Spanish Stroll Lyrics. Onstage, Willy's band, Mink DeVille, had nothing in common with the new wave CBGB bands that the press had lumped them with. 4.0 out of 5 stars 22 tracks covering the great singer's capitol years. Songwriting with Doc Pomus. by And he has expanded the scope of his music by adding elements of French cafe songs and Louisiana zydeco to the mixture of rock, blues, Latin and Brill Building soul that was already there. [10], Mink DeVille recorded their debut album Cabretta (entitled Mink DeVille in the U.S.), produced by Jack Nitzsche, in January 1977. 'I tried to get him for years.' Born in Stamford, Conn., he is survived by his wife, Nina, and a son, Sean Borsey. Wrote Alex Halberstadt, Pomus's biographer: One night Doc's pub crawl took him to The Bottom Line just a block east of Washington Square Park (in New York City). He did not play any benefit concerts or recordings for the nightclub. Because you never treated me right. Fast Floyd was replaced by Louis X. Erlanger, who had played with John Lee Hooker and brought a deeper blues sensibility to the band; Colbert left the band and returned to California in 1977 and was replaced by Bobby Leonards (formerly of Tiffany Shade). Mink DeVille (1974–86) was a rock band known for its association with early punk rock bands at New York's CBGB nightclub and for being a showcase for the music of Willy DeVille. "[10] In 2007, Willy DeVille said about the bands that played CBGBs, "We were all labeled as part of this American punk thing but I really didn't see any of us having much in common. Some musicians who backed up Willy DeVille in The Mink DeVille Band played and toured with him for decades. "We went against strings on the first album—decided it should be outright, raw, and rude. In 1976, three Mink DeVille songs appeared on Live at CBGB's, a compilation album of bands that played CBGB (for the recording sessions, drummer Thomas R. "Manfred" Allen, Jr. was credited as Manfred Jones). Youtube; Spanish Stroll Mink DeVille. FACEBOOK Mink DeVille / Willy DeVille ‎– Greatest Hits Label: EMI ‎– 7243 8 38030 2 6 Format: CD, Compilation Country: Europe Released: 1996 Genre: Rock. Later in life, DeVille had only sour memories of CBGB. [4] In 1975, CBGB was the epicenter of punk rock and what would later be called new wave, but Mink DeVille didn't necessarily fit in the scene. | California Privacy Rights He borrowed much of his phrasing from Ben E. King and couldn't believe it when someone told him that Doc Pomus wanted to meet him after the show. So we went into this cheap little studio and did four songs, which Edmonds gave to Jack Nitzsche. blurted out Toots, Willie's omnipresent, black-bouffanted old lady, whose quiet intensity is not unlike his own." Both albums featured saxophonist Louis Cortelezzi and had a full-throated Jersey Shore sound that evoked Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny. "Unlike Television, The Ramones, or Blondie, at heart Mink DeVille was an R&B band, and Willy an old-fashioned soul singer ..."[7] Wrote Mark Keresman, "Mink DeVille's earthy, streamlined sound, rejecting the mainstream high-gloss that ruined much of 1970s rock, was accepted by the same folks who'd go to see Blondie, The Shirts, and Television."[8]. All that really cool stuff".[4]. And the harsh reality in his voice and phrasing is yesterday, today, and tomorrow — timeless in the same way that loneliness, no money, and troubles find each other and never quit for a minute. After 1985, when Willy DeVille began recording and touring under his own name, his backup bands were sometimes called "The Mink DeVille Band," an allusion to the earlier Mink DeVille. Said DeVille, "We were sitting around talking of names, and some of them were really rude, and I was saying, guys we can't do that. You've got to be kidding! '"[26], 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. The show was the most soulful Doc had seen in ages. On playbills and on live albums such as Willy DeVille Live (1993) and Acoustic Trio Live in Berlin (2003), Willy DeVille's backup band was sometimes called The Mink DeVille Band, an allusion to the earlier Mink DeVille. Elvis Presley's rhythm section, Ron Tutt and Jerry Scheff, want to play with me. This song was chosen as the album's lead single and reached No. And yeah, I had drug problems. Rocker Willy DeVille died in 2009 at age 58 from pancreatitis and other health problems resulting from his hard-partying lifestyle. In 1977, the band recorded "Cabretta," a rock and roll/rhythm and blues album with renowned producer Jack Nitzsche. He bought me a beer and it got around to 'Would you like to come back?' Explained Kenny Margolis, who played piano and accordion in DeVille's early 1980s bands, "I don't think the American public had a chance to experience him because in America at that time you had MTV telling you what to like. We used to do an Apollo thing. "We auditioned along with hundreds of others, but they liked us and took us on. "I convinced the guys that I could get them work, and we climbed in the van and drove back the other way. Nitzsche would, in alternation with Steve Douglas, produce the first four Mink DeVille albums. 