing on the awards show with Little Richard. It was the year of Dirty Dancing, and they won.[36]
In New Orleans
In 1988, DeVille relocated from New York to New Orleans, where he found a spiritual home. "I was stunned", he said in a 1993 interview. "I had the feeling that I was going back home. It was very strange... I live in the French Quarter, two streets away from Bourbon Street; at night, when I go to bed, I hear the boogie that comes from the streets, and in the morning, when I wake up, I hear the blues."[37]
In 1990, DeVille made Victory Mixture, a tribute album of classic New Orleans soul and R&B which he recorded with some of the songs' original composers. The album was recorded without the use of overdubbing or sound editing with the goal of capturing the spirit of the original recordings.
I got all the original guys to come back in, like Earl King, Dr. John and Eddie Bo. Allen Toussaint played side piano. I brought in the rhythm section of The Meters on a couple of cuts. We call it the "little" record. It's funny, because I was just trying to get them money, the writers of the songs, 'cause they all got ripped off in the 1950s and 1960s. They were all fascinated, and Dr. John (who had played on DeVille's 1978 album Return to Magenta and who DeVille knew from his association with Doc Pomus) convinced them that they wouldn't get ripped off by this northern white boy. That's when I crossed over to being a local here in New Orleans. We were all pleased with it. It's recorded the way it was originally done back then. It's live with no overdubs anywhere, no digital, no editing. We played the song several times and just picked the best take, the one that was the most natural. It's on Fnac/Orleans Records. I'm really proud of that one.[36]
Victory Mixture was recorded for a small independent label, Orleans Records, which licensed it to Sky Ranch (Fnac Music) in France. "It sold over 100,000 units in Europe very quickly—our first gold disc," said Carlo Ditta, founder of Orleans Records and the producer of Victory Mixture.[38]
In the summer of 1992, DeVille toured Europe with Dr John, Johnny Adams, Zachary Richard, and The Wild Magnolias as part of his "New Orleans Revue" tour. "The travel, buses, and planes and the accommodations had to be some of the worst I've ever experienced... but the shows themselves were great. At the end of each show we'd throw Mardi Gras Throws out to the audience, you know strands of purple and gold beads, and they'd never seen anything like it and they loved it."[39]
Recording in Los Angeles
In 1992, DeVille recorded Backstreets of Desire, the first of four albums he would record in Los Angeles with producer John Philip Shenale.[40] "I say it every time I record in L.A. — that I'll never do it again, and I keep doing it... It's crazy. I just record and go to the hotel, and never go out, then back to the studio. I hate L.A. It's the worst. I think they eat their children there. I never saw any kids. It's a pity there aren't more studios in New Orleans."[36] Although DeVille complained about having to record in Los Angeles, recording in that city put him in touch with many talented Latino musicians who helped shape his distinctive Spanish-Americana sound.
For Backstreets of Desire, he was joined by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Efrain Toro, Mariachi los Camperos, and Jimmy Zavala, as well as New Orleans musicians Dr. John and Zachary Richard and L.A. session musicians Jeff Baxter, Freebo, Jim Gilstrap, and Brian Ray. Allmusic said about the album:
Willy DeVille's Backstreets of Desire stands tall as his masterpiece as both a singer and a songwriter. DeVille's considerable reputation in Paris buoyed him up to make this disc... With guest spots by Dr. John, Zachary Richard, and David Hidalgo, DeVille creates a tapestry of roots rock and Crescent City second line, traces of 1950s doo-wop, and elegant sweeping vistas of Spanish soul balladry, combined with lyrics full of busted-down heroes, hungry lovers, and wise men trying to get off the street. The sound of the album balances Creole soul and pure rock pyrotechnics. DeVille sounds like a man resurrected, digging as deep as the cavernous recesses of the human heart.[41]
Backstreets of Desire included a novel mariachi version of the Jimi Hendrix standard “Hey Joe” that was a hit in Europe, rising to number one in Spain and France.[42] DeVille said about "Hey Joe": "The song originally comes from the Texas-Mexico border area ... [T]hey call it Texico. I tried, instead of doing something that sounded like Jimi Hendrix that would have been a cliché, I tried to take the song back to the way that it must originally have sounded, which would be with mariachis. It's classic, but it's classic with a little twist. A little different. I put a bit of pachuco Canal Street slang talking. I added a couple of verses of my own."[43] Backstreets of Desire was released in the United States in 1994 on Rhino Record's
Forward label.
Continued success in Europe
In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett,[44] who proved to be an astute business manager. On the strength of his success touring and selling albums in Europe, they bought a horse farm, Casa de Sueños, in Picayune, Mississippi and began living there as well as at their apartment and studio in the French Quarter of New Orleans. DeVille told an interviewer in 1996: "I finally got the plantation... I just bought this house and 11 acres (45,000 m2). It looks a little bit like Graceland... I got into horses since my wife is into them. We're raising Spanish and Portuguese bullfighting horses. The bloodline is 2000 years old. She's into breeding, but I just love riding. I've also got five dogs, four cats and a partridge in a pear tree."[36]
DeVille did not have a recording contract with an American label in the mid-1990s. His next two albums, Willy DeVille Live (1993) and Big Easy Fantasy (1995), were recorded for Fnac Music, a French label. Willy DeVille Live was a number one record in Spain.[45] Big Easy Fantasy presents live recordings of the Mink DeVille Band playing with New Orleans legends Eddie Bo and The Wild Magnolias and remixes from the Victory Mixture sessions.
DeVille said, "I was pissed off and I didn't have a record deal for a few years. At the time I didn't want one. I was getting very gun-shy about labels. I was performing in Europe and I was doing great without one. When you get to that stage in your mind, they all start coming around. It's pretty strange the way that happens".[36]
In 1995, he returned to Los Angeles to record Loup Garou, again with producer John Philip Shenale. Musician said about the album: "Loup Garou is subtle in nuance but staggering in scope, it connects the dots between all of the artist's sacrosanct influences, often within the framework of a single song... All of it is on the money, performed from the heart..."[46] Loup Garou featured a duet with Brenda Lee; DeVille said: "She didn't know who the hell I was. I just called her up, played the song for her, and she loved it. She had her business people check me out, and they reported that I was big in Europe and had been recording for twenty years. So I flew to Nashville [to record with her]... That's got to go down in my book as one of the most memorable experiences in my career."[36]
The cover of Loup Garou showed DeVille in turn of the 20th century New Orleans garb posing on a street corner in New Orleans' French Quarter. It included voodoo chants and a song subtitled "Vampire's Lullaby". The singer had completely immersed himself in New Orleans culture. Percussionist Boris Kinberg, a longtime member of the Mink DeVille Band, said about the stages of Willy DeVille's career:
To my mind there were three main eras. The first era was the Lower East Side, skinny tie, purple shirt, West Side Story, Puerto Rican Sharks gang vibe. Then it transmuted into the Mississippi plantation-gambler riverboat rogue, the Rhett Butler thing where he had had custom-made suits, and really got into the period and the clothes and just totally immersed himself in New Orleans, not the present New Orleans, but the New Orleans of the 1880s and 1890s—the Absinthe-drinking, voodoo New Orleans. He totally immersed himself in that. Then he left New Orleans and moved to the Southwest and came back as the second coming of Black Elk.[47]
Before moving to the Southwest in 2000, DeVille recorded Horse of a Different Color in Memphis. The 1999 album, produced by Jim Dickinson, includes a chain-gang song, a cover of Fred McDowell's "Going over the Hill," and a cover of Andre Williams's "Bacon Fat". Allmusic said about the album, "Simply put, no one has this range or depth in interpreting not only styles, but also the poetics of virtually any set of lyrics. DeVille makes everything he sings believable. 'Horse of a Different Color' is the most consistent and brilliant recording of Willy DeVille's long career."[48] Horse of a Different Color was the first Willy DeVille album since 1987's Miracle to be released simultaneously in Europe and the United States. His previous five albums had been released first in Europe and picked up later, if they were picked up at all, by American record labels.
