In 1977, a singular band emerged from the vibrant but gritty underworld of New York’s CBGB scene, releasing an album that felt as much a love letter to the past as a statement of modernity.
Mink DeVille’s debut, Cabretta (released as Mink DeVille in the U.S.), wasn’t merely a showcase for the singular voice and charisma of frontman Willy DeVille—it was a collaborative triumph, a testament to the chemistry of a band honed by relentless live performances and a shared vision. From the sinewy guitar work of Louis X. Erlanger to the streetwise rhythms of bassist Rubén Sigüenza and drummer Thomas R. “Manfred” Allen Jr., Cabretta was a carefully stitched quilt of urban sounds, brought vividly to life by the deft production of Jack Nitzsche.
While DeVille’s distinctive growl and haunting stage presence made him the face of the group, it was the band’s interplay—raw, lean, and steeped in an intuitive understanding of rock’s roots—that transformed these songs into something timeless. In a music landscape increasingly fractured into punk, disco, and the first glimmers of new wave, Cabretta stood apart: a fusion of styles as sprawling and complex as the New York streets that birthed it. For DeVille, music was never just sound; it was persona, place, and purpose. Born William Borsey Jr. in Stamford, Connecticut, he was a man shaped by contradictions. A working-class kid with a hunger for the high romance of The Drifters and the fiery poetry of Muddy Waters, he began haunting New York’s blues and folk clubs as a teenager. This duality—gritty reality meeting dreamy aspiration—would define his work, and nowhere is this clearer than on Cabretta, a record that captures both the pulse and heartbreak of city streets.
Photo courtesy of Noord-Hollands Archief / Fotoburo de Boer
Cabretta: A Sound Both Classic and Modern
Produced by the legendary Jack Nitzsche, Cabretta is, in many ways, a sonic time machine. Nitzsche, known for his orchestral work with Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” and his collaborations with Neil Young, brought a cinematic sensibility to the album. DeVille, in turn, offered songs that bridged eras: the opening track, “Venus of Avenue D,” unfurls with the raw elegance of a Lou Reed ballad, while the shimmering “Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl” echoes the soul-baring vulnerability of Ben E. King. The latter, a standout track, would later win fans as diverse as Mick Jagger and Boz Scaggs, the latter covering it on his 2013 album Memphis.
It was not nostalgia, however, that propelled Cabretta. Tracks like “Cadillac Walk,” with its sly, swaggering energy, and “Spanish Stroll,” a Top 20 hit in the UK, gave the album a distinctly contemporary edge. DeVille’s growling, impassioned vocals—a fusion of doo-wop tenderness and streetwise grit—transformed each song into an indelible narrative. Critics noted the richness of his voice, which Trouser Press described as “swagger and soulful strut,” a description as apt today as it was then.
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Montreux 1994 Double Vinyl LP
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Mink Deville's CBGB’s Connection
DeVille’s emergence at CBGB’s—the crucible of punk—was both fortuitous and fraught. The venue was already hallowed ground, having birthed bands like The Ramones, Blondie, and Television, whose raw, rebellious energy reshaped the rock landscape. Mink DeVille shared the stage with these contemporaries but diverged in style, embracing a lean, sophisticated take on R&B and soul that seemed almost out of place in the punk milieu.
Yet, DeVille’s aesthetic—leather jackets, pompadour slicked high, and a leopard-print guitar—offered its own kind of defiance. While punk thrived on an ethos of amateurism, Mink DeVille’s sound was meticulous. Their setlists juxtaposed gritty street anthems with swooning ballads, earning them a reputation as CBGB’s “coolest cats” on a good night, even if they never fully belonged to the punk canon.
Context in the 1970s Music Scene
To understand Cabretta’s significance, one must situate it within the musical crosscurrents of the late 1970s. The era was a battleground of genres: disco’s hedonistic rhythms ruled the charts, punk snarled its defiance from the underground, and new wave was poised to synthesise pop sensibilities with punk’s raw edge. In this mix, Cabretta was an outlier—its influences rooted in 1950s rock ’n’ roll and 1960s soul. DeVille’s reverence for the past, however, did not preclude innovation. His songs carried the grit and romance of the city, inflected by the melting-pot rhythms of Latin music and the lush orchestration of a bygone pop era.
Rolling Stone aptly described Cabretta as “a sleeper masterpiece” that stood “between The Drifters and Phil Spector.” It was a record that seemed timeless and timely, a work of art that bridged the past and future with effortless cool.
Legacy and Influence
While Cabretta received critical acclaim, it struggled commercially, peaking at a modest 186 on the Billboard 200. The single “Spanish Stroll” fared better overseas, finding a receptive audience in Europe, where DeVille would later achieve his greatest success. His ability to marry urban grit with heartfelt romance—what Doc Pomus would call “the courage in a ghetto love song”—made him a beloved figure on the continent, even as America largely overlooked him.
In the years following Cabretta, DeVille would release a series of albums under both Mink DeVille and his own name, each marked by his restless artistry. His collaborations with luminaries like Mark Knopfler (Miracle, 1987) and New Orleans legends (Victory Mixture, 1990) showcased his chameleonic ability to inhabit diverse musical styles while remaining unmistakably himself. His mariachi-inflected rendition of “Hey Joe” in 1992, a hit in France and Spain, demonstrated his knack for reinvention and brought him to a new generation of listeners.
Willy DeVille: The Rock Star and the Man
If Cabretta proved anything, it was that Willy DeVille was a rock star in the truest sense. With his impossibly lean frame, pencil moustache, and sartorial flair, he embodied an otherworldly cool that felt both dangerous and irresistible. Yet behind the bravado was a deeply sensitive artist, one whose songs spoke to longing, heartbreak, and the hard-won beauty of the streets.
DeVille once reflected on his place in the musical pantheon with characteristic pragmatism: “I know I’ll sell more records when I’m dead.” Since his untimely passing in 2009, his legacy has indeed grown. Albums like Cabretta are now rightly hailed as masterpieces, a testament to an artist who lived and breathed music with every fibre of his being.
Mink DeVille may have walked the shadowy backstreets of rock history, but their songs continue to shine—a reminder that the best music is not bound by time but transcends it, just like the Venus of Avenue D.
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