254. A Pompadour jutted out above his forehead like the lacquered hull of a submarine. Springsteen sounded like he was your friend in desperate times. he said. [25], "Willy had found a more appreciative reception at Atlantic Records, where head man Ahmet Ertegun signed him to a fat new recording deal and promised to personally shepherd his career ...", reported Rolling Stone in 1980. Mink DeVille discography and songs: Music profile for Mink DeVille, formed 1974. These producers were a natural fit for Mink DeVille, whose members' tastes ran to the Ronettes, the Crystals and other 1960s-era New York City bands with their Brill Building sound. His other albums include the soulful "Coupe de Grace" and "Where Angels Fear to Tread." Willy’s band Mink Deville was one of the original CBGB’s house bands in New York from 1975-77 and his hipness factor has been well documented. Album Cabretta. DeVille also spent time in New Orleans and recorded his "Victory Mixture" album with Dr. John, Eddie Bo, Allen Toussaint and others. I can put you in touch with him.' The host for the episode is Robert Urich, and the musical guest is Mink DeVille. "Those boys went through the wars with me, the $50 a night bars, and I had to turn on them and lop their heads off and say, 'I love you man, but that's the way it's gotta be.' Said DeVille, "I met Manfred at a party; he'd been playing with John Lee Hooker and a lot of blues people around San Francisco. The only stuff we were doing that people had heard was 'Please, Please, Please' by James Brown. We just fell in love with each other. I called him my mentor and my tormentor. Youtube; Slow Drain Mink DeVille. Although a product of the New York punk scene, at heart Mink DeVille were a soul band with roots in R&B, the blues, and even Cajun music. Plus they seemed to contain all the flavors of their New York neighborhood, from Spanish accents to reggae spice. In 1985, "Sportin' Life" featured the European hit song "Italian Shoes.". Looking at music magazines in City Lights Bookstore, DeVille noticed a small ad in The Village Voice inviting bands to audition in New York City (his hometown was nearby Stamford, Connecticut). In the beginning I saw Mink DeVille as a hard-edged rock and roll band, and I wanted the Nitzsche who'd produced "Memo from Turner" (off the Performance soundtrack) and the great first Crazy Horse album ... 'How did you ever get Jack Nitzsche?' We weren't ready to make great rock and roll records. I put on a live recording and after the first song, the band's version of Otis Redding's 'These Arms of Mine,' Nitzsche motioned for me to stop the tape. DeVille recorded two albums for Atlantic, 1981's Coup de Grâce (produced by Jack Nitzsche) and 1983's Where Angels Fear to Tread. Wrote critic Thom Jurek about these albums: (Both) are truly solid albums—despite lukewarm reviews at the time—showcasing much of Willy's theatrical personality and his own desire to provide for the elements of fantasy in rock music that the early rockers and doo-woppers did in the 1950s and 1960s (and that Piaf and Brel did in France). After a while they would take their clothes off. Its featured song, "Spanish Stroll," was a Top 20 hit in Britain. Europe had not had MTV at that point and they were very open to different music. Mink DeVille Biography by Jason Ankeny + Follow Artist. I cleaned up my act. "[31] However, David Wild of Rolling Stone praised Sportin' Life, calling it "[t]he most modern, polished sound of (Willy DeVille's) career." There can't be anything cooler than a fur-lined Cadillac can there? The band's 1978 follow-up album Return to Magenta continued in the same vein as Cabretta, but with a twist. Welcome to the official website of singer/songwriter Willy DeVille. [7], The Rolling Stone Critic's Poll ranked Le Chat Bleu the fifth best album of 1980,[24] and music historian Glenn A. Baker declared it the tenth best rock album of all time. The band recorded six albums in the years 1977 to 1985. DeVille strode out of the wings and snatched the mike. His "Storybook Love," featured in the 1987 movie "The Princess Bride," was nominated for an Academy Award. You never were fair to me.'"[15]. Tracklist . For this album, DeVille wrote several songs with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Doc Pomus. 