Epiphany in the Southwest
By 2000, DeVille had cured his two-decades-long addiction to heroin.[49] He relocated to Cerrillos Hills, New Mexico, where he produced and played on an album, Blue Love Monkey, with Rick Nafey, a friend from his youth in Connecticut who had played in DeVille's first band, Billy & the Kids, as well as The Royal Pythons.[50] In New Mexico, DeVille's wife Lisa committed suicide by hanging; DeVille discovered her body. He said:
I got in a car accident because I got crazy. I think I was somewhat taunting death because somebody who I loved very much died. And I found them. That's what that lyric in that song means ("she hurts me still since I cut her down" [from "Downside of Town" on Crow Jane Alley]). I cut her down. Next thing you know the police show up, I was in tears... I was in love with another woman and we were going through some hard times, and I got in the car and I wanted to go off the cliff. I was in the mountains in New Mexico... They came right around the corner head on. You know how big a Dodge Ram truck is? I broke my arm in three places and my knee went into the dash board... It was bone to bone... I was on crutches and on a cane for about three years and I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. I was fucked up. I was ready for the scrapheap.[51]
"I guess I was testing the waters to see if I would live through it", DeVille told another interviewer. "It was a foolish, foolish thing to do."[52] For the next five years, DeVille walked with a cane and performed sitting on a barstool, until he had hip replacement surgery in 2006.[53]
DeVille's stay in the Southwest awakened his interest in his Native American heritage. On the cover of his next album, 2002's Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin, recorded to celebrate his 25 years' of performing, DeVille wore long hair. He began wearing Native American clothing and jewelry on stage.
In 2004, DeVille returned to Los Angeles to record Crow Jane Alley, his third album with producer John Philip Shenale. The album continued his explorations of his Spanish-Americana sound and featured many prominent Los Angeles Latino musicians. On the cover, DeVille wore a Native American headdress and breastplate. Richard Marcus said of the album, "Crow Jane Alley is the work of an artist who after thirty plus years in the business still has the ability to surprise and delight his listeners. Listening to this disc only confirms that Willy DeVille is one of the greats who have been ignored for too long."[54]
Return to New York City
After living for 15 years in New Orleans and the Southwest, DeVille returned to New York City in 2003,[55] where he took up residence with Nina Lagerwall, his third wife. He continued touring Europe, usually playing music festivals in the summer.
On Mardi Gras of 2008, Pistola, DeVille's sixteenth album, was released. Independent Music said about the album: "(Willy DeVille) has never been more artistically potent than on Pistola, confronting the demons of his past with an impressive lyrical honesty and unexpectedly diverse musical imagination."[56]
Personal life
Willy DeVille was married in the early 1970s to Susan Berle (February 19, 1950–August 12, 2004), who was known as Toots Deville.[57] Toots and Willy had known each other while growing up in Stamford, Connecticut. They were married in 1971, and he adopted her son, Sean. Alex Halberstadt, Doc Pomus's biographer, wrote about Toots, "Half French and half Pima Indian, Toots favored a pair of nose rings, snow-white kabuki make-up and a Ronettes-style beehive the color of tar. She'd once put out a lit Marlboro in a woman's eye just for staring at Willy."[58]
In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett, whom he met in California.[44] She became his business manager. They lived near New Orleans and on a horse farm in Picayune, Mississippi. After her suicide in 2001, he married Nina Lagerwall (daughter of Sture Lagerwall), his third wife, who he met in New York in August 2000. They returned to New York City, where he spent the rest of his life.[59]
Death and legacy
In February 2009, DeVille was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and in May of that year doctors discovered pancreatic cancer in DeVille in the course of his Hepatitis C treatment.[60] He died in New York City in the late hours of August 6, 2009, three weeks shy of his 59th birthday.[61]
About his legacy, DeVille told an interviewer, "I have a theory. I know that I'll sell much more records when I'm dead. It isn't very pleasant, but I have to get used to this idea."[62]
Jack Nitzsche said that DeVille was the best singer he had ever worked with.[63]
Critic Robert Palmer wrote about him in 1980, "Mr. DeVille is a magnetic performer, but his macho stage presence camouflages an acute musical intelligence; his songs and arrangements are rich in ethnic rhythms and blues echoes, the most disparate stylistic references, yet they flow seamlessly and hang together solidly. He embodies (New York's) tangle of cultural contradictions while making music that's both idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original."[64]
In a 2015 interview, Bob Dylan suggested DeVille should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Said Dylan, "(DeVille) stood out, his voice and presentation ought to have gotten him in there by now."[65]
Critic Thom Jurek said about him, "His catalog is more diverse than virtually any other modern performer. The genre span of the songs he's written is staggering. From early rock and rhythm and blues styles, to Delta-styled blues, from Cajun music to New Orleans second line, from Latin-tinged folk to punky salseros, to elegant orchestral ballads—few people could write a love song like DeVille. He was the embodiment of rock and roll's romance, its theater, its style, its drama, camp, and danger."[66]
His sometime collaborator Mark Knopfler said of DeVille, "Willy had an enormous range. The songs he wrote were original, romantic and straight from the heart."[67]
Thom Jurek wrote about him after his death, "Willy DeVille is America's loss even if America doesn’t know it yet. The reason is simple: Like the very best rock and roll writers and performers in our history, he’s one of the very few who got it right; he understood what made a three-minute song great, and why it mattered—because it mattered to him. He lived and died with the audience in his shows, and he gave them something to remember when they left the theater, because he meant every single word of every song as he performed it. Europeans like that. In this jingoistic age of American pride, perhaps we can revisit our own true love of rock and roll by discovering Willy DeVille for the first time—or, at the very least, remember him for what he really was: an American original. The mythos and pathos in his songs, his voice, and his performances were born in these streets and cities and then given to the world who appreciated him much more than we did."[68]
Singer Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band said about him, "He had all the roots of music that I love and had this whole street thing of R&B — just the whole gestalt... He was just a tremendous talent; a true artist in the sense that he never compromised. He had a special vision and remained true to it."[69]
Writing in the Wall Street Journal about the posthumous release of DeVille's Come a Little Bit Closer: The Best of Willy DeVille Live (2011), Marc Meyers declared, "There was creative heat and pain in Mr. DeVille's eerie, edgy look and sound. While his punk-roadhouse fusion sailed over the heads of many at home, his approach inspired many British pop invaders of the 1980s, including Tears for Fears, Human League and Culture Club... He was a punk eclectic with a heart of golden oldies and Joe Cocker's pipes. A seedy sophisticate, Mr. DeVille was decades ahead of his time."
