David Westlake

David Westlake is a British singer/songwriter. What few people who know and love Westlake and his tiny catalogue of terrific tunes usually come from one of three associations. Firstly, Westlake formed indie band the Servants in 1985 in Hayes, Middlesex, England; the Servants were among the very best things on 1986’s NME-associated C86 compilation, and the expanded 48-song reissue version CD86 in 2006. Secondly, the Servants was the original home of Luke Haines (leader of The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder). And thirdly, as chronicled in an interview in US music magazine The Big Takeover (issue 53, 2004), Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch was a huge Westlake fan and was trying to locate him during the years that the older singer was dormant in hope of forming a band with him, before launching Belle in his school class instead.

Play Dusty For Me (2002) is only Westlake’s second solo LP (the first, 1987’s Westlake, was on the fabled Creation Records in its golden era, another place he made a small, but too slight, dent) to go with one Servants LP (and a posthumous 2006 retrospective of that essential band, called Reserved), and even this one was released, sort of, in a highly limited issue that quickly sold out but was still never repressed. London's Angular Recording Corporation issued a new, digital version in 2010, with bonus tracks. Interestingly, it is a highly reserved fare. The music has something in common with the “Pale Blue Eyes”/“Sunday Morning” Velvet Underground. Add in a wistful touch of Dusty Springfield (an old Westlake favourite, feted here in the both the album title and opening title track), and a general unhurried nature of an LP put out for pure love rather than commercial gain, and this set backed by guitarist Dan Cross and two Moore brothers for the rhythm section, Cormac bass and Willis drums, just seems to lay there in its relaxed, prettied loveliness. Don’t pick any one track, though any of them would give you the overarching idea; sit down for the whole hour and 18 songs and take in the charming, soulful air. And the good news is that Westlake is still recording on occasion, as his Doin’ it For the Kids compilation track with the Moore brothers in 2008 showed.