‘If I could be a fucking fisherman I would. If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It’s no fun being an artist.’ That’s John Lennon talking, back in 1970 in a series of interviews conducted by Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone magazine. To me, this quote sums up what it means to be an artist – you don’t choose to be one, you’re an artist because you don’t have any other choice. Not everyone can be a John Lennon, a superstar who has the world hanging on his every word, rewarded with fame, vast wealth and one seriously deranged fan. I started thinking about this following two recent, mostly unrelated, events: a new album from Ian Hunter and the untimely death of Willy DeVille. I can almost hear most of you saying, ‘Who?’ So let me explain.

Ian Hunter found his first moments in the spotlight as lead singer of the British band Mott the Hoople. Their debut album made quite a splash, with its standout MC Escher cover and a singer who sounded like Bob Dylan covering a Sonny & Cher song. Three more albums followed, all under the guidance of legendary madman producer Guy Stevens, but when their fourth album (Brain Capers, still one of my favourites) tanked, they were ready to call it a day. David Bowie stepped in, giving them the song All the Young Dudes and producing their fifth album. Three years after that, Hunter embarked on a solo career and released some moderately successful albums but the limelight gradually dimmed and the most of the world moved on.

But the fact is that Hunter has never stopped touring and releasing albums – his latest, Man Overboard, is in fact his ninth this decade alone. And there he is on the cover, leather jacket, curly hair, shades, guitar dangling down, the photo artfully blurred to obscure the fact that he’s now 70 years old. That’s right, 70 years old and still writing and recording new songs, releasing them to a world that by and large couldn’t care less. The albums don’t sell enough to chart and he’s probably living off the royalties from Cleveland Rocks, not what he’s going to earn from this.

So why do it? I suspect that he never stopped to ask the question, he just went ahead and did it, because that’s what he does. Something inside him compels him to keep writing and recording and sharing the results with anyone who cares enough to listen. Well, put me down as one of those. And I’ll tell you something – this album may not win him any awards or new fans, but it’s pretty darned good. His voice was ragged to begin with, so he still sounds pretty much the same as he did 40 years ago. And he still knows how to rock.

Willy DeVille won’t be releasing new albums when he’s 70 – he died last month, just shy of his 59th birthday. He never quite achieved the stardom that by all rights he should have.

William Paul Borsey Jr dropped out of high school when he was 16 and went off in search of… something. In 1974 he changed his name to Willy DeVille and formed the band Mink DeVille. And they began appearing regularly at CBGB’s – the famous New York club that was also the breeding ground for Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Television and countless others. Mink DeVille may have looked punk and their songs may have been about life in the streets, but their sound harkened back to the classic Brill Building pop of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Their first two albums were produced by the legendary Jack Nitzsche, the man who did most of the arrangements for Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and a frequent collaborator with Neil Young. Their third album featured members of Elvis’s back-up band and Willy started co-writing songs with Doc Pomus, who’d co-written so many amazing songs – A Teenager in Love, This Magic Moment, Save the Last Dance for Me, Viva Las Vegas. Mink DeVille’s albums were always released to massive critical acclaim coupled with massive public indifference. They had the look, they had the songs, they had the production; as near as I can figure it, Willy DeVille’s voice was unique, an acquired taste that the public didn’t take the time to acquire.

When I read about DeVille’s death, I realized that, while barely a week goes by that I don’t listen to the Mink DeVille Spanish Stroll compilation, I had never listened to any of the 10 solo albums he’d released in the last 20 years. I set out to remedy that. And found a treasure trove of great American music, albums that grab your attention within their first 12 bars and never let go. His first solo album was produced and co-written with Mark Knopfler and includes the song Storybook Love, which was nominated for an Oscar after being used in the film Princess Bride.

Soon after that, he moved to New Orleans and frequently collaborated with Dr John, Allen Toussaint and other heroes of the New Orleans scene, all of which culminated in a truly amazing album, Big Easy Fantasy, which wasn’t even released in the US! Musician magazine, reviewing his next album, Loup Garou, said it was ‘subtle in nuance but staggering in scope’. And NME said that his final album, Pistola, ‘is among the finest of his recording career’.

I can’t even begin to imagine the frustrations he must have felt, knowing how hard he worked and how good the results were, to be rewarded with rave reviews and less-than-zero sales. The thing is, no matter what, he never stopped trying, releasing one great album after another, playing as many nights as he could wherever people would turn up to listen.

Because that’s what it means to be an artist. You don’t do what you do for the money or the chance to go to some Hollywood premiere with a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model on your arm. You do it because there’s this drive, this need, this compulsion to create and to communicate. You do it for the love of the craft, not for the love of money. And I’ll tell you this: As sure as you’re sitting there reading this right now, there are thousands more Ian Hunters and Willy DeVilles floating below the radar, creating great music you’re not hearing because it doesn’t fit in with what radio or TV perceives to be the style of the minute. And there are millions more out there playing dive bars all over the world (including right here in Hong Kong) who will never get rich from it, they do it because they love it. Go. Now. Seek them out.

Want more Spike? Check out Hongkie Town at http://laowai.blogspot.com