Mink DeVille was a house band at CBGB, the historic New York City nightclub where punk rock was born in the mid-1970s. DeVille helped redefine the Brill Building sound. In 1987 his song "Storybook Love" was nominated for an Academy Award. After his move to New Orleans in 1988, he helped spark the roots revival of classic New Orleans R&B. His soulful lyrics and explorations in Latin rhythms and sounds helped define a new musical style sometimes called "Spanish-Americana".[1]
DeVille died of pancreatic cancer on August 6, 2009 in a New York hospital. He was 58 years old.[2][3][4] Although his commercial success waxed and waned over the years, his legacy as a songwriter has influenced many other musicians such as Mark Knopfler and Peter Wolf.
Early life
Willy DeVille was born William Paul Borsey Jr. in Stamford, Connecticut.[5] The son of a carpenter,[6] he grew up in the working-class Belltown district of Stamford. His maternal grandmother was a Pequot,[7] and he was also of Basque and Irish descent. As he put it, "A little of this and a little of that; a real street dog."[8] DeVille said about Stamford, "It was post-industrial. Everybody worked in factories, you know. Not me. I wouldn't have that. People from Stamford don't get too far. That's a place where you die."[9] DeVille said about his youthful musical tastes, "I still remember listening to groups like the Drifters. It was like magic, there was drama, and it would hypnotise me."[6]
DeVille quit high school[10] and began frequenting New York's Lower East Side and West Village. "It seemed like I just hung out and hung out. I always wanted to play music but nobody really had it together then. They had psychedelic bands but that wasn't my thing."[11] In this period, DeVille's interests ran to blues guitarists Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker,[12] and especially John Hammond.[13][14] "I think I owe a lot about my look, my image on stage, and my vocal riffs to John Hammond. A lot of my musical stance is from John," Deville said.[15] He credited Hammond's 1965 album So Many Roads with "changing my life."[13]
Career
As a teenager, DeVille played with friends from Stamford in a blues band called Billy & the Kids, and later in another band called The Immaculate Conception.[16] At age 17, he married Susan Berle, also known as Toots, and they had a son named Sean in 1970.[17] DeVille struck out in 1971 for London in search of like-minded musicians ("obvious American with my Pompadour hair"), but was unsuccessful finding them; he returned to New York City after a two-year absence.[13]
His next band, The Royal Pythons ("a gang that turned into a musical group"[18]), was not a success either. Said DeVille: "I decided to go to San Francisco; there was nothing really happening in New York. Flower power was dead. All the day-glo paint was peeling off the walls. People were shooting speed. I mean, it was real Night of the Living Dead. So I bought a truck and headed out west. I traveled all around the country for a couple of years, looking for musicians who had heart, instead of playing 20-minute guitar solos, which is pure ego."[19]
The Mink DeVille years
By 1974 Willy DeVille (under the name Billy Borsay) was singing in a band with drummer Thomas R. "Manfred" Allen, Jr., bassist Rubén Sigüenza, guitarist Robert McKenzie (a.k.a. Fast Floyd), and Ritch Colbert on keyboards.[20] The band called themselves Billy de Sade and the Marquis, but changed the name to Mink DeVille the year after; at the same time lead singer Borsay adapted the name Willy DeVille. The same year, DeVille persuaded the band members to try their luck in New York City after spotting an ad in The Village Voice inviting bands to audition. Guitarist Fast Floyd and keyboard player Ritch Colbert stayed behind in San Francisco, and after arriving in New York, the band hired guitarist Louis X. Erlanger, whose blues sensibilities helped shape the Mink DeVille's sound.[21]
During three years, from 1975 to 1977, Mink DeVille was one of the original house bands at CBGB, the New York nightclub where punk rock music was born in the mid-1970s.[21] Their sound from this period is witnessed by Live at CBGB's, a 1976 compilation album of bands that played CBGB and for which the band contributed three songs.
Louis X. Erlanger (left) and Willy DeVille of Mink DeVille in 1977.
In December 1976, Ben Edmonds, an A&R man for Capitol Records signed the band to a contract with Capitol Records after spotting them at CBGB.[22] Edmonds paired Mink DeVille with producer Jack Nitzsche who had apprenticed under Phil Spector and helped shape the Wall of Sound production technique. Assisted by saxophonist Steve Douglas and a cappella singers the Immortals they recorded the band's debut album Cabretta (simply called Mink DeVille in the U.S.) in January 1976. Cabretta, a multifaceted album of soul, R&B, rock, and blues recordings, was selected number 57 in the Village Voice's 1977 Pazz & Jop critics poll.[23] Its lead single "Spanish Stroll" reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart, the only Willy DeVille recording to ever hit the charts in the United Kingdom.[24]
The band's follow-up album, Return to Magenta (1978), continued in the same vein as Cabretta, except that Willy DeVille and producers Nitzsche and Steve Douglas employed string arrangements on several songs. On this album Dr. John played keyboards and, once again, Douglas played saxophone. To promote the album, Mink DeVille toured the United States in 1978 with Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. Return to Magenta reached number 126 on the Billboard 200, making it Willy DeVille's highest charting album ever in his home country.[25]
In 1979, Willy DeVille took his band in a new direction and recorded an album in Paris called Le Chat Bleu. For the album, DeVille wrote several songs with Doc Pomus who had previously seen the band play in New York City.[26] DeVille hired Jean Claude Petit to supervise string arrangements, and he dismissed the members of the band except for guitarist Louis X. Erlanger in favor of new musicians: Accordionist Kenny Margolis, Jerry Scheff (bass), Ron Tutt (drums) and, once again, Steve Douglas (saxophone), who also served as producer. Capitol Records was not happy with Le Chat Bleu, believing that American audiences were incapable of listening to songs with accordions and lavish string arrangements; consequently they initially released the album only in Europe, in 1980. However, the album sold impressively in America as an import and Capitol finally released it in the United States later the same year.[27] Ironically, Rolling Stone yearly critic’s poll ranked Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980,[28] and music historian Glenn A. Baker declared it the tenth best rock album of all time.[29]
By this time no members of the original Mink DeVille save Willy DeVille remained in the band, but DeVille continued recording and touring under the name Mink DeVille.[30] He then recorded two albums for Atlantic Records, 1981's Coup de Grâce—on which Jack Nitzsche returned as producer—and 1983's Where Angels Fear to Tread. Both sold well in Europe but fared less well in the United States. Coup de Grâce was DeVille's last album ever to enter the Billboard 200, peaking at number 161.
