Willy DeVille

There’s a new music documentary doing the rounds right now. “Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy DeVille.” Its subject is an artist I first met and interviewed in 1977 - my first year as a rock journalist, soon after I left London for L.A - and whose music I have loved ever since.

In the beginning Willy was the singer and guitar player in a band called Mink DeVille - they had a hit single in the UK with ‘Spanish Stroll’, but though their albums just kept getting greater - “Le Chat Bleu”, made in New. York and Paris, is among my favourite records by anyone - they were dropped by their record label. In subsequent years Willy went solo, but it was much the same: great music, poor sales, with an added problem of having been addicted to heroin from the age of 13. He is no longer alive.

But with this documentary selling out theatres around the world, hopefully Willy and his musicians will have a much-deserved renaissance.

Here’s the opening pages of a 6-page piece on Willy that I wrote for this month’s MOJO magazine, issue 356.