LITTLE WALTER
http://newenglandrock.blogspot.com/2007/07/chapter-1-1950s-and-early-1960s-reviews.html
I've written
a number of stories on Walter and he's appeared on Visual Radio at
least three times, we have about four hours of documentary footage on
Walter in his studio and in the clubs spinning discs.
Credits on AMG
AMG
has "Little Walter DeVanne" which is, of course, a mis-spelling. AMG
takes the information directly from the LP or CD. We hope to correct the
AMG site at some point in the future.
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jvfexqtaldhe%7ET4
Here is their four page credit list for Walter DeVenne:
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wvfuxq85ldde%7ET4
First there was an article in Medialine, the former "Replication News".
Radio DJ Remasters Vintage Vee Jay, Sun Catalogs
http://www.medialinenews.com/issues/2000/preparation/0606/0606.2.shtml
that is followed by an article I wrote for THE MEDFORD TRANSCRIPT in September of 2006
(the story follows the Medialine story).
Radioworld
has picked up the story and we've revamped it with more biographical
information. It is very thorough and will be published in August of
2007, so keep watching this site.
Radio DJ Remasters Vintage Vee Jay, Sun Catalogs
by Joe Viglione
When you walk into Walter DeVenne's office/recording studio, you have literally walked into a time machine. And "Little Walter's Time Machine" is the name of his show when he's on the road, or at WODS-FM in Boston, MA.
On his desk is an order to re-master the entire Vee Jay catalog for the Collectables label, as well as an urgent call to put together Sun Records: The Definitive Hits.
DeVenne doesn't just master these records.
"It's going to sound the way the record sounded. I want it to sound the way I heard it when I dropped the needle on it (the record), not the way it was in the studio. There were probably only 12 people in the studio!"
What DeVenne does is make the records "right," the way people heard them on the radio, or the way the original mastering engineer put the material out to the world.
"I was doing some Chuck Berry stuff for the radio, putting masters together for radio broadcast--not CD release," he notes. DeVenne's stereo mix of "Mony Mony" by Tommy James & The Shondells delights listeners of Oldies 103 in Boston. The rest of the world has to hear the mono version on Roulette. DeVenne, who incidentally has the entire Roulette catalog in his vaults, opines that Chuck Berry's original records "exploded off the turntable. The CDs didn't explode. It's the person doing the mastering that's the key to it. It's not going to sound the same (if the person mastering tries to go for a 'clean' re-master as opposed to making it sound like the record sounded)...I want to hear it (with) the impact that it had. Authenticity!"
Generally, DeVenne prefers stereo mixes when they're available, but still wants the record to sound as close as it originally sounded on the radio. The worst-case scenario, the mastering engineer points out, is RCA's reissue of the Sun Records masters by Elvis Presley: "Scratches in glorious stereo...that don't correspond" (from speaker to speaker because a stereo needle was used from the mono acetate source).
When I walked in, he was playing a hideous source tape from a client--a cassette made from a rare record. The song was "I Love You" by The Shadows. Walter heard a "tick" between second 2:17 and 2:18. He removed the tick and the hiss. He uses his pre-sets with different filters; he seeks the best source tapes. "They haven't invented anything to take distortion out. You can hide it a little, [but] when they say 'the distortion is gone' they've found a better source (tape)."
The Doo Wop Box
(Rhino) went gold selling 500,000 units to everyone's surprise. Everyone but Little Walter.
Of the Vee Jay project featuring early bluesmen, DeVenne comments, "I was in heaven doing the Jimmy Reed stuff. Peter Wolf (lead singer of the former J. Geils Band) was recently in the studio and said, 'I have these records at home and they just don't sound like that.'" Wolf was talking about the John Lee Hooker Boom Boom
album from 1959. It will be out in stereo for the first time on the Collectables label through a deal with Vee Jay and Rhino. "Gene Chandler was the last thing I did last week," says DeVenne, of remixing "Duke Of Earl" in stereo from a better source for the Vee Jay project. DeVenne's impressive credits include the German label Bear Family Records, for whom he has put together box sets of Little Richard, Fats Domino and The Platters.
The studio's wall is adorned by record covers. The vibe is further enhanced by the numerous stored CDs, DATs, and master tapes, housed securely in a facility a little north of Boston, and lovingly protected and put "right" by a legendary DJ of Boston radio. When you see "A&R/Mastering by Little Walter DeVenne," you'll know you've got the right thing.
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/bsnpubs/vpost?id=1406752
it is also on Walter's own site http://www.littlewalter.com/
Time Machine comes back to the future
By Joe Viglione/ Correspondent
Medford (MA) Transcript
Thursday, September 21, 2006
For many years Little Walter DeVenne - legendary Boston disc jockey whose broadcasting creds include WBCN, WROR, WFNX, WMEX, WODS/Oldies 103.3 and Medford’s WXKS-AM 1430, before it turned into Boston’s Progressive Talk - did his mastering from a studio outside of Medford Square. These days, DeVenne and his family are living in Derry, N.H., but he continues to master CDs and create his radio show, "Little Walter’s Time Machine." Today you can hear Little Walter’s Time Machine Sunday nights on North Shore 104.9 FM WBOQ, from 8 p.m.-12 a.m., on the same station as the Red Sox. The program is syndicated nationally.
DeVenne recently spoke about the radio show, his mastering work for a variety of record labels and his recent (and successful) battle against throat cancer. "We’re on in Chicago, we’re on in Cincinnati, we’re on in Hawaii, we’re all over the place," the Boston area icon noted, adding he’s also excited about returning to the club scene this Friday and Saturday night at the Terra Marra, near the Outback Steakhouse, off of Route 93 (at exit 47) in Methuen. "I worked on Route 1 for 20 years at a variety of venues. I’ve been doing clubs for 40 years, starting out at the Beach Ball in Revere, opening for Aerosmith."
