Little Feat

In his liner notes for Join the Band, Little Feat’s 2008, career-summing CD, Bill Payne described their motivation for recording as a way of locating the band’s influences. When you’ve played together for nearly forty years and have the instrumental chops and ears that Feat does, that’s a lot of influences, so that they can work with friends from Jimmy Buffett to Dave Matthews to Bob Seger to Emmylou Harris to Vince Gill to Chris Robinson and Mike Gordon – and it all makes musical sense.

Little Feat is very possibly the last-man-standing example of what used to be the norm in American music, a fusion of a broad span of styles and genres into something utterly distinctive. Feat took California rock, funk, folk, jazz, country, rockabilly, and New Orleans swamp boogie and more, stirred it into a rich gumbo, and has been leading people in joyful dance ever since.

It all began because in 1969 Frank Zappa was smart enough to fire Lowell George from the Mothers of Invention and tell him to start a band of his own. Paul Barrere, Feat’s guitarist, wrote recently, ”It’s almost 33 years ago exactly since Mr. [Lowell] George came to the front door of the Laurel Canyon house I was livin’ in, with that beautiful white ”p“ bass in hand, and asked if I wanted to try out as bass player for his new band. As most who know the story’s end can tell you, as a bassist I make an excellent guitarist…”

Actually, there were about 18 bass players that first year – that seat took a while to fill. George first settled on keyboard wizard Bill Payne, then added drummer Richie Hayward and bassist Roy Estrada. They were quickly signed by Warner Bros., and began working on the first of 12 albums with that venerable company.

The first album, Little Feat, featured the instant-classic tune “Willin’,” and the follow-up Sailin’ Shoes added “Easy to Slip,” “Trouble,” “Tripe Face Boogie,” “Cold Cold Cold” and the title track to their repertoire. Estrada departed, and the band signed up (on guitar!) Paul Barrere, Sam Clayton (percussion) and Kenny Gradney (bass), and the new guys are still around.

Success is hard. It cost Feat their founder, Lowell George, who passed in 1979 while working on Down on the Farm. And it cost them, temporarily, their joy; shortly after, they disbanded.

In 1986, Barrere and Payne met up in a chance jam session, and found that they could still find that inspiration. What they had written in ”Hangin’ On To The Good Times Here“ - ”…although we went our own ways, we couldn’t escape from where we came, so we find ourselves back at the table again, telling stories of survivors and friends” – was of course true, as with any righteous song – and in 1988 they hit the road again, where they’ve been ever since, joined by Craig Fuller on vocals and Fred Tackett on guitar. "Let It Roll" re-introduced them to the world, and was followed by "Representing the Mambo" and then "Shake Me Up". Craig left and Shaun Murphy joined from 1993 – 2009; bringing her feminine energy and powerful blues vocals.

You can go a number of ways when you spend your life on the road. You can get eaten up by the stresses and quit, or just die inside and get bitter and think you’re owed something. Or you can hold on to your music and your friends and the joy of the people out front and keep the priorities straight the way the six Featsters have.

Almost two score years later, they’ve been up and they’ve been down and they know where they belong – standing or sitting behind their instruments, playing for you.