Mink DeVille's last album, Sportin' Life, was recorded for Polydor in 1985. For this album, DeVille penned two more songs with Doc Pomus. The album was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and DeVille and Duncan Cameron producing. The album was a hit in some European countries, entering the top 20 in Switzerland and Sweden.[31][32] In 1986, DeVille filed for bankruptcy as part of what Billboard called "a major restructuring of his career". He fired his personal manager, Michael Barnett, and announced that he would "put Mink DeVille to bed" and start a solo career. Consequently, Mink DeVille played its last concert on February 20, 1986 in New York City.[33]
"Storybook Love" collaboration with Mark Knopfler
Although Willy DeVille had been recording and touring for ten years under the name Mink DeVille, no members of his original band had recorded or toured with him since 1980's Le Chat Bleu. Beginning in 1987 with the album Miracle, DeVille began recording and touring under his own name. He told an interviewer, "Ten years with the band was enough for Mink DeVille; everyone was calling me 'Mink.' I thought it was about time to get the name straight."[34]
DeVille recorded Miracle in London with Mark Knopfler serving as his sideman and producer. He said, "It was Mark (Knopfler’s) wife Lourdes who came up with the idea (to record Miracle). She said to him that you don't sing like Willy and he doesn't play guitar like you, but you really like his stuff so why don't you do an album together?"[35] "Storybook Love", a song from Miracle and the theme song of the movie The Princess Bride, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1987; DeVille performed the song at that year's Academy Awards telecast.
Knopfler heard ("Storybook Love") and asked if I knew about this movie he was doing. It was a Rob Reiner film about a princess and a prince. The song was about the same subject matter as the film, so we submitted it to Reiner and he loved it. About six or seven months later, I was half asleep when the phone rang. It was the Academy of Arts and Sciences with the whole spiel. I hung up on them! They called back and Lisa (his wife) answered the phone. She came in to tell me that I was nominated for "Storybook Love." It's pretty wild. It's not the Grammys — it's the Academy Awards, which is different for a musician. Before I knew it, I was performing on the awards show with Little Richard. It was the year of Dirty Dancing, and they won.[36]
In New Orleans
In 1988, DeVille relocated from New York to New Orleans, where he found a spiritual home. "I was stunned", he said in a 1993 interview. "I had the feeling that I was going back home. It was very strange... I live in the French Quarter, two streets away from Bourbon Street; at night, when I go to bed, I hear the boogie that comes from the streets, and in the morning, when I wake up, I hear the blues."[37]
In 1990, DeVille made Victory Mixture, a tribute album of classic New Orleans soul and R&B which he recorded with some of the songs' original composers. The album was recorded without the use of overdubbing or sound editing with the goal of capturing the spirit of the original recordings.
I got all the original guys to come back in, like Earl King, Dr. John and Eddie Bo. Allen Toussaint played side piano. I brought in the rhythm section of The Meters on a couple of cuts. We call it the "little" record. It's funny, because I was just trying to get them money, the writers of the songs, 'cause they all got ripped off in the 1950s and 1960s. They were all fascinated, and Dr. John (who had played on DeVille's 1978 album Return to Magenta and who DeVille knew from his association with Doc Pomus) convinced them that they wouldn't get ripped off by this northern white boy. That's when I crossed over to being a local here in New Orleans. We were all pleased with it. It's recorded the way it was originally done back then. It's live with no overdubs anywhere, no digital, no editing. We played the song several times and just picked the best take, the one that was the most natural. It's on Fnac/Orleans Records. I'm really proud of that one.[36]
Victory Mixture was recorded for a small independent label, Orleans Records, which licensed it to Sky Ranch (Fnac Music) in France. "It sold over 100,000 units in Europe very quickly—our first gold disc," said Carlo Ditta, founder of Orleans Records and the producer of Victory Mixture.[38]
In the summer of 1992, DeVille toured Europe with Dr John, Johnny Adams, Zachary Richard, and The Wild Magnolias as part of his "New Orleans Revue" tour. "The travel, buses, and planes and the accommodations had to be some of the worst I've ever experienced... but the shows themselves were great. At the end of each show we'd throw Mardi Gras Throws out to the audience, you know strands of purple and gold beads, and they'd never seen anything like it and they loved it."[39]
Recording in Los Angeles
In 1992, DeVille recorded Backstreets of Desire, the first of four albums he would record in Los Angeles with producer John Philip Shenale.[40] "I say it every time I record in L.A. — that I'll never do it again, and I keep doing it... It's crazy. I just record and go to the hotel, and never go out, then back to the studio. I hate L.A. It's the worst. I think they eat their children there. I never saw any kids. It's a pity there aren't more studios in New Orleans."[36] Although DeVille complained about having to record in Los Angeles, recording in that city put him in touch with many talented Latino musicians who helped shape his distinctive Spanish-Americana sound.
For Backstreets of Desire, he was joined by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Efrain Toro, Mariachi los Camperos, and Jimmy Zavala, as well as New Orleans musicians Dr. John and Zachary Richard and L.A. session musicians Jeff Baxter, Freebo, Jim Gilstrap, and Brian Ray. Allmusic said about the album:
Willy DeVille's Backstreets of Desire stands tall as his masterpiece as both a singer and a songwriter. DeVille's considerable reputation in Paris buoyed him up to make this disc... With guest spots by Dr. John, Zachary Richard, and David Hidalgo, DeVille creates a tapestry of roots rock and Crescent City second line, traces of 1950s doo-wop, and elegant sweeping vistas of Spanish soul balladry, combined with lyrics full of busted-down heroes, hungry lovers, and wise men trying to get off the street. The sound of the album balances Creole soul and pure rock pyrotechnics. DeVille sounds like a man resurrected, digging as deep as the cavernous recesses of the human heart.[41]
Backstreets of Desire included a novel mariachi version of the Jimi Hendrix standard “Hey Joe” that was a hit in Europe, rising to number one in Spain and France.[42] DeVille said about "Hey Joe": "The song originally comes from the Texas-Mexico border area ... [T]hey call it Texico. I tried, instead of doing something that sounded like Jimi Hendrix that would have been a cliché, I tried to take the song back to the way that it must originally have sounded, which would be with mariachis. It's classic, but it's classic with a little twist. A little different. I put a bit of pachuco Canal Street slang talking. I added a couple of verses of my own."[43] Backstreets of Desire was released in the United States in 1994 on Rhino Record's
Forward label.
