Willy DeVille on lahkunud

Alles täna jõudis minuni kurb uudis, et vaimustavalt omapärane laululooja Willy DeVille on 6. augustil New Yorgis surnud. Willy juhtis kunagi kaheksakümnendatel ütlemata toredat bändi Mink De Ville. Nende 83. aasta album "Where Angels Fear to Tread" on mu väikese plaadikogu pärleid. Eeskätt Each Word Is A Beat Of My Heart ja River Of Tears talletusid juba kümneaastase poisina makilindilt mällu ja südamesse ning pole sealt kunagi lahkunud. Aga Willy jõudis muidugi palju enam. Tema kohta on öeldud kaunilt:
Thom Jurek wrote about him after his death, "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."