Interview: Willy DeVille Part One - Page 3

Listening to the radio and the songs I would get you know like images of the story in my head, like reading a book and you imagine what's going on. I would see the music like that too, in my head while listening…

There's something that happens to me when I sing, (a slight hesitation as if he's unsure about talking about this, like how's this going to go over), this is going to sound weird right, but it's like I don't know where the voice comes from for different songs, but it's just there. I described this to a friend once and he said it sounds like voice shifting, where a masking spirit comes over people and sings through them…

That sounds like what happens to Native singers when they sit around the big drum and are playing. They sing in this high falsetto, that nobody can talk in, and that they sure don’t talk in…

Did you say native, like native American? Cause you know that I'm part native...

Which part? No, no, I mean which nation, sorry.

Iroquois, I'm part Iroquois, part Basque, a little of this and a little of that. I'm a real street dog.

Heinz 57

(laughs) Yeah right. I prefer street dog.

Did you ever hear any of that stuff Robbie Robertson did with Red Road Ensemble about, I don't know a dozen years ago… He's an Iroquois..

That's right he's from up around near you. Isn't he?

Yeah Grand River Six Nations reserve

There was this album he made with John Hammond that changed my life.

Robbie made an album with Hammond?

Yeah him and Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, Levon Helm, or Lee-von,( laughs) back in 1962, it was called So Many Roads It's still around on CD you've gotta to hear it, it's amazing.

So how did it all start for you; what was your first band, was it Mink DeVille?

Nah the first band was The Royal Pythons. Wanted it to be different from what everyone else was doing, electric this and strawberry that. But actually, you know I went over to London for a couple of years, real obvious American with my Pompadour hair, kicked around until my money ran out than came back here.

I had only been back a bit when a buddy called me up, and they were out west in San Francisco, he'd had to leave town cause he'd gotten in trouble with the cops, and he said I should come out there it was really amazing, he'd already met Lighting Hopkins' drummer. So I bought a 57 Chevy Van and drove out.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the forthcoming book What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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