[Today: Farmer George's Hollywood boogie band...]
Little Feat was one of the most confounding and enjoyable bands of the 1970s. They sounded like Southern Rock but hailed from Hollywood, they had the soul of a boogie band but featured ex-members of Frank Zappa’s surgically precise unit, and they created seemingly simple variations on blues-rock while playing them in far out time signatures. The enigmatic nature of this group extended to (or emanated from) frontman Lowell George, a portly, bearded, overall-wearing character who looked more like a farmer than a rock star, but sang with a husky, down-home drawl that put the pretty boys to shame.
This band released eight albums before George died suddenly from a heart attack while on solo tour in 1979. Of these, only 1978′s Down On The Farm is generally considered to be a disappointment, and that’s only because it has such stellar company to live up to. After releasing their self-titled debut in 1971, Little Feat quickly found their sound and rolled off one of the better rock catalogues of the decade. They briefly broke up after releasing their sophomore album, 1972′s Sailin’ Shoes, but came back with a slightly reformed line-up that took their music to new heights on 1973′s Dixie Chicken.
The album-opening title track is a tale of Southern heartbreak, with a sing-along style chorus that sees George sharing lead vocals with Bonnie Bramlett. ‘Fat Man In The Bathtub’ features some of the strangest blues-based imagery this side of Captain Beefheart, but it’s impossible not to moan along with the sorry doughboy. ‘Roll Um Easy’ is pure Saturday afternoon hammock music, ‘Fool Yourself’ is a sugar-coated slap in the face by reality, and ‘Side Street Swinger’ sees George cut loose for a few bars on the slide guitar. Dixie Chicken is wallpapered with outstanding songs that follow truck drivers, trains and loners into the deepest corners of a mythical America. It’s one of those LPs where the songs are meant to be played chronologically, and form a cohesive sum that’s much better and more enjoyable than its individual parts.
“If you had a band, who would you want it to sound like?” is a party question I’ve come up against a few times, and one of my two stock answers is Little Feat. Lowell George was a gifted songwriter who had a unique set of pipes and played a mean slide. With Paul Barrere on guitar and vocals, Bill Payne on keyboards, Richie Hayward and Kenny Gradney on drums and bass and Sam Clayton on congas, Little Feat was a band that took the trouble to discover and mine a sound all its own, back when that kind of thing was still fashionable…
Listen: Dixie Chicken
Listen: Fat Man In The Bath Tub
Listen: Roll Um Easy
Listen: Fool Yourself
Tags: Bill Payne, Bonnie Bramlett, Captain Beefheart, Dixie Chicken, Frank Zappa, Kenny Gradney, Little Feat, Lowell George, Paul Barrere, Richie Hayward, Sam Clayton
11 July 2010 at 11:21 am |
[...] suited his music just fine. Park would go on to create a whole string of album covers for Little Feat, but none of those got as dark or strange as this. [...]