Continued success in Europe
In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett,[44] who proved to be an astute business manager. On the strength of his success touring and selling albums in Europe, they bought a horse farm, Casa de Sueños, in Picayune, Mississippi and began living there as well as at their apartment and studio in the French Quarter of New Orleans. DeVille told an interviewer in 1996: "I finally got the plantation... I just bought this house and 11 acres (45,000 m2). It looks a little bit like Graceland... I got into horses since my wife is into them. We're raising Spanish and Portuguese bullfighting horses. The bloodline is 2000 years old. She's into breeding, but I just love riding. I've also got five dogs, four cats and a partridge in a pear tree."[36]
DeVille did not have a recording contract with an American label in the mid-1990s. His next two albums, Willy DeVille Live (1993) and Big Easy Fantasy (1995), were recorded for Fnac Music, a French label. Willy DeVille Live was a number one record in Spain.[45] Big Easy Fantasy presents live recordings of the Mink DeVille Band playing with New Orleans legends Eddie Bo and The Wild Magnolias and remixes from the Victory Mixture sessions.
DeVille said, "I was pissed off and I didn't have a record deal for a few years. At the time I didn't want one. I was getting very gun-shy about labels. I was performing in Europe and I was doing great without one. When you get to that stage in your mind, they all start coming around. It's pretty strange the way that happens".[36]
In 1995, he returned to Los Angeles to record Loup Garou, again with producer John Philip Shenale. Musician said about the album: "Loup Garou is subtle in nuance but staggering in scope, it connects the dots between all of the artist's sacrosanct influences, often within the framework of a single song... All of it is on the money, performed from the heart..."[46] Loup Garou featured a duet with Brenda Lee; DeVille said: "She didn't know who the hell I was. I just called her up, played the song for her, and she loved it. She had her business people check me out, and they reported that I was big in Europe and had been recording for twenty years. So I flew to Nashville [to record with her]... That's got to go down in my book as one of the most memorable experiences in my career."[36]
The cover of Loup Garou showed DeVille in turn of the 20th century New Orleans garb posing on a street corner in New Orleans' French Quarter. It included voodoo chants and a song subtitled "Vampire's Lullaby". The singer had completely immersed himself in New Orleans culture. Percussionist Boris Kinberg, a longtime member of the Mink DeVille Band, said about the stages of Willy DeVille's career:
To my mind there were three main eras. The first era was the Lower East Side, skinny tie, purple shirt, West Side Story, Puerto Rican Sharks gang vibe. Then it transmuted into the Mississippi plantation-gambler riverboat rogue, the Rhett Butler thing where he had had custom-made suits, and really got into the period and the clothes and just totally immersed himself in New Orleans, not the present New Orleans, but the New Orleans of the 1880s and 1890s—the Absinthe-drinking, voodoo New Orleans. He totally immersed himself in that. Then he left New Orleans and moved to the Southwest and came back as the second coming of Black Elk.[47]
Before moving to the Southwest in 2000, DeVille recorded Horse of a Different Color in Memphis. The 1999 album, produced by Jim Dickinson, includes a chain-gang song, a cover of Fred McDowell's "Going over the Hill," and a cover of Andre Williams's "Bacon Fat". Allmusic said about the album, "Simply put, no one has this range or depth in interpreting not only styles, but also the poetics of virtually any set of lyrics. DeVille makes everything he sings believable. 'Horse of a Different Color' is the most consistent and brilliant recording of Willy DeVille's long career."[48] Horse of a Different Color was the first Willy DeVille album since 1987's Miracle to be released simultaneously in Europe and the United States. His previous five albums had been released first in Europe and picked up later, if they were picked up at all, by American record labels.
Epiphany in the Southwest
By 2000, DeVille had cured his two-decades-long addiction to heroin.[49] He relocated to Cerrillos Hills, New Mexico, where he produced and played on an album, Blue Love Monkey, with Rick Nafey, a friend from his youth in Connecticut who had played in DeVille's first band, Billy & the Kids, as well as The Royal Pythons.[50] In New Mexico, DeVille's wife Lisa committed suicide by hanging; DeVille discovered her body. He said:
I got in a car accident because I got crazy. I think I was somewhat taunting death because somebody who I loved very much died. And I found them. That's what that lyric in that song means ("she hurts me still since I cut her down" [from "Downside of Town" on Crow Jane Alley]). I cut her down. Next thing you know the police show up, I was in tears... I was in love with another woman and we were going through some hard times, and I got in the car and I wanted to go off the cliff. I was in the mountains in New Mexico... They came right around the corner head on. You know how big a Dodge Ram truck is? I broke my arm in three places and my knee went into the dash board... It was bone to bone... I was on crutches and on a cane for about three years and I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. I was fucked up. I was ready for the scrapheap.[51]
"I guess I was testing the waters to see if I would live through it", DeVille told another interviewer. "It was a foolish, foolish thing to do."[52] For the next five years, DeVille walked with a cane and performed sitting on a barstool, until he had hip replacement surgery in 2006.[53]
DeVille's stay in the Southwest awakened his interest in his Native American heritage. On the cover of his next album, 2002's Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin, recorded to celebrate his 25 years' of performing, DeVille wore long hair. He began wearing Native American clothing and jewelry on stage.
In 2004, DeVille returned to Los Angeles to record Crow Jane Alley, his third album with producer John Philip Shenale. The album continued his explorations of his Spanish-Americana sound and featured many prominent Los Angeles Latino musicians. On the cover, DeVille wore a Native American headdress and breastplate. Richard Marcus said of the album, "Crow Jane Alley is the work of an artist who after thirty plus years in the business still has the ability to surprise and delight his listeners. Listening to this disc only confirms that Willy DeVille is one of the greats who have been ignored for too long."[54]
Return to New York City
After living for 15 years in New Orleans and the Southwest, DeVille returned to New York City in 2003,[55] where he took up residence with Nina Lagerwall, his third wife. He continued touring Europe, usually playing music festivals in the summer.
