Ashrawilly Deville

This 22-track import collection of Mink DeVille tunes contains over two-thirds of the tracks cut by the original band – before Louis X. Erlanger and crew left and Willy DeVille continued with different musicians – and culled from Cabretta, Return to Magenta, and Le Chat Bleu. Issued in the E.U. and distributed by Caroline Records in the United States, this collection was produced and annotated brilliantly by former Creem editor and writer Ben Edmonds…

Willy DeVille (born William Paul Borsey Jr., 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…

After the critical acclaim of their self-titled debut and Return to Magenta in 1977 and 1978, respectively, Willy DeVille and his band took another look at the sassy, street-tough rock & roll they'd dished up and took the first step toward the swinging Spanish soul the band's subsequent albums would strive for and the crooning R&B heartbreaker DeVille himself would become as a solo artist…

Mink DeVille - Coup De Grâce
FLAC | Artwork | 24Bit 96kHz: 687 MB | 16Bit 44.1kHz: 210 MB
Cat#: Atlantic ATL K 50 833 | Country/Year: Germany 1981
Genre: Rock, Ballad | Hoster: Hotfile/Filesonic/Uploaded

The band's sound combined with Nitzsche's timeless production style, which combined with that voice to create a purer rock & roll noise than even Bruce Springsteen's in 1981. The evidence is on the anthems "Maybe Tomorrow," the slippery doo-wop feel of "Love and Emotion," and the devastating read of Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On" that includes in its soulful Spanish stroll mix a pair of marimbas and the ever-lamenting accordion, turning the track into something that is so deadly serious it should have perhaps been in West Side Story. This was Mink DeVille near their zenith as a recording unit.

After Le Chat Bleu, this Mink DeVille record foretold the depth and dimension of Willy DeVille's talent and the lengths he would go to as a vocalist and songwriter to get the right mix of emotion, drama, and rock & roll attitude. Featuring the core band from Coup de Grace – Louis Cortelezzi on sax; Kenny Margolis on keyboards, including accordion; DeVille and Rick Borgia on guitars; and Tommy Price on drums – the seam in the album comes on the second track, "River of Tears," with its stunning soprano saxophone lines, marimbas, accordions, and howling, raw, Gato Barbieri-like tenor lines in the choruses. When DeVille sings, "Every night lonely, empty dreams/Here comes that tide washing over me/Not again/Oh no/Not again/I don't want to cry/But there's tears in my eyes/I don't want to cry/That river of tears," the horns and accordion swirl around him until the final 16 measures, when the guitars and marimbas envelop all his loss in their warmth. His voice is the grain of every rock & roll lothario's Waterloo. DeVille follows this with a scorching Cuban son called "Demisado Corazon," featuring full salsa horn and percussion sections.

While Willy DeVille was trying to perfect his blend of roots rock, fiery punk energy, and the heart-rending ballad style that established vocalists such as Ben E. King and Clyde McPhatter, he went through a few changes. Mink DeVille's previous recording, Le Chat Bleu, had opened the door to DeVille being as fine a ballad singer as any…

Disky boils down the wild and varied career of Willy DeVille and concentrates on his legendary New York band, Mink DeVille, and their brand of no-nonsense, razor-blade Spanish stroll Jersey soul; it was a musical blend that had more in common with Phil Spector's 1960s than the CBGB '70s, but that's where it came from and it connected with the punks big time. This is roots rock with soul, swagger, and slither; it's a combination of catchy hooks, sweeping early rock crescendos, and DeVille's in-the-cut vocals that could melt the pants off a teenage girl at 50 paces – well, at least back in the day they could…