Willie West's deep soul gem "I'm Still A Man" to be used in Irdris Elba series H/JACK

Celebrating Willie West's birthday with "I'm Still A Man" which will appear in an episode of H/JACK on Apple TV in Januray. 

Willie West – I'm Still A Man (Timmion Records)

All the leaves might be brown and the sky gray, but fortunately Willie West is still a man. This relentless underdog of the New Orleans soul history known for his work with The Meters and Allen Toussaint has been laying low in the northern parts of the US for a while now. Lately he has emerged with new raw sound, which fuses very distinctly personal lyricism with heavy minor key grooves provided by the guys at Timmion Records.

While arriving to Finland for the first time in 2014 to perform on account of his latest album Lost Soul, Willie couldn't help laying down a few lyrics at Timmion studios in Helsinki's Kaapelitehdas. The session produced a fresh new track I'm Still A Man, which continues on the same slow, dark and melodic path, which he paved with The High Society Brothers in 2009 with The Devil Gives Me Everything.

From the first desolate guitar licks on Willie starts to lure the listener into his damp and heavy-aired space, like only the few masters brewed in the southern climate can. There's not many of Willie's breed still around and who knows how long his dark wail will bless us with gems like this. Let this true artistry sink its nails in you. 

You'll be hearing "I'm Still A Man" in the background on Idris Elba's "H/JACK" Apple TV series which begins streaming it's second season on January 14, 2026. 

Get a copy of Willie West's "I'm Still A Man" single via Bandcamp right here. Have a listen below.

 

That time Allen Toussaint and The Meters cut a Blaxploitation soundtrack

Allen Toussaint's soundtrack for the 1974 film Black Samson is way overdue for proper release.

Allen Toussaint's "lost" Black Samson OST

Take a cursory scan through Allen Toussaint's discography and you'll notice there's an unusual three-year gap between his Reprise albums, Life, Love and Faith from 1972 and Southern Nights released in 1975. Having just knocked out two successful albums with The Band – 1971's Cahoots and 1972's Rock of Ages, Toussaint's solo career was beginning to take off. In the first quarter of 1973, The Pointer Sisters' cover of his "Yes We Can Can" zooming up the charts and his production of Dr. John's single "Right Place, Wrong Time" was shaping up to be a massive summer hit, clearly this was no time for a ski trip to the Alps or a cycling jaunt through the Burgundy region of France. 

From the moment he finished work on Dr. John's In The Right Place album at Criteria in Miami during the latter part of 1972, Toussaint was busy setting up his own recording operation, Sea-Saint Studio, on the east side of New Orleans in the Gentilly neighbourhood. He'd cut a fantastically funky session with Crowbar's harp-honker Richard "King Biscuit Boy" Newell from Hamilton, Ontario using The Meters as the backing band – released as the King Biscuit Boy album on Epic (check out "Mind Over Matter") – and was ready for the next major step... finding a side door into the movie world. 

After Isaac Hayes scored big in 1971 with his Shaft soundtrack, followed in 1972 by Curtis Mayfield's smash success with Superfly and Marvin Gaye's crack "Trouble Man," then in 1973 James Brown chimed in with Black Caesar and Roy Ayers' delivered Coffy, Toussaint didn't want to be left out of the action. A Warner Bros. production Black Samson, a crime-drama set in contemporary New Orleans and directed by by first-time filmmaker Charles "Chuck" Bail, must've seemed like the right opportunity knocking. Bail was a former stuntman who'd taken spills in 50's TV westerns (Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Big Valley, etc) leading to work on low-budget biker flicks during the latter 60s (Werewolves on Wheels, Hells Angels on Wheels), and was keen on finding a less bruising way of earning a living in the film world. 

After taking some lumps in 1973's Cleopatra Jones, Bail figured it was time to make a move after seeing first hand how money could be made in the emerging Blaxploitation genre. He was also sharp enough to know that the film's soundtrack would play an essential role in any such project's financial success. He'd need the right musical accompaniment to create a genuine sounding Big Easy ambiance and help sell the whole Black Samson concept. Based on a story idea from the producer, Daniel Cady (Grave of the Vampire, Garden of the Dead), Black Samson was about a staff-weilding New Orleans club owner who tries to keep his neighbourhood free of drugs and gang activity with the help of his pet lion. The role of Samson would be played by veteran TV actor Rockne Tarkington who, along with a few scenes in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, Bewitched, was the first black actor ever to have a speaking role on the Andy Griffith Show. Evidently his mid-60s work on NBC's Tarzan series, ABC's Cowboy In Africa and the 1965 safari-comedy Clarence, The Cross-Eyed Lion (which spun off the Daktari series) made him the logical choice to work alongside a trained-yet-unpredictable apex predator. 

