Here are two LA Weekly clips from 1990, in the latest installment of Keeping Up With The Blue Shadows. Bruce Willis was just one of the celebs hanging around as the Shadows’ momentum continued to grow at King King.
BRUCE ON HARP: Belissa Cohen gets to the bottom of the case of the missing bass in her LA DEE DA column in the March 30-April 5, 1990, edition.
But first, some details of Bruce Willis sitting in on harmonica with The Blue Shadows (“he can play pretty good, too,” Bill Bateman reports).
Then we hear about the theft of Jonny Ray Bartel’s “rare … enormous” upright bass while JR and Bateman were out jamming at John Entwhistle’s hotel.
(And check out the bonus item with Emy Lee from the original Red Devils … it’s odd to see Blue Shadows/Red Devils worlds colliding in these two blurbs.)
More on NoFightin.com:
- Video: Blue Shadows x Little Walter in 1989
- The early history of Bruce Willis and The Red Devils
- In 1986, a Red Devils trio flirted with hard rock
- Timeline
BRING YOUR LAUNDRY: And here is a great blurb and photo from July 13-19, 1990, about The Blue Shadows’ Monday residency at King King in Hollywood.
At the time of publication, the band had been a staple at King King for 18 months, with a lineup of Blasters Bill Bateman and Dave Alvin, brothers Jonny Ray and Dave Lee Bartel and “harmonica-blowing hondler howlin’ Lester” Butler. Rocker Johnny Rivers and pianist Gene Taylor get shout-outs, and poor Bruce Willis gets a verbal drive-by.
Did the writer know something that the band didn’t? The story concludes: “This is the backbone of the Devil’s music.” This article was published about a year before the recording of “King King” and the band’s name change to The Red Devils.
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