On Mardi Gras of 2008, Pistola, DeVille's sixteenth album, was released. Independent Music said about the album: "(Willy DeVille) has never been more artistically potent than on Pistola, confronting the demons of his past with an impressive lyrical honesty and unexpectedly diverse musical imagination."[56]
Personal life
Willy DeVille was married in the early 1970s to Susan Berle (February 19, 1950–August 12, 2004), who was known as Toots Deville.[57] Toots and Willy had known each other while growing up in Stamford, Connecticut. They were married in 1971, and he adopted her son, Sean. Alex Halberstadt, Doc Pomus's biographer, wrote about Toots, "Half French and half Pima Indian, Toots favored a pair of nose rings, snow-white kabuki make-up and a Ronettes-style beehive the color of tar. She'd once put out a lit Marlboro in a woman's eye just for staring at Willy."[58]
In 1984, DeVille married his second wife, Lisa Leggett, whom he met in California.[44] She became his business manager. They lived near New Orleans and on a horse farm in Picayune, Mississippi. After her suicide in 2001, he married Nina Lagerwall (daughter of Sture Lagerwall), his third wife, who he met in New York in August 2000. They returned to New York City, where he spent the rest of his life.[59]
Death and legacy
In February 2009, DeVille was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and in May of that year doctors discovered pancreatic cancer in DeVille in the course of his Hepatitis C treatment.[60] He died in New York City in the late hours of August 6, 2009, three weeks shy of his 59th birthday.[61]
About his legacy, DeVille told an interviewer, "I have a theory. I know that I'll sell much more records when I'm dead. It isn't very pleasant, but I have to get used to this idea."[62]
Jack Nitzsche said that DeVille was the best singer he had ever worked with.[63]
Critic Robert Palmer wrote about him in 1980, "Mr. DeVille is a magnetic performer, but his macho stage presence camouflages an acute musical intelligence; his songs and arrangements are rich in ethnic rhythms and blues echoes, the most disparate stylistic references, yet they flow seamlessly and hang together solidly. He embodies (New York's) tangle of cultural contradictions while making music that's both idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original."[64]
In a 2015 interview, Bob Dylan suggested DeVille should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Said Dylan, "(DeVille) stood out, his voice and presentation ought to have gotten him in there by now."[65]
Critic Thom Jurek said about him, "His catalog is more diverse than virtually any other modern performer. The genre span of the songs he's written is staggering. From early rock and rhythm and blues styles, to Delta-styled blues, from Cajun music to New Orleans second line, from Latin-tinged folk to punky salseros, to elegant orchestral ballads—few people could write a love song like DeVille. He was the embodiment of rock and roll's romance, its theater, its style, its drama, camp, and danger."[66]
His sometime collaborator Mark Knopfler said of DeVille, "Willy had an enormous range. The songs he wrote were original, romantic and straight from the heart."[67]
Thom Jurek wrote about him after his death, "Willy DeVille is America's loss even if America doesn’t know it yet. The reason is simple: Like the very best rock and roll writers and performers in our history, he’s one of the very few who got it right; he understood what made a three-minute song great, and why it mattered—because it mattered to him. He lived and died with the audience in his shows, and he gave them something to remember when they left the theater, because he meant every single word of every song as he performed it. Europeans like that. In this jingoistic age of American pride, perhaps we can revisit our own true love of rock and roll by discovering Willy DeVille for the first time—or, at the very least, remember him for what he really was: an American original. The mythos and pathos in his songs, his voice, and his performances were born in these streets and cities and then given to the world who appreciated him much more than we did."[68]
Singer Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band said about him, "He had all the roots of music that I love and had this whole street thing of R&B — just the whole gestalt... He was just a tremendous talent; a true artist in the sense that he never compromised. He had a special vision and remained true to it."[69]
Writing in the Wall Street Journal about the posthumous release of DeVille's Come a Little Bit Closer: The Best of Willy DeVille Live (2011), Marc Meyers declared, "There was creative heat and pain in Mr. DeVille's eerie, edgy look and sound. While his punk-roadhouse fusion sailed over the heads of many at home, his approach inspired many British pop invaders of the 1980s, including Tears for Fears, Human League and Culture Club... He was a punk eclectic with a heart of golden oldies and Joe Cocker's pipes. A seedy sophisticate, Mr. DeVille was decades ahead of his time."
Willy DeVille - Cadillac Walk.
Castro Coleman *25.08.1976
aka Mr. Sipp "The Mississippi Blues Child"
Born August 25, 1976 to Johnell and the late Vera Coleman in the small town of McComb, MS. Mr. Sipp began playing the guitar at the young age of 6. Due to hard work and perseverance Mr. Sipp has become an awesome songwriter, musician, composer and producer. Mr. Sipp is also a vocalist and performing artist. Most of all, a God fearing hard working family man. Castro has over 125 credits to his name and has played on over 50 national recordings including several Grammy nominated projects. He has traveled to Russia and other international countries spreading his gift of music. At the age of 36, his goal is to keep giving people hope and enjoyment through his music. Mr. Sipp is the 2014 IBC Winner and has been casted in the upcoming James Brown movie. Mr. Sipp's favorite quote, "I'm living to love the life that I live, Music!!!!
Castro Colman and Highly favored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGK3LY_4GZU#t=95
Sipp Trying to Hit It Like B B with some Sipp On It
Dani Wilde *25.08.1985
Dani Wilde (* 25. August 1985 in Hullavington, Wiltshire) ist eine britische Sängerin und Gitarristin, welche Elemente verschiedener Stile wie Blues, Country und Gospel zu Popsongs vereint.
Dani Wilde schloss 2005 ihre Ausbildung in Gesang am Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) mit einem First Class Degree ab. [2] Im September 2007 konnte sie einen Vertrag mit dem internationalen Blueslabel Ruf Records unterschreiben [3], bei dem sie ihr Debütalbum "Heal My Blues" im Januar 2008 veröffentlichen konnte.
Danach folgten Touren durch Großbritannien, Europa, Kanada, die USA und Afrika. [4] 2009 veröffentlichte sie ihr zweites Album „Shine“, das von dem bekannten Bluesproduzenten Mike Vernon produziert wurde. Im Mai 2012 folgte das dritte Studioalbum “Juice Me Up”.
Wilde gelang es drei ihrer Singles auf Platz eins in den offiziellen europäischen I-Tunes Bluescharts zu platzieren: "Bring Your Loving Home" (Album: Heal my Blues),[5] "Abandoned Child" (Album: Shine) [6] und "Bitch" (Album: Girls with Guitars).[7][8] Die 2013 bei Bri-Tone Records veröffentlichte Single "Loving You" schaffte es in die Top 40 der europäischen Countrymusikcharts.[9]
Zusammenarbeit
Wilde hat mit einer Vielzahl verschiedener Künstler zusammengearbeitet. 2010 trat sie beim WOMAD zusammen mit Pee Wee Ellis auf. Zudem war sie bereits Vorband von Jools Holland, Journey, Johnny Winter und Robben Ford.[10]
2008 tourte sie zusammen mit Candye Kane, Sue Foley und Deborah Coleman in der von Ruf Records organisierten "Guitared and Feathers Blues Caravan Tour".[11]
2011 folgte die "Girls with Guitars Blues Caravan World Tour" zusammen mit Samantha Fish und Cassie Taylor. Zusammen nahmen sie auch das Studioalbum "Girls with Guitars" auf.[12] 2012 folgte eine Live-CD und DVD, allerdings jetzt mit Victoria Smith am Bass. [13][14]
Soziales Engagement
Dani Wilde engagiert sich sehr für die Rechte von Kindern. Außerdem arbeitete sie mi der Organisation „Moving Mountains“ zusammen, welche versucht die Bildung von Straßenkindern und Waisen in Embu (Kenia) zu verbessern.
Dani Wilde (born 25 August 1985, Hullavington, Wiltshire) is a British born Female Singer-Songwriter and guitarist who fuses roots genres including blues, country, gospel, soul and americana into popular song.[1]
Career
After graduating with her 1st class degree in Vocals at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) in 2005,[2] Dani Wilde was signed to the international blues record label 'Ruf Records' in September 2007,[3] with the release of her debut album "Heal My Blues" in January 2008.
Since then, Wilde had toured across The UK, Europe, Canada, America and Africa.[4] In 2009, she released her second album, "Shine" with blues producer Mike Vernon. In May 2012, Wilde's third album "Juice Me Up" was released.
