Willy DeVille - 1981

by Sean Connolly

Original - Not For Sale

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

14.000 x 16.000 inches

Title

Willy DeVille - 1981

Artist

Sean Connolly

Medium

Drawing - Charcoal On Paper

Description

"A monochrome sketch portrays a charismatic man with wavy hair and intense gaze. He wears a shirt and a jacket, suggesting a casual yet stylish demeanor."
- - AI description



For my wife, this charcoal pencil on paper artwork was completed Dec 20, 2020.



"According to legendary J Geils front man Peter Wolf, there are 3 great mysteries surrounding Willy DeVille.

• Who exactly was he?

• How did he create his magical stage aura where time seemed to stand still?

• And despite breaking out of CBGBs, despite being named Rolling Stone Best New Artist, despite selling a million albums worldwide over 30 years and despite being nominated for an Academy Award for the theme to the movie Princess Bride, how can he still be so unknown?"
- - "Heaven Stood Still" Facebook page


"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."
- - Peter Wolf


"I've been an admirer of Willy's since hearing his stunning voice on the radio for the first time. He has an enormous range, with influences from all corners of the country, from Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and New Orleans music to Latin, folk-rock, doo-wop, Ben E. King style soul and R&B – all part of the New York mix. The songs he writes are original, often romantic and always straight from the heart. He can paint a character in a few words."
- - Mark Knopfler


"I was on the Bowery in New York and stood out in front of CBGB's one night. There were all these cats in small lapels and pointed shoes smokin' Pall Malls and bullshitting with the winos. It was good . . . I've had it up to here with Crosby Steals The Cash . . . I like Mink DeVille."
- - Tom Waits


"Mink de Ville - that's exciting for me, I love him."
- - Jack Nitzsche


“It’s as good as music gets.”
- - Hal Willner, Producer


" . . the harsh reality in his voice and phrasing is yesterday, today, and tomorrow - timeless . . "
- - Doc Pomus


“He stood out, his voice and presentation ought to have gotten him in (The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame) by now.”
- - Bob Dylan


“He was an old soul and didn’t know it.”
- - Ben E. King


"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.

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."
- - Thom Jurek, Critic


"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 . . . 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."
- - Marc Meyers, Wall Street Journal


"He embodies [New York’s] tangle of cultural contradictions while making music that’s both idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original.”
- - New York Times


"There is a mystery about Willy. When you get it, it's atomic. It's huge!"
- - Peter Wolf





{ Willy DeVille 1950 - 2009 }

Uploaded

December 20th, 2020

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