I've talked before about all those issues of Punk Magazine that would turn up in rural Maryland like divine gifts back in '77, providing glimpses of a world (CBGB's) I'd never seen and talk of music I'd yet to hear. But, I doubt that I've ever mentioned that Willy DeVille - and some fishnet clad, Ronettes revisit called Toots, his first wife, I would later learn - were the first people of that world I ever saw. They weren't attractive but I somehow knew that I'd like what they were doing. And, I was right because, if Springsteen had been Italian and had married a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx, and loved black doo-wop and R&B more than anything else, he'd have been Willy DeVille. And, if Springsteen managed to reach Spectorian heights with "Born To Run", he couldn't top Willy because Willy got some of the finest brick layers of the wall of sound for not one, not two, but three of his albums.
Willy, with the Mink moniker, managed to work with Jack Nitzsche, Steve Douglas, and Doc Pomus but, even if I'd known this at the time, I would not have been savvy enough to connect them to the names that I may or may not have noticed on the labels of those forty-fives of my parents that meant so much to me. In fact, it mattered little because I didn't get around to a copy of those albums until the original Mink DeVille had already split up.
He'd never reach Springsteen heights, hampered with a heroin addiction and a face that lacked charm, but he had a slew of tracks that were far worthier and a Grammy nod of his own for "Storybook Love" from "The Princess Bride"(losing to "The Time of My Life" from "Dirty Dancing" must have hurt but losing to one of the Righteous Brothers probably made it hurt a little less). I've already mentioned "Something Beauty Dying", one of his finest moments with Doc Pomus and of his not so great mid-eighties output, so I'll put "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl", from "Cabretta", on display instead. It was the first Mink DeVille song I ever heard and loved so it's a good way to start the end.
1 comment:
Willy was the best. It's a sad testimony to American music that this great musical treasure was neglected for his entire life in his native country.
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