Wilde has achieved three number 1's in the official European I-Tunes Blues charts with her singles "Bring Your Loving Home" (Album: Heal my Blues),[5] "Abandoned Child" (Album: Shine) [6] and "Bitch" (Album: Girls with Guitars).[7][8] In 2013, Wilde's single "Loving You", released on Bri-Tone Records, entered into the European Country Music Chart's Top 40.[9]
Wilde has had regular airplay on The Paul Jones Show on BBC Radio 2, and has been a featured artist for BBC Radio 2's Maida Vale Live Sessions on four occasions.[10][11]
Collaborations
Wilde has collaborated with a number of artists during her career. In the 2010 WOMAD festival, Wilde performed live alongside Pee Wee Ellis. Wilde has also performed in the opening act for Jools Holland, Journey, Foreigner, Johnny Winter and Robben Ford.[12]
In 2008 Wilde toured The UK, Europe and the USA with blues veterans Candye Kane, Sue Foley and Deborah Coleman on the Ruf Records "Guitared and Feathers Blues Caravan tour".[13]
In 2011 Wilde collaborated with American artists Samantha Fish and Cassie Taylor on the Ruf Records "Girls with Guitars Blues Caravan World Tour". That year, they also recorded and released a studio album "Girls with Guitars".[14] In 2012 the tour schedule continued and the group released a live CD/DVD with British bassist Victoria Smith replacing Cassie Taylor.[15][16]
Humanitarian work
Dani Wilde is an advocate for children's rights. She has worked with the charity "Moving Mountains" to help improve education for Street Children and Orphans in Embu, Kenya.
Career
After graduating with her 1st class degree in Vocals at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) in 2005,[2] Dani Wilde was signed to the international blues record label 'Ruf Records' in September 2007,[3] with the release of her debut album "Heal My Blues" in January 2008.
Since then, Wilde had toured across The UK, Europe, Canada, America and Africa.[4] In 2009, she released her second album, "Shine" with blues producer Mike Vernon. In May 2012, Wilde's third album "Juice Me Up" was released.
Wilde has achieved three number 1's in the official European I-Tunes Blues charts with her singles "Bring Your Loving Home" (Album: Heal my Blues),[5] "Abandoned Child" (Album: Shine) [6] and "Bitch" (Album: Girls with Guitars).[7][8] In 2013, Wilde's single "Loving You", released on Bri-Tone Records, entered into the European Country Music Chart's Top 40.[9]
Wilde has had regular airplay on The Paul Jones Show on BBC Radio 2, and has been a featured artist for BBC Radio 2's Maida Vale Live Sessions on four occasions.[10][11]
Collaborations
Wilde has collaborated with a number of artists during her career. In the 2010 WOMAD festival, Wilde performed live alongside Pee Wee Ellis. Wilde has also performed in the opening act for Jools Holland, Journey, Foreigner, Johnny Winter and Robben Ford.[12]
In 2008 Wilde toured The UK, Europe and the USA with blues veterans Candye Kane, Sue Foley and Deborah Coleman on the Ruf Records "Guitared and Feathers Blues Caravan tour".[13]
In 2011 Wilde collaborated with American artists Samantha Fish and Cassie Taylor on the Ruf Records "Girls with Guitars Blues Caravan World Tour". That year, they also recorded and released a studio album "Girls with Guitars".[14] In 2012 the tour schedule continued and the group released a live CD/DVD with British bassist Victoria Smith replacing Cassie Taylor.[15][16]
Humanitarian work
Dani Wilde is an advocate for children's rights. She has worked with the charity "Moving Mountains" to help improve education for Street Children and Orphans in Embu, Kenya.
Dani Wilde - I'd Rather Go Blind - Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Erin Harpe *25.08.
Their debut album, “LOVE WHIP BLUES” is a refreshing, rootsy take on the blues, with songs about trains, hard luck and good luck, and of course (in the vein of Harpe’s other band, Lovewhip) shakin’ your booty. Ten swinging tracks include four originals, Harpe’s take on songs by 1930’s blues artists, and a very unorthodox version of the classic John Prine song, “Angel From Montgomery”, famously recorded by Bonnie Raitt. Produced by Dave Gross (Candye Kane, Chris O’Leary, Albert Castiglia, Gina Sicilia) at Fat Rabbit Studios, the album shows off the band’s signature Charles River Delta Blues – their own country blues/roots/americana cocktail – including an appearance by guest star guitarist Bob Margolin (Muddy Waters band).
The Delta Swingers features Erin on electric and acoustic guitar and lead vocals, backed by Jim Countryman on bass, Bob Nisi on drums and vocal harmonies, and a revolving cast of Boston's best blues soloists, including the blistering electrified harmonica of Richard “Rosy” Rosenblatt, the slide guitar of “Sonny” Jim Clifford and other local stars. Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers release their long-awaited debut album “LOVE WHIP BLUES” on VizzTone/Juicy Juju Records on November 4th.
Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers are an American Delta blues quintet from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Formed in 2010, the group consists of Erin Harpe (lead vocals and guitar), Jim Countryman (electric bass), Bob Nisi (drums and background vocals), Richard "Rosy" Rosenblatt (harmonicas) and "Sonny" Jim Clifford (slide guitar).[1]
The band won the Boston Blues Challenge, for the third time, in 2014, and attended the five-day International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, in January 2015, but did not reach the semi-finals of the competition as they did in 2011 and 2013.
They released their debut album, Love Whip Blues, in 2014. The title (and second track on the album) is derived from the band's alter ego, Lovewhip, an electro-funk dance trio.
With the location in which they formed in mind, Harpe describes the band's sound as Charles River Delta blues, a made-up genre that gave its name to a track on Love Whip Blues.
History
Erin Harpe grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland. Her father, Neil, is a blues musician, and although she grew up with music around her, she did not pick up an instrument until fourth grade, when she opted to play the flute. She played that for about ten years, before a young love interest, who knew all of the lyrics to "Alice's Restaurant," turned her head to the guitar. “I ran home and said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to teach me how to play it.’ After that, I was hooked. I could pick it up really easily, so I said, ‘Screw the flute’ and learned finger-picking blues guitar.”[1]
Harpe started to play at folk festivals and coffeehouses in her 20s. She released two albums under her own name. The first, Blues Roots (2002), was a set of covers by artists such as Memphis Minnie (Harpe's main influence),[2] Bessie Smith and Tommy Johnson. The second, Delta Blues Duets (2008), included duets recorded with her father.
She later moved to Boston and met bass player Jim Countryman, whom she married in 1999. They formed Lovewhip with drummer and backing vocalist Bob Nisi[3] and released four studio albums and one live set. They won a Boston Music Award in 2012.
In 2010, Harpe formed the Delta Swingers quintet. Alongside Countryman and Nisi, harmonicist Richard "Rosy" Rosenblatt and slide guitarist "Sonny" Jim Clifford were brought in.