DeVenne’s spinning creates an amazing vibe wherever he brings his extensive collection of music. With hip-hop and house music permeating the in-town clubs, the members of the Masspool DJ Association, Disc Jockeys Latinos Record Pool and other collaboratives would be wise to study at the feet of the master. DeVenne was mixing and scratching (well, literally scratching a record that need not be played) before most of the current jocks were even born.
Battle with cancer
Though ever-present on radio, DeVenne was conspicuous in his absence on the club circuit. He was candid about what happened. "I noticed a couple of lumps in my neck and had my first operation in October. Like Dion (DiMucci of "The Wanderer" fame) said, ’If I didn’t have a wife or a mother, I would never have sought medical advice because it didn’t hurt!’" he said. "It was just a couple of lumps in my neck. You gotta have someone to care for you to get these things looked at. It wasn’t going away so my (very worried) wife brought me over to the doctors.
"I went through cat scans and pet scans - none of it said it was cancer, it just said there were a couple of lumps in my throat," he continued. "They were going to stick a needle in my neck so I told them to operate on me." DeVenne started doing chemo and radiation, something he still recalls vividly. "They make a form-fitting face mask with netting so you can see through, (and) they screw it down. [That way I got] the radiation treatment in the same place on my neck," he said. "The chemo is what I really had a reaction to and that’s what put me in the hospital for a couple of weeks. I begged them to let me out, so my wife learned how to give me the IV. At 9 a.m., I’d have to get up, take the IV - they left it in my arm for the two weeks with what looked like an RCA plug."
Still able to maintain his humor through what he termed a horrific experience, the radio legend declared of his therapy, " I only fell down a couple of times!" "When they put that radiation on the throat, it is like getting a super duper sunburn. The definitive sore throat, not being able to taste anything" DeVenne said. "It took about six months after the radiation for me to get my taste buds back and be able to swallow. (Though I hear) it’s different for different people.
But now Little Walter is back - on the air, in the clubs and at work with other music acts. "I did a Spike Jones package for Capitol Records which was funny, but not my usual kind of thing," he said. "Today (Sept. 13), they are going to reissue ’The Knockouts meet the Genies.’" On Sept. 17, DeVenne went to work on a Bobby Darin "two album on one" CD piece, as well as a similar Irma Thomas package for Liberty/Capitol. "It’ll be out soon," he said of the mastering work. "Irma features ’Time Is On My Side,’ she did the original that the Rolling Stones ripped off from her. She was so mad at them, she didn’t sing the song for years. Note for note identical! She went on that soulful tour that Peter Wolf emceed seven or eight years ago with Chuck Jackson, Percy Sledge, Ben E. King and others." Obscure music from groups like The Knockouts and The Genies are for collectors, for sure - and DeVenne knows how to put the music back together so that it sounds as authentic as it did when fans originally bought the tunes on vinyl.
"That was fun," he said in his always uptempo and highly recognizable radio voice. "I did that today, there was only about 14 tracks on the CD. This was for Collectibles." Collectibles Records is a respected label which reissues music, with DeVenne usually overseeing that reproduction work. "I’m real proud of some work I did with Dion," he notes. "Collectibles came out with ’Dion & Friends Live In New York.’ This thing could’ve been a one man Broadway show if he had decided to perform more than just the two nights. The new CD’s got all his hits, all his new stuff, a couple of gospel tracks that are very palatable. It was an absolute magic night! You should see his face when he sings ’Teenager in Love.’ I gave him the line, ’If I live to be 200 I’m always going to be a teenager in love.’ He uses that line in concert."
In DeVenne’s studio, the phone always rings with someone famous on the other line. Nino Tempo of the song, "Deep Purple," fame was on the phone at one point. Because of this, DeVenne is known worldwide, having done not only exhaustive radio work, but television appearances as well as a long resume of mastered recordings which can be found on Allmusic.com.
The treasures in DeVenne’s archives include dozens of live shows by Little Richard, including the only known live tape of Jimi Hendrix performing with Richard Penniman, Don & Dewey and Maxine Brown (although there is a studio 45 RPM of Jimi with Little Richard that was recorded around this period). Recorded way back when by DeVenne at the Back Bay Theater in Boston, the tape was mentioned when DeVenne was being interviewed for Visual Radio sometime in the 1990s. After the discovery, Experience Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix’s family-owned company, heard the tape as re-played from the original broadcast tape from WTBS (now WMBR), the information landing in Steve Roby’s Hendrix book, "Black Gold." DeVenne’s work with the PBS Doo Wop shows and the four CD sets of Doo Wop music on Rhino also needs to be mentioned.
When asked who got him back into circulation after the hospitalization, it turns out to be his old friend Dion. "He’s the first one to get me out of my house last month, he was over at the Mohegan Sun in August," DeVenne said.
On the air...
Looking to listen to Little Walter’s Time Machine? You can log on to find information on affiliated stations on http://www.littlewalter.com/ Check that site for online streaming to hear the show.
For fans interested in sending their best wishes to the radio icon,
More of my writings regarding these icons can be found in the book
THE ALL MUSIC GUIDE TO THE BLUES
http://books.google.com/books?id=qYtz7kEHegEC&pg=PT152&lpg=PT152&dq=little+walter+joe+viglione&source=web&ots=AL9Mt02vd_&sig=CfFlio9WO_lJwbNAIf8MLFOBOWQ
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