Long-time New Orleans resident Willy DeVille died last week of pancreatic cancer. He led a fairly low-key life here, and never integrated himself in a public way into the New Orleans music community. He achieved some measure of notoriety when Johnny Thunders moved to New Orleans and promptly OD’ed in the the St. Peter Guest House – a number of rumors circulated about what happened, many of which involved Willy.

The obits for DeVille suggested that few in the media really knew him, and that he was famous for being a part of a cool band – Mink DeVille – at a cool time and place – New York in the mid-1970s. Andy Schwartz from New York Rocker begins his obit:

I didn’t know Willy DeVille, who died of pancreatic cancer on 8/6/09 in Manhattan. I interviewed him on one occasion in the Mink DeVille days, probably for New York Rocker, and remember him as guarded, suspicious of the press, and quite intimidating — with his hard shell and heroin hauteur — to this relatively clean-living, upper-middle-class kid from Westchester County. (I wouldn’t have guessed that we were the same age or that he’d grown up in Stamford, Connecticut.) 

At the New York Times, William Grimes’ obit maintained a studious, fact-oriented distance:

Mr. DeVille, a regular at CBGB in the mid-1970s, lent his bluesy voice and eclectic musical tastes to Mink DeVille, one of the club’s main draws. A disciplined songwriter with a deep admiration for the Atlantic Records sound of the Drifters and Ben E. King, he drew from many sources, including Latin music, French ballads, New Orleans funk and Cajun accordion music. He was, the critic Robert Palmer wrote in The New York Times in 1980, “idiomatic, in the broadest sense, and utterly original.” 

They all dance around the same facts, many including references to his Academy Award nomination for the song he wrote for The Princess Bride, and that he cut an album here with Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and Eddie Bo, but DeVille seems missing from his own obit; there’s no meat on the bones of his discography.

At the Telegraph, Neil McCormick acknowledges this:

DeVille’s career never reached any great heights. The only other track the general public probably know of his is ‘Storybook Love’, from the soundtrack of ‘The Princess Bride’, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. His passing was not the kind of music news that rocked the world. It was certainly not, like another recent pop death, greeted with scenes of public grief and incredulity. There were no experts lining up on television to endlessly repeat banal platitudes about the impact, private life and cultural significance of this talented singer.

He levels this assessment in the process of arguing that DeVille cut one classic album, Le Chat Bleu, which he cut in 1979. And as cold as it is, a round-up of obits suggests he’s right, and really, considering DeVille only had one, perhaps two albums with strong cult followings, it’s sort of impressive that he got this many.

… and what does that mean? Is this a teachable moment? A comment on obits, celebrity, privacy or style? The limits of how well we know someone, or how making a right decision or two keeps you in the public ledger for a longer time than anyone would suppose? Or is it a pop thing? Even if you never have a number one – or top 40 song, even – make a pop mark on the world and it has to deal with you forever?