After an initial diagnosis of Hepatitis C earlier this year, Willy DeVille was found to have pancreatic cancer, from which he passed away yesterday. DeVille founded Mink DeVille a few years ahead of the late ’70s punk explosion, but his band ended up sharing the stage with the leading lights of CBGB. Where the punks were loud and abrasive, however, Mink DeVille was soulful and suave. With Phil Spector’s one-time engineer Jack Nitzsche, the group waxed a pair of streetwise Spanish Harlem-inflected rock and soul classics, Cabretta and Return to Magenta, and a string of group and solo albums that expanded on the original Brill Building dream and into beefier rock, Muscle Shoals soul, and even New Orleans funk ‘n’ roll. DeVille was a superb showman, songwriter, vocaliast and band leader, who will be missed by all those touched by his music.
Willy DeVille was 55 when he passed away peacefully on August 6, 2009. RIP.