Le Chat Bleu - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Neil McCormick, a music critic for Daily Telegraph, wrote about the album 29 years after its release, "Whenever I am taken with one of those bouts of nostalgia where I am compelled to sit and flick through my old vinyl, there’s a very high chance that Le Chat Bleu will wind up on my stereo. It is a perfect album, from first track to last, and how many of those really exist?"

Critic Robert Christgau, who had previously called DeVille "the songpoet of greaser nostalgia," did not care for Le Chat Bleu. He wrote sarcastically about the album, "Goils — they break your heart, run off with your coke, mess up your drug deals, and take your count when you go to the blood bank. Rhythm and blues was never like this, so maybe he's a punk after all. But more likely he's one more struggling professional musician."

In his 2012 autobiography, bassist Jerry Scheff wrote about the album, "In 1979 I was invited by my friend Steve Douglas, the saxophone player, to go to Paris to make an album with Mink DeVille. Steve was co-producing the album and had invited Ronnie Tutt to play drums. I don't know how Steve came to the impression that Ronnie and I would fit in this scenario, but I have to say that the end result, Le Chat Bleu, is one of my favorite rock albums of all time... Willy's songs had a heavy Hispanic influence as well as a hint of Cajun music. Put all of that together with street-corner doo-wop, accordion playing, and Willy's wonderful velvet voice and what you get, in my opinion, is great rock 'n 'roll."