Recording
Le Chat Bleu was recorded in Paris. "I wanted that (French) sound," Willy DeVille told Rolling Stone. "French records are so much more vivid. I knew what I was going for—this record was my dream."
For the album, bandleader Willy DeVille dismissed the original members of Mink DeVille except for guitarist Louis X. Erlanger in favor of new musicians, including rhythm section Jerry Scheff (bass) and Ron Tutt (drums), who had recently toured with Elvis Presley. Instead of Jack Nitzsche, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Steve Douglas, another associate of Phil Spector, served as producer. Le Chat Bleu was the last Mink DeVille album to feature any original members of the band besides Willy DeVille.
Willy DeVille wrote some songs with the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame member Doc Pomus. As well as classic rock (“Savoir Faire," "Lipstick Traces"), DeVille delved into Cajun music (the accordion-dominated dance music of French-speaking Louisiana) and the French cabaret tradition for this album. The album includes a cover of "Bad Boy," the 1957 hit by The Jive Bombers. Jean Claude Petit supervised the string arrangements of some songs. Joel Dorn did the remixing.
In Lonely Avenue, a biography of Doc Pomus, Alex Halberstadt wrote about Le Chat Bleu:
(Willy DeVille) created a record that sounded like nothing that had come before... It was clear that Willy had realized his fantasy of a new, completely contemporary Brill Building record. To the symphonic sweetness of the Drifters he added his own Gallic romance and, in his vocal, a measure of punk rock's Bowery grit. Doc was elated when he heard it. Thinking they'd signed a New Wave band, Capitol didn't know what to do with Willy's rock and roll chanson and shelved it for a year. When it was finally released in 1980, Le Chat Bleu, remixed by Joel Dorn, made nearly every critic's list of the year's best records.
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Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)