The Delines were formed after Richmond Fontaine singer/songwriter, Willy Vlautin heard singer, Amy Boone (The Damnations) sing just one a single ballad. He was so moved by her voice that he secretly wrote her songs for over a year before approaching her to start a band. Lucky for all she liked what she heard and The Delines were formed. Fontaine’s Sean Oldham on drums, Freddie Trujillo on bass, Vlautin on guitar, and multi-instrumentalist, Cory Gray on keyboards and horns. Vlautin is no stranger to critical acclaim in the US, UK, and Europe, enjoying cult success and rave reviews from the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, Uncut, Hot Press, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, and Mojo Magazine, both as a novelist with seven books under his belt, and as the former front man/songwriter of the Americana outfit Richmond Fontaine who produced eleven acclaimed studio albums. Three of his novels have been turned into feature films: The Motel Life, Lean on Pete, and the upcoming Netflix movie The Night Always Comes starring Vanessa Kirby. Ursula K. Le Guin said this of Vlautin’s writing, “Willy Vlautin is one of the bravest novelists writing... An unsentimental Steinbeck, a heartbroken Haruf, Willy Vlautin tells us who really lives now in our America, our city in ruins.”
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The spark that ignited Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, the Delines fourth record, came from a night in Dublin, Ireland, when after a gig singer Amy Boone took songwriter/guitar player Willy Vlautin aside and said, “Listen man, you have to write me a straight up love song where no one dies and nothing goes wrong or I’m going to lose my mind.” When the tour ended, Vlautin holed up at home and went to work.
At the next Delines rehearsal he brought in Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, maybe the most romantic Delines tune to date. It’s the story of two ragged misfits: a failed criminal and a depressive house cleaner who somehow hit the lottery in meeting each other. With that song the soul of the record was found: ragged couples on the run. Recording began at Bocce Studios with longtime collaborator John Morgan Askew. The record features Amy Boone’s lush, world worn voice, the cinematic production skills of Askew, and the horn and string arrangement of Delines keyboardist and trumpeter, Cory Gray. This is wide screen, CinemaScope, Delines at their best.
“I wrote a few others in that Luck & Doom vein, happily ever after songs, but they didn’t quite work and my poor old dark heart couldn’t take it,” Vlautin laughs. “So I brought Amy in some others, drifter couples in love, romantic albeit a bit more tragic. Luckily she liked those, too.” The tragic Her Ponyboy – a young reckless couple, madly in love, roam aimlessly across the US, the timeless JP & Me - a grifter couple gets sidelined when the man in the relationship goes mad, and the Bobbie Gentry influenced Nancy & The Pensacola Pimp - the story of a woman who gets revenge on the pimp who has an obsession with only three things: money, Nancy, and driving endlessly back and forth across the United States.
Midway through the session another thread began to appear. More upbeat and soul influenced. Women on the skids who are trying to make good. Maureen’s Gone Missing – A woman robs a drug operation and skips town, Don’t Miss You Bus Lorraine - A woman recently released from prison on marijuana convictions comes back to a society where marijuana is legal while she is now a convicted felon and can’t find a decent job, Left Hook Like Frazier – A cautionary tale of how broken hearted women sometimes get into relationships that break them even more, The Haunting Thoughts – A woman who can’t shake the fear that world she’s in is going to collapse around her, and There’s Nothing Down The Highway – The brooding tale of a woman who runs from her life only to find that she can escape the place but not herself.
Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom is a record of romantic misfits and grifters who live out of suitcases and cars, who can’t seem to settle down, who hope that in the next town or city will be the score that saves them. Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom features the stalwart Delines line up: Amy Boone on vocals, Cory Gray on horns and keyboards, Sean Oldham on drums, Freddy Trujillo on bass, and Willy Vlautin on guitar.