Fans: 78
Nantucket Island, best known these days as a playground for the rich and famous, might seem an unlikely incubator for a pop band. But for decades, the island has also been a haven for a community of artists and musicians, a creative milieu that helped bring the creative talent Miss Fairchild to fruition. On a Grey Lady overrun by strangers, the band learned to stay local at heart, while beginning to craft songs that spoke to a timeless sense of modernity. As young boys, the band learned to sing and play in the island’s churches. Singer Daddy Wrall, the son of a Congregational minister, recruited instrumentalist Schuyler Dunlap and producer Sammy Bananas to be the backup band for Sunday services. Using their knowledge of pop music garnered from the only two radio stations available, Casey Casem’s top 40 and Sandy Beach’s oldies show, the boys crafted arrangements of modern and classic pop and soul in a welcoming environment, covering songs by the likes of Prince, Sly & The Family Stone, Tony Toni Toné and Arrested Development. Having honed their songwriting and arranging skills in bars and happenings, these three recruited drummer Todd “The Rocket” Richard and bassist Trick Johnson, and set sail for America, land of opportunity – Homemade Superstars on a homemade sailboat of pop music. The past year has seen Miss Fairchild tour extensively throughout the United States and Canada and have their hit song, “Vanilla Place” featured on MTV’s The Real World: Hollywood. Yet wherever they travel, the band is embraced as local. Armed with their island-grown sense of community, they are welcomed by fans everywhere who claim them as their own. Autumn 2008 sees Miss Fairchild’s fourth release, Won’t Be Your Kept Woman, a pop record which displays a new sense of confidence and purpose. Delivered with the same energy and fun of 2007’s pop funk LP Ooh La La, Sha Sha, the new record displays traces of the bands Miss Fairchild covered in their youth. From the stomps and claps of “Kept Woman” and the sing-a-long of “Excuse Me, Sister” to the angst of “I Heard,” the songs on WBYKW have universal appeal. With this release, these locals prove that in a world so cold, there’s nothing like a little home cooking.
