The Indomitable Little Feat

October 2021:  Having passed through ice—the Covid winter of the past eighteen months—Little Feat brought fire.  Their By Request tour came in November 2021 and was a triumph, and now they’ve added the Waiting for Columbus tour, which began in March 2022 and will run to the end of the year.  Happy Feat, indeed.

Waiting for Columbus was Feat’s first live album, and it perfectly captures their consummate playing skill with extended versions of their early classic tunes.  Feat fans have been waiting for this tour for quite a while.  Warner Bros. recently issued an eight-CD deluxe version—it was just that good. 

The members of Little Feat 2021 are:  Bill Payne, Keyboards and Vocals; Sam Clayton, Percussion and Vocals; Fred Tackett, Guitars and Vocals, Kenny Gradney, Bass; Scott Sharrard, Guitars and Vocals; and Tony Leone, drums.   

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 in 1969 when Frank Zappa was smart enough to fire Lowell George from the Mothers of Invention and tell him to go start a band of his own.  Soon after, Lowell connected with Bill Payne, which stirred up sparks.  They then found drummer Richie Hayward.

The name was part of the legend.  A member of the Mothers happened to mention Lowell’s small feet to him “with an expletive,” said long-time guitarist Paul Barrere.  “Lowell deleted the expletive, and the name was born with Feat instead of Feet, just like the Beatles.  Neat, huh?”

They were quickly signed by Warner Bros. and began working on the first of twelve albums with that venerable company.   Success is hard.  It cost Feat their founder, Lowell George, who in 1979 was struck down by a heart attack.  And it cost the band, temporarily, their joy; shortly after, they disbanded.  In 1988 they returned to the road, where they’ve been ever since (excepting the pandemic), joined by Fred Tackett on guitar.  Richie succumbed to liver cancer in 2010, and the same grim pursuer caught Paul in 2019.  Shortly before, Paul needed a substitute for some shows, and they found their sub in Scott Sharrard, a frequent sit-in with Bill Payne’s other band, the Doobie Brothers. Scott is best known for his role as guitarist and musical director with the late Gregg Allman.

Tony Leone, best known for his 2002 collaboration with Amy Helm, Olabelle, his work in the Chris Robinson Band and as a member of Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble Band, joined up in 2021. 

Fifty years on, they’ve been up and they’ve been down and they know where they belong—standing or sitting behind their instruments, playing for you.  And anything’s possible, because the end is not in sight.