Assorted German, French, and Dutch news outlets are reporting the passing of Willy DeVille, one of America’s true outsider rock & roll poets, at the age of 55. We will have an in-depth post from Allmusic’s Thom Jurek early next week. In the meantime, here is a feature and interview, written by Jurek, we published in May 2006, just after DeVille had released his Live in the Lowlands DVD. It was one of his last U.S. interviews — if not the last.

On a rainy, noisy New York City afternoon, rock & roll singer and perennial romantic troubadour Willy DeVille is screaming at garbage trucks out in the street beneath him: “Shut up, you noisy motherf*ckers! I’m tryin’ to do an interview here!” The sounds of chaos are everywhere around him, a Chihuahua’s yapping full bore, people are coming and going; he holds two conversations simultaneously besides the one we’re having. He’s exhaling cigarette smoke wearily yet he’s animated: “So where were we?” he says in a slightly raspy vocal register that’s not far from the one he uses on-stage, the place where he holds court and mesmerizes European crowds by the thousands; here, outside of New York and New Orleans, in the hundreds — if he’s lucky. The stage is DeVille’s kingdom — he is one of the sharpest dressers in rock & roll history, and had the refined Little Richard look long before Prince. He’s regal in pointed Italian shoes, stovepipe trousers, silk, blouse-like shirts or all colors, with scarves, hats, and canes for props, like a riverboat gambler from the last century or looking like a pirate thief from the docks of European fiction and movies. Yet he can sing like a street-corner balladeer without ever stretching it.

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Ed Harcourt recorded his previous album, The Beautiful Lie, during his final days as a bachelor. Three years later, the British songwriter is a happy husband and proud father, two titles that have wielded considerable influence on his writing.

“Whenever I get free time at home, I immediately get on the piano or pick up the guitar,” Harcourt explains from England, several days before he’s scheduled to fly to Seattle to begin work on a new album. “It’s sort of a race against time. But I’m working every day, maniacally writing three or four songs a week. I’ll have to choose the right songs for the album later, which is a painful process. It keeps me awake at night.”

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Underground DJ, producer, and remixer extraordinaire Ruckus Roboticus released his playful debut Playing with Scratches nationally last month. A masterful collage of samples, the album (like his similarly-themed last CD-R mix, Music Machine) fuses children’s music with hip-hop in a cornucopia of ‘70s TV themes, underground funk, hip-hop, and random rarities. Boasting an impressive vinyl collection with thousands of off-the-beaten-path records, he was kind enough to take some time away from his turntables this week to show AMG some of his most treasured finds.

Ruckus Roboticus discusses his secret stash after this break:

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When she isn’t renting minivans and breaking laptops in American Express commercials, singer/songwriter Nicole Atkins busies herself with a mix of melancholic lyrics and Roy Orbison-styled croons. The Jersey native originally pursued work as a visual artist, having relocated to North Carolina in the late ’90s to study illustration at UNC. After befriending the young Avett Brothers and forming her own alt-country act (the short-lived Los Parasols), Atkins began gravitating toward a genre she now describes as “pop-noir.” Equally reminiscent of the sunny sounds of Brill Building songs and the rainy-day atmosphere of old, black and white detective films, the “pop-noir” sound eventually landed Atkins a contract with Columbia Records. Although she’s currently on tour in support of her debut album, Neptune City, Atkins took a few minutes to talk with Allmusic about her addiction to bagels, the decor in Rick Rubin’s office, and her former gig as a singing Teletubby.

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“This whole project for us, myself, Boris (Netsvetaev), and Kieran (Hebden), was a UNITY thing,” says truly legendary — and largely underground jazz drummer Steve Reid by phone from Switzerland. “Yeah, there’s a ton of factionalism going on out there: in politics, religion, and in corporate aesthetic culture. But that’s just what we hear about, where the noise is coming from on TV and in newspapers. Underneath it, there are people from all sorts of different cultures, disciplines, and musical genres intersecting and collaborating more than ever before. This is what’s really going on, and people are cutting out the middle man — the major labels and the official controllers of culture — and simply going to one another, using the internet and other means — like word of mouth — to let people know what’s up and that they’re open. Very few of the great musicians out there ever got to record on the majors; most were on independents or made their living playing out on the road.

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Patterson Hood is a busy man. The de facto leader of the Drive-By Truckers spent 2007 in a flurry of activity, bouncing between various recording studios (where he produced a solo album by ex-bandmate Jason Isbell, collaborated with soul arist Bettye LaVette, and recorded the Drive-By Truckers’ seventh studio effort) and the road (where the Truckers premiered new material as part of “The Dirt Underneath” tour). The Drive-By Truckers are now planning to travel the world in support of Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, meaning that Hood won’t find much rest in 2008. Nevertheless, the Southern singer/songwriter found a few free moments to talk with AMG about the album, the music, and the Truckers’ soon-to-be terrible teens.

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For just about seven years now, Saturday Looks Good to Me have been making very good, sometimes quite amazing records. Last week they released their third official album, Fill Up the Room, on K Records. Simply put, it’s great. Achingly honest, broken-heart-on-sleeve ballads, careening up-tempo pop tunes and experimental, beautiful near-folk songs combine to make it the richest SLGTM record yet. They might frighten off some of the less adventurous of their fans with the subtle changes they’ve made to their sound, but it’s less a step away from the perfect pop they’ve always made and more a first step into the world of grown-up challenging pop. Allmusic gives it a rave, Pitchfork digs it, and anyone who loves their indie-pop music with a large dollop of unpredictable genius should either already own it or order it right now. We recently sat down with SLGTM’s Fred Thomas for “Five Questions.”

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“We’re always on tour,” says Will Hoge, the phone reception crackling as his bus hurtles through the Appalachian Mountains. “Being from Nashville, it’s so easy to get to and from places, so the touring never really stops.” Hoge and his road-tested bandmates are currently heading to the college town of Harrisonburg, VA, where they plan to play “a loose and dangerous rock & roll show” in support of Hoge’s new record, Draw the Curtains. The album marks his first effort for the Rykodisc label, as well as his first non-independent release since leaving Atlantic Records’ roster several years back. It’s a soulful disc — sometimes raucous, sometimes refined — and Hoge hopes his new label will help spread the group’s Southern-fried gospel.

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