was arguably one of the greatest rock bands of the 1970s, and most certainly one of the best not to have achieved significant mainstream success or classic rock canonization, spinning off from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention with an idiosyncratic blend of blues, country, and R&B. And while Little Feat's original run, which ended with the 1979 death of founder Lowell George, will always define the band, for the past 20 years a reconstituted Little Feat has added to the band's recorded legacy while maintaining its status as a beloved live act. And as the son of a lifelong fan, I took it upon myself to take my dad to see Little Feat at the 9:30 Club last Friday, and he shared memories of seeing the band at the Warner Theatre and the Baltimore Civic Center in the mid-'70s.
Little Feat's set opened with the up-tempo title track from the 1988 comeback album
Let It Roll
. But the 8-piece band, which features five members from the classic
Dixie Chicken
-era lineup, spent most of its two hours onstage running through highlights from the Lowell George years, from the funky licks of "Skin It Back" to the twangy slide guitar of "Fat Man In the Bathtub." Guitarist Paul Barrere now acts as the band's de facto frontman, but several members of the band take turns on lead vocals, from percussionist Sam Clayton's gravelly take on "Spanish Moon" to the occasional showcases for singer Shaun Murphy, who joined the band in 1993. But when it came time for gray-haired keyboardist Bill Payne to sing his most significant contribution to the Little Feat songbook, "Oh Atlanta," he up and forgot his own lyrics, and had to ask for help from his bandmates to recall the song's first verse.
Join the Band
, the recently released album Little Feat is touring in support of, is itself a bit of a trip down memory lane, featuring studio re-recordings of classic Feat tracks with famous fans including Dave Matthews, Jimmy Buffett, and Emmylou Harris, as well as several covers. And while there were no guests onstage at the 9:30 Club, the band frequently wove covers into the set, sometimes as medleys. A sing-along rendition of one of the band's signature songs, the trucker ballad "Willin'," segued into covers of the Band's "The Weight" and Country Joe and the Fish's "Don't Bogart That Joint" before coming back around to another chorus of "Willin'."
Certainly, any Little Feat without Lowell George is incomplete, both in terms of the physical presence of his gruff voice and distinctive slide guitar work, and in terms of the more intangible humor and personality that are somewhat lacking in the band as it is now, even as they play his songs. And as one of the original taper-friendly bands of the '70s that predated the "jam band" movement, it feels almost like the Little Feat of today is following its own followers, with the longer solos and involved medleys that were largely absent from the shows that made up its classic live album, 1978's
Waiting For Columbus
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. But as the band pushes toward the 40th anniversary of its original formation next year, it's great to be able to still see it in any form, especially those of us that only know about the good old days from recordings, and from our parents' stories.