There was similarly a very short list of available music auteurs who could be hired to create an authentic sounding contemporary Crescent City feel. What Toussaint lacked in cinematic experience, he more than made up for in proven skills as a writer, arranger and producer. He also now had his own recording studio in New Orleans, the  funkiest group in town, The Meters, were his house band and he had all of the finest local singers on speed dial. In short order, Toussaint scored Black Samson, The Meters made sure it was funky and he called on Willie West to voice the title track. 

Millard Leon "Willie" West grew up  in rural Raceland, Louisiana and started recording soulful R&B sides in 1959 for Dotty Lee's Rustone label and later with Connie LaRocca's Frisco imprint before connecting with Toussaint for a couple of Dessu and Josie label releases. Solid performances all but no traction. West's Black Samson work led to a Toussaint-produced session for Warner where he was given the rare chance to record two of his own compositions backed by the Meters and a horn section yet sadly, the hard whumpin' "It's Been So Long" went nowhere in 1974. But that didn't stop West. He continued working with The Meters and regularly performed on Bourbon St. through the 80s. After Katrina, West moved to the Minneapolis suburb of St. Cloud and has been doing some of the most powerful singing of career with the production team of Cold Diamond & Mink for Finland's Timmion label. Check out "The Devil Gives Me Everything Except For What I Need."    

Unfortunately, Black Samson turned out to be a box office dud and despite Toussaint's inspired work with The Meters, Warner Bros didn't bother putting out a soundtrack album. Later that same year Chuck Bail went onto direct the Cleopatra Jones sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold followed by his crowning achievement, 1976's Gumball Rally which spawned a brief-but-lucrative road race comedy fad – think Cannonball, Cannonball Run I & II, Smokey & The Bandit, etc. Yet even after Black Samson's theatrical re-release in 1981 and a Warner Home Video VHS release in 1994 and DVD release in 2010, a standalone Black Samson album never materialized. 

Considering how many soundtrack recordings from the 70s and 80s – good, bad and mediocre – have been reissued over the past few years, it's more than a bit perplexing that a Black Samson OST hasn't appeared in some form. At a time when there contemporary musicians are putting together fake groups to create Blaxploitation-style soundtracks for films that don't even exist, it seems strange that some established reissue operation that specializes in 70s funk, soul and/or soundtrack reclamation projects wouldn't consider putting out a Black Samson OST – especially if the original analog tapes still exist. Apparently they do according to an L.A. Times article, which reported how the tapes eventually wound up in the hands of Los Angeles music collector Mike Nishita, brother of keyboardist Money Mark Nishita.  

So the story goes, most of Toussaint's original master tapes from his Sea-Saint sessions – including his soundtrack for Black Samson – were maintained on site at the studio. Many people naturally assumed that all of those tapes were lost in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. So the story goes, the multi-track masters stored on the ground floor of Sea-Saint studio were destroyed. However, a number of quarter-inch reels which were kept near Toussaint's office on the second floor survived the flood. 

In the wake of Katrina, music biz veteran Bill Valenziano (who'd purchased Sea-Saint Studio and it's contents from Toussaint and his longtime business partner Marshall Seahorn back in 1985) found that some tapes could be salvaged and shipped them to Los Angeles where he lives. Valenziano apparently then sold a few to another party, hung onto some and then stashed the rest in a storage unit. You probably know where this is going. Yes, the locker's contents eventually went up for auction and the buyer flipped 16 tapes to Mike Nishita for $100 a box. Among those reel-to-reel tapes was a version of the Black Samson soundtrack. 

That was in 2019. Two years later, there's still no sign of a Black Samson soundtrack album appearing anytime soon. Hopefully some day, an enterprising reissue label honcho will get in touch with Nishita and whatever other parties are involved to work out a plan for a proper release of the complete Black Samson OST. But for now, the snippet below will have to suffice.               

 

Happy Birthday Willie West!

Cheers to soul great Willie West who turns 77 today! Here are a couple of Willie's typically stellar performances. 

Happy Birthday Willie West!

Check out the amazing single Louisiana soul great Willie West cut with the High Society Brothers for Timmion. 

