Little Feat - S&D, C/D

Don't know why I never posted on this thread - read it a few times over the years. Like everyone else said, Vornado's post about early 70s Americana myth-making OTM. Little Feat, to me, are the dank and dirty roots of it; leavethecapital's "Funky, weird and filthy" captures it wuite well.

What exactly was going on in the late 60s/early 70s with coutryfried-rock? The aforementioned Feat/Band/Dead, Tumbleweed Connection, the Stones, Parsons, Ronstadt, etc. Where did it all come from, exactly? Why then?

don't know if there is a thesis on this thread, but it's all right here:

Can we talk about early-mid70s West Coast post-psych/pop/rock/folk-rock/country-rock?

holy shit, how come nobody ever told me that Robert Palmer's first 4 albums are full of Little Feat covers and backing from members of LF? the "Sailing Shoes / Hey Julia / Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" medley is incredible, I feel like I just stumbled on a box of records I never knew existed by one of my favorite bands.

Just got done listening the debut for the first time in a long time. It had never crossed my mind before, but is it just me or does "Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie" sound like a letter-perfect parody of The Band, especially the more mythological Robbie Robertson stuff ("The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" etc.)?

never thought of it that way, if anything i thought of it as a vestige of Feat's wacky Zappa roots -- i love that song, though, i think i put it on a mixtape for a friend who's way into stuff like Primus

for personal record: CLASSIC (as fuk). dudes totally epitomized southern carefree-itude in the same way that a lot of rap spawn from the south is doing now. seems like a fun place, if everybody's constantly releasing music under that ~lifestyle mentality~. i think.

I would say "Crazy Captain..." is very, very Band sounding (albeit with George's unique twist).

Little Feat are from Los Angeles, not The South. Lowell George was born and raise din Hollywood.

yeah but the number of references to southern towns/states in LF lyrics outnumbers California references probably at least 10 to 1, so i think they were courting that kind of (mis)perception

Very true! But I would say those references def make them uniquely Los Angeles and that city's tradition of cinematic imagination. George was a Californian who fell in love with New Orleans, it's culture and music. Lyrically, he exuded a rich sense of romance for New Orleans that only an outsider could truly muster. I would say George was more like a classical composer incorporating "folk" touches into his/her compositions. He was kind of like Aron Copland.

(Aaron Copland)

Boogie Rock for the Common Man

that's kind of appropriate since my dad is a huge fan of both Feat and Copland

http://www.littlefeat.net/news.html?n_id=3174

Will these be actual remasters?

I have no idea. Only Waiting for Columbus has been remastered, right? The current discs aren't horrible, but I hope they take this chance to give them the once-over.

cool, there are some of those i haven't heard.
been meaning to get the similarly styled Ry Cooder box set too.

just got this a couple days ago, excited to jump into it:
http://www.amazon.com/Willin-Story-Little-Ben-Fong-Torres/dp/0306821311/

I had no idea that existed. Let us know if it's good.

Decent book. More of a Lowell George bio.

anyone buy the box? Wondering about remastering and can't find squat online.

^^Was wondering about this myself.

I streamed some of it on Rdio and it sounds better than my old cd rips, but I don't know what "loudness" button they insert in their audio chain.

yeah i dunno. may pick it up just because i don't have most of the albums on CD.

book was flawed but a great read. didn't feel it was anymore about Lowell George rather than the band than it inherently had to be to work.

From Stephen Erlewine on twitter: They seem to be remastered but I’m thinking it was done around the time of the Hotcakes box; individual CDs never were issued.

Guess I'm buying it.

Nice interview with Bill Payne on the Rhino site:

http://www.rhino.com/article/talkin-with-bill-payne-of-little-feat?eml=rn/030614/feat4

These are definitely remastered. They sound good on cd for the first time ever.

Got the (great-sounding) box last week. Been working through it--Let It Roll (the album) isn't very good, is it? Too much Craig Fuller.

i heard it a lot growing up and have a soft spot for "One Clear Moment" and "Listen To Your Heart." Representing The Mambo is the better of of the 2 big comeback albums, though.

one clear moment is nice.

i've been listening to a harry hosono box set a lot recently and I swear there are what sound exactly like hosono/little feat collaborations on there but the liner notes are in japanese.

i don't think LF made a record--at least not in the lowell george period--that didn't have at least one classic track.

how come nobody ever told me that Robert Palmer's first 4 albums are full of Little Feat covers and backing from members of LF? the "Sailing Shoes / Hey Julia / Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley" medley is incredible

certainly one of my favorite 10 minute stretches of music of all time

for the curious, here 'tis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNw8U4aCgjE

that 1974 live Ultrasound Studio set aka "Electrif Lycanthrope" mentioned under the fold is so damn good

one of the interesting things i learned in the recent LF bio is that Robert Palmer and Bonnie Raitt were among the singers they considered to front the new lineup. nothing against Craig Fuller, though, he was good, and apparently crossed paths with Lowell and the band a bit back in the '70s.

just about everything concert they broadcast out of ultrasonic was great. worth searching. wlir was one heck of a radio station.

"every concert"

woke up from an inadvertent nap with "spanish moon" at full blast and it sounded like the best thing in the world!

need to buy that box.

that song would make a great drop in a DJ set btw

the recent Live In Holland 1976 record is pretty enjoyable

I need to pick that up.

Out of curiosity, were the chorus bits about "Whiskey & Bad Cocaine" in "Spanish Moon" added especially for the Robert Palmer version, or were they always there, but just censored for the studio Little Feat version? I first knew the song (with the added lyrics) from Waiting For Columbus, so I mildly shocked upon finally hearing the tamer studio take.

good question, dunno. i don't feel like Warner Bros. was in the habit of removing drug references from records in the '70s, though, least of all with the band whose signature song was "Willin'."

yeah, I wish there was a seven-minute 12" version of that studio version

someone could probably make a great dub out of it

xp Yeah, and on an album with the lyric, "Wait 'till the shit hits the fan" in the midst of equally blatant drug talk. OTOH, "Spanish Moon" was released as single, but...who knows? Along with the single mix of "Spanish Moon", there's a neat outtake on the bonus disk called "Doriville" that George harvested the line about "The night the rain froze to the ground" from.

Wow cool track

It might have been cut for the studio. Here's the Ultrasonic studios version from '74 (in a medley with "Skin It Back"), which has the cocaine line (pun not intended), but at the only at the end of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wJRAjS3AGA

http://www.farces.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/lowell-george-linda-ronstadt.jpg

Somehow Willin made Atlanta 97.1 The River's top 500 Memorial Day countdown. Number 268 with a bullet. Literally never heard any song by little feat other than Dixie Chicken in classic rock radio.

I used to hear the live version of "Fat Man In A Bathtub" as a highlighted "deep cut"--same with "Spanish Moon", albeit not near as frequently. And when I was a kid, our area station would throw in "Let It Roll" alongside contemporary Petty, Stones, Floyd etc. under the umbrella of "It doesn't have to be old to be a classic!" Although oddly enough, I never heard the other two big reunion radio hits until I picked up the new box.

I had some friends over out by my pool and we had the River on. I was fucking jacked to hear "Willin" amongst the foreigner, heart, thorogood et al garbage that is on this ridiculous "countdown". Also, "blue sky" by the Allmans was like 276, which shows a lot of respect for one of Duane's last performances on wax. That ones in my personal top 5.

I was joking when I said it showed respect by the way. Yes, I'm drunk.