An initial attempt to disband Lovewhip to focus on the Swingers was rebuked by fans. “We tried to end Lovewhip but fans revolted,” Harpe said in 2014.[1]
In April 2014, Harpe and Countryman, who also doubles as the band's general manager and booking agent, toured the U.K. as the Acoustic Blues Duo, with the former on acoustic guitar and the latter on ukelele bass.
After signing to Newton-based VizzTone Label Group (founded by Rosenblatt) in late 2014,[4] the Swingers released their debut album, Love Whip Blues, on November 4, 2014. Produced in collaboration with Dave Gross, of Fat Rabbit Studios, the album features ten tracks — four originals and six interpretations of songs by Willie Brown, Lucille Bogan, Luke Jordan, William Moore and John Prine.
Band membersThe band won the Boston Blues Challenge, for the third time, in 2014, and attended the five-day International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, in January 2015, but did not reach the semi-finals of the competition as they did in 2011 and 2013.
They released their debut album, Love Whip Blues, in 2014. The title (and second track on the album) is derived from the band's alter ego, Lovewhip, an electro-funk dance trio.
With the location in which they formed in mind, Harpe describes the band's sound as Charles River Delta blues, a made-up genre that gave its name to a track on Love Whip Blues.
History
Erin Harpe grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland. Her father, Neil, is a blues musician, and although she grew up with music around her, she did not pick up an instrument until fourth grade, when she opted to play the flute. She played that for about ten years, before a young love interest, who knew all of the lyrics to "Alice's Restaurant," turned her head to the guitar. “I ran home and said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to teach me how to play it.’ After that, I was hooked. I could pick it up really easily, so I said, ‘Screw the flute’ and learned finger-picking blues guitar.”[1]
Harpe started to play at folk festivals and coffeehouses in her 20s. She released two albums under her own name. The first, Blues Roots (2002), was a set of covers by artists such as Memphis Minnie (Harpe's main influence),[2] Bessie Smith and Tommy Johnson. The second, Delta Blues Duets (2008), included duets recorded with her father.
She later moved to Boston and met bass player Jim Countryman, whom she married in 1999. They formed Lovewhip with drummer and backing vocalist Bob Nisi[3] and released four studio albums and one live set. They won a Boston Music Award in 2012.
In 2010, Harpe formed the Delta Swingers quintet. Alongside Countryman and Nisi, harmonicist Richard "Rosy" Rosenblatt and slide guitarist "Sonny" Jim Clifford were brought in.
An initial attempt to disband Lovewhip to focus on the Swingers was rebuked by fans. “We tried to end Lovewhip but fans revolted,” Harpe said in 2014.[1]
In April 2014, Harpe and Countryman, who also doubles as the band's general manager and booking agent, toured the U.K. as the Acoustic Blues Duo, with the former on acoustic guitar and the latter on ukelele bass.
After signing to Newton-based VizzTone Label Group (founded by Rosenblatt) in late 2014,[4] the Swingers released their debut album, Love Whip Blues, on November 4, 2014. Produced in collaboration with Dave Gross, of Fat Rabbit Studios, the album features ten tracks — four originals and six interpretations of songs by Willie Brown, Lucille Bogan, Luke Jordan, William Moore and John Prine.
Erin Harpe – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Jim Countryman – electric bass
Bob Nisi – drums and background vocals
Richard "Rosy" Rosenblatt – harmonicas
"Sonny" Jim Clifford – slide guitar
Erin Harpe and The Delta Swingers Live @ Johnny D's Uptown 10/17/10
Randy Bluesman Hock *25.08.
I've been playing Soul and Blues Professionally with Recording Artists since 1965 www.myspace.com/randybluesmanhock
http://www.blueshalloffame.com/Ambassadors/Ambassadors.html#Randy_Hock
I have a Music Myspace page that goes into greater detail (www.myspace.com/randybluesmanhock)
Started playing Professionally in 1964.
Worked with Recording Artist Billy Miranda:
Jazz Bo Brown-Guitar (formerly with Percy Sledge)
Al Colson-Tenor Sax (formerly with Little Richard)
Eddie Hope-Drums (formerly with Roy Orbison)
(played Live with Legend Les Paul on that Gig.)
Worked with Lonnie Brooks, MOTHERS FINEST,
Ronnie(Skeets) Anderson -Guitar(Sam Cooke)
Ray Parrish-Guitar(Elvin Bishop)
YUSEF RAHMAN (Arranged Grammy Award Album Talking Book) For Stevie Wonder. https://www.facebook.com/badges/profile.php
“Randy ‘Blues Man’ Hock is an excellent musician, songwriter and producer whom I have known for several years. His high energy blues will grab you and make you want to get up and dance and speak to your soul. Listen to the message. He’s got something to say.” – Teressa “BluesBabe” Brewer
Living the Life of the Blues
OK Just Aint Good Enough
R.I.P.
Allen Woody +25.08.2000
Douglas Allen Woody (October 3, 1955 – August 25, 2000)[1] was a bass guitarist best known for his tenure in the rock groups The Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule, The Artimus Pyle Band, The Peter Criss Band, Blue Floyd, and Montage.
Woody joined The Allman Brothers Band along with guitarist Warren Haynes upon the group's reunion in 1989. Woody and Haynes formed side project Gov't Mule in 1994 with former Dicky Betts drummer Matt Abts. Haynes and Woody decided to leave The Allman Brothers Band in 1997 to put a full-time effort into Gov't Mule.
Woody was found dead sitting up in a chair the morning of Saturday August 26, 2000 at the Marriott Courtyard Motel in Queens, New York. A preliminary autopsy performed was inconclusive and showed no immediate cause of death.[2] He is survived by his wife Jenny and daughter Savannah.
Woody's death helped Haynes in his decision to return to The Allman Brothers Band. Gov't Mule continued on after Woody's death with Andy Hess assuming bass duties after a three-year period that saw a rotating group of bass players including Mike Gordon, Dave Schools, Oteil Burbridge (Woody's replacement in the Allman Brothers Band), George Porter Jr. and Les Claypool.
Musical equipment
Woody was a respected bass guitarist[citation needed] - he had a large collection of bass guitars (around 450), featured in his own bass instruction video and was held in high esteem for his playing. The Epiphone Rumble Kat signature bass was similar to two specially built double-neck instruments that Gibson made him: a bass/guitar and a bass/mandolin. With the Allman Brothers, although Woody used many different basses, Gibson Thunderbirds were his preferred instruments, along with Alembic basses. With Gov't Mule, Allen usually played the Gibson EB series, particularly the hollow-bodied EB-2 and the solid-bodied EB-3. At times he played a Rickenbacker or Gibson Thunderbird. Ampeg SVT was his amp of choice most of the time. Epiphone posthumously released an Allen Woody Limited Edition Bass, a semi-hollow arch-top similar to the Rumble Kat.
The movie Rising Low, directed by fellow bass player Mike Gordon, is a documentary about bass players dedicated to the memory of Allen Woody and features bass players that he respected and knew in his lifetime.
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