Straight outta Finland: Little Ann, Willie West and Elder William Smith

Talk to any of Ann Bridgeforth's fellow workers at the Marysville Parts and Distribution Center in the gigantic industrial park that is Marysville, Michigan and they'll recall she was a pleasant and reliable packer/checker but that's about it.
Few of them had any idea that the woman working next to them every day on the line for more than 20 years was once a hugely promising soul singer in Detroit who could've been the next Diana Ross or Mary Wells had she been given a shot with Motown.
Unfortunately, Chicago-born "Little Ann" Bridgeforth (she was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters), who began her singing career as a teenager doing Sunday matinees at Michelle's Playroom, only got as far as TCB Studios on Highland Avenue. It was there that Bridgeforth recorded her initial sessions under the direction of session guitarist and freelance producer Dave Hamilton resulting in a single for Ed Wingate's Ric-Tic label, Going Down A One-Way Street. Like many artist's first releases, it went nowhere and Bridgeforth wasn't given a second chance. Before leaving Detroit in 1969 to join her homeboys George Clinton and Funkadelic in the more happening (and less fiery) city of Toronto, Little Ann recorded at least eight more songs with Hamilton who safely packed the tapes into boxes and left them to gather dust.
Soon after settling into her new Toronto home, Bridgeforth hooked up with the members of the jazz trio Fat Chance but after a few years of shuttling back and forth between Toronto and Montreal lounges without advancing her music career, she'd had enough. Bridgeforth returned to Michigan where she found gainful employment with Chrysler packing auto parts and her singing was confined to church services and weddings.
That would've been the last anyone ever heard of Little Ann, only, sometime in the early 80s so the story goes, UK Northern Soul dealer John Anderson acquired a mysterious acetate of an unreleased Little Ann track What Should I Do? and offered the then completely unknown seven-inch to  influential Wigan Casino selector Richard Searling who new a smash hit when he heard it and promptly turned the song into a Northern anthem as a cover-up. Dubbed "When He's Not Around" and credited to Rose Valentine and the Sisters 3, the tune would continue to fill floors for the next 15 years without anyone ever knowing the true identity of the artist responsible. It stands as one of the longest running cover-up mysteries and may have remained unsolved to this day if Northern punters Gilly and Tats hadn't saved up their money for a trip to Detroit in 1990 to meet their heroes Melvin Davis and Dave Hamilton. When Gilly and Tats played their cassette recording of "When He's Not Around," Hamilton immediately recognized his own recording of Little Ann singing "What Should I Do?" Case closed. It wasn't long before Ace/Kent reissue producer Ady Croasdell was trawling through Hamilton's tape archives for more amazing unknown artifacts and Bridgeforth was summoned from her 9-to-5 job to perform in England before adoring crowds of tear-eyed Northern Soul fanatics. Some 35 years after her ill-fated career began, Little Ann was finally getting her due.
Sadly, Bridgeforth's unlikely return to the stage wasn't to last. Suffering from kidney disease, she would spend the final two years of her life on dialysis, finally succumbing in January 2003 at the age of 57.
A few of Little Ann's "lost" recordings have appeared on various volumes of Ace/Kent's Dave Hamilton's Detroit Dancers series although the Helsinki-based Timmion label's new 9-track Deep Shadows LP is the first complete collection of the sweetly swinging and engagingly atmospheric songs she cut at TCB Studios back in the day. Better late than never.

Also from Timmion comes the unexpected return of New Orleans soul survivor Willie West. Perhaps best known to Big Easy R&B lovers for his Allen Toussaint produced numbers on Deesu, West's one-off Warner single B-side Said To Myself backed by the Meters (with Herman Ernest subbing on drums for Ziggy Modeliste) is a favourite amongst the funk elite. Although, instead of simply reissuing one of West's classic burners or perhaps some unreleased jam from the Black Sampson soundtrack sessions, Timmion has released a magnificently moody new tune The Devil Gives Me Everything Except What I Need backed with understated elegance by the High Society Brothers grooving in a low-key El Michels Affair mode. You can listen to the track here.

And while the just-issued Elder William Smith gospel funk single His Voice b/w He Spoke by the All Nations Quartet is on the Psalms label, the insanely limited seven actually has a not-so-obvious Finnish connection. This clever studio concoction neatly pieced together by DJ/collector Kris Holmes with sampled sermonizing dropped over head-nodding beats and organ fills was mastered at Timmion in Helsinki by Jukka Sarapaa of Soul Investigators infamy. Since I got one off Kris, there's only 199 hand-numbered copies left so stop reading this and grab one quick. Check it out here.