LITTLE FEAT
pickwick33
8,946 Posts
Any Soul Strut love for these guys? For a cult band, they sure do pop up in the dollarbins a lot, don't they?Right now I'm sitting here listening to their self-titled debut, which is probably their least "fonky" LP...and they're known for "fonk" (which is my term for any 1970's rock band that attempted to incorporate funk into their sound)...but even though there's a million bad jam bands and blues-rock groups working today whose influences can be traced back to Little Feat, they still sounded good in spite of that...
Comments
with special love for "fool yourself" and "two trains"
this is soulstrut - i shoulda seen this one coming
lowell george was in zappa's band prior to LF right?
+ what neville said
Actually, I agree with you. Radio played them, the albums made the charts, and more than once I've heard people in their twenties say that their parents played Little Feat all the time in the house when they were kids, BUT!
Everytime I see them written about in magazines and on the Net, people always talk about them like they're Linda Perhacs or Public Nuisance or some other obscurity. Little Feat may not have made it as big as they should have, but they obviously made it all the same. That's what I meant by the "cult band" remark; as many times as I've seen their LP's in used dollarbins, that's a pretty huge cult!
That's right. And Roy Estrada (also from Zappa's Mothers of Invention) was an early Little Feat member, on the first LP.
Also look for the MFSL pressing of their first album, came out about a year ago. Best version of that album right there.
Along the same lines, definitely get into the early albums by Poco and get into Head, Hands & Feet.
Good one, I'm curious to know how much more exist from those sessions.
yes i put a part of "Honest Man" on a mix i did called 'boogie rock' about 4 yrs ago
Weird -that's what I call this genre as well occasionally and I did a mix of this kind of stuff too a while back. It had some little feat on it but no Lowell George solo, I never really thought that album was very good though, the backup singing on every single track makes all the tracks bleed together.
George was also in a pop-psych band called the Factory, that appeared in an episode of F-Troop (go to about a minute in).
He and some of the Zappa guys appear in the NF Porter album on Lizard.
I don't remember Little Feat making any serious inroads on the radio until after Lowell George died. 'Straight From the Heart' from the last LG/LF album got a lot of FM radio play after he died.
Cosign for days on "Willin'" and especially "Truck Stop Girl" off the first joint.
YES.
Along with 'Dixie Chicken,' album/song...
Solid band. If FONK or boogie funk or boogie country is the name, I feel like these guys did it better than anyone, and actually had real talent.
No shame in this game.
I like Little Feat. Back in the mid-70s, they were very much a critic's band, and never really caught on with the wider public in a way that reflected the level of acclaim they received. This is probably why their records tend to crop up in dollar-bins so much; folks would check them out on the basis of all the good press they were getting (see also; Pavlov's Dog), and find that, maybe because the records were a little more subtle than, say, Lynyrd Skynyrd or Foghat, they weren't really taken by them right away. I dunno.
They were also hugely popular with their fellow musos. A few of them played on Robert Palmer's first couple of solo albums (which bore a strong Feat influence anyway), and both Humble Pie's Thunderbox and Deep Purple's Stormbringer albums always sounded like examples of hard rock bands trying to incorporate a bit more "fonk" into their sound in the wake of records like Sailin' Shoes and Dixie Chicken.
The Last Record Album is probably my favourite of theirs. Long Distance Love is a gorgeous song, and I got a big kick out of hearing All That You Dream crop up in that epic final episode of The Sopranos.
This one? Great record, especially the version of Spanish Moon with the Redman/Method Man Blackout loop.
they were my gateway drug to the meters, etc
they back john cale on his "paris 1919" lp
i also know the details to george's last concert & untimely end
The personnel on that album is basically the pre-fonk first album lineup of Little Feat (George/Estrada/Hayward/Payne) plus Jimmy Carl Black from Zappa's Mothers. Roy Estrada was with Little Feat for the first LP, then left.
which reminds me, im surprised Laser Wolf hasn't chimed in on this thread
for some reason Little Feat, to me, seems like a band he'd be into
Bootleg live album of theirs. Also has a killer version of "Spanish Moon".
I like this better than the "Waiting For Columbus" version (though that's not a bad version either) - it's more stripped down and they replace the horns with keys instead.
Best Cale LP imo, beautiful record.
the island box set of cale includes a bonus cut from that session, "dixie land"
that is as good as the lp material
+ i think estrada is on the 2nd feat lp also
Me too orignially, just knew of them from the Bonita joint but when i got my hands on the 'Dixie...' LP and played it in full they suprised me.
They got that Buckeyed Politicians/Law vibe to them.... fonk/rock/blues with some experimenting thrown in that keeps them interesting.