Millard Leon West, better known as Willie West, was born in a speck of a town called Raceland that sits an hour drive southwest of New Orleans. West later moved to New Orleans where he cut his teeth recording 45s for fledgling labels such as Frisco and a chance encounter with Allen Toussaint landed him a contract with his Deesu imprint.
As the Meters saw their popularity soaring as the sixties turned to the seventies,Toussaint and his partner Marshall Sehorn called West back into the studio. The result is the subdued funky "Fairchild" featuring Toussaint experimenting with an acoustic guitar, something regularly heard in this same period with his Lee Dorsey and Eldridge Holmes arrangements.
The song almost certainly features most, if not all of the Meters as they were the Toussaint/Sehorn house band at the time.
In recent years, Willie West has found his way back into the recording studio with Finland's Timmion Records with quite notable results such as "The Devil Gives Me Everything Except What I Need." He's also returned to the stage with last years performance at Dig Deeper and a spot at New Orlean's Ponderosa Stomp.
Willie West Fairchild MP3