'No, it's gotta be something slick—something sorta French, somethin' sorta black ... poetry. The skits for this episode are as follows: Before the show, the cast compares host Robert Urich with Burt Reynolds. Except for frontman Willy DeVille, the original members of the band played only on the first two albums (Cabretta and Return to Magenta). The album is often cited as the band's best out of the six studio albums. "[10], Mink DeVille's last album, Sportin' Life, was recorded for Polydor in 1985. The band with me was a dream come true. Slow Drain Lyrics. "[4] Guitarist Fast Floyd and keyboard player Ritch Colbert arrived in New York City several months later. Said Willy DeVille, "You listen to that music and you hear those really high strings, and that percussion, and the castanets; that's all Jack's (Jack Nitzsche's) work. Two days later the elusive producer was sitting in my office. And then one night this blond-headed guy came in to CBGB, Ben Edmonds. I'm in the book," Doc hollered before rolling away (in his wheelchair). They're professional, precise, but they're full of fire, too.[28]. I didn't get Jack Nitzsche. 185. The exposure eventually led to a record contract. He was even more amazed when Doc asked whether he'd write with him. We were buddies to the end. The Oscar-nominated songwriter died at New York's Cabrini Hospital on Thursday of pancreatic cancer, said Carol Kaye at Kayos Productions. Wrote Allmusic: "Its sound is steeped in mid-'80s studio gloss and compression that often overwhelms quality material. He was the guy who was responsible for being the visionary who saw that we were different than they were and that we could probably have a career playing music. It was followed by the album "Return to Magenta. These members of different Mink DeVille Bands played with Willy DeVille for ten years or more: This quote comes from the back cover of Mink DeVille's 1978 album. With his pedantically trimmed pencil mustache he looked like a cross between a bullfighter and a Puerto Rican pimp. Albums include No Thanks! [16], Cabretta, a multifaceted album of soul, R&B, rock, and blues recordings, is generally regarded as one of the best debut albums by a new band of the mid-1970s. Doc (Pomus) was elated when he heard it. [7], DeVille said about their first meeting, "Now here I am at 29, a writer, doing pretty good and I've just been asked if I want to write songs with a guy who helped lay the foundations for the music I fell in love with sitting at my mother's kitchen table when I was only seven years old. These five guys ... were obviously part of the new energy, but I also felt immediately reconnected to all the rock & roll I loved best: the bluesy early Stones, Van Morrison ..., the subway scenarios of The Velvet Underground, Dylan's folk-rock inflections, the heartbreak of Little Willie John, and a thousand scratchy old flea market 45s. He was drawing on some of the same musical areas that Bruce Springsteen's epic rock dipped into, but Willy was an entirely different creature, a macho dandy in a pompadour and pencil mustache, with the dangerous air of a New York gangfighter and an underbelly vulnerability that came out through the romanticism of his music. He spent much of his solo career playing in New York, New Orleans, and Europe, where he was incredibly popular. All rights reserved. '"[17] Wrote Ben Edmonds, who paired Nitzsche with Mink DeVille: It has always been assumed that our pairing was based on his (Nitzsche's) Spector accomplishments, but to me that was secondary. Mink DeVille played its last concert on February 20, 1986 in New York City.[33]. That's all we were. Mink DeVille, for which DeVille was the principal songwriter, was billed as one of the most original groups on the New York punk scene after an appearance at the legendary CBGB club in Greenwich Village in the 1970s. Critic Robert Palmer wrote, "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. Elliott Murphy later asked me incredulously. That's why I never went back there. And that was the whole of it, plain and simple. We played the Barracks. "[2] Willy DeVille occasionally sat in with the band Lazy Ace, which included Allen Jr. on drums and Ritch Colbert on piano. EMAIL ME. To the symphonic sweetness of the Drifters he added his own Gallic romance and, in his vocal, a measure of punk rock's Bowery grit. The group was a showcase for frontman Willy DeVille (born William… From his legendary years fronting Mink DeVille to his critically-acclaimed solo career, Willy has been adding his own unique voice to the larger musical conversation for over three decades. Both men, members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had apprenticed under Phil Spector and helped shape the Wall of Sound production technique.