Little Feat is an American rock band formed by singer-songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles. George disbanded the group due to creative differences in 1979, shortly before his death. Surviving members reformed Little Feat in 1987, remaining intermittently active to the present. Although the band has undergone several changes in its lineup, the music remains an eclectic blend of rock and roll, blues, R&B, boogie, country, folk, gospel, soul, funk, and jazz fusion influences. Guitarist Jimmy Page stated Little Feat was his favorite American band in a 1975 Rolling Stone interview. (More from Wikipedia)
Paul Martin notes that about half of the songs are geared mostly to the vocals, with the second and third songs, “The Grail” and “Sad Song for Winter” being particular favorites of mine. Lisa Bankoff handles solo vocals on the latter song. On the other songs, the band is highlighted more strongly, with the closing song “Peru” sounding especially good to these ears. Of these songs, Martin says: “The band dominated numbers can best be described as Fairport Convention meets Little Feat as they have a blend of blues-funk and folk rock in them.”
(November 2013)
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Tret Fure, a multi-talented women’s music artist, has more of a hard-rock edge to her music than most of the genre’s artists; she grew up in the Midwest and became a professional musician when she was 16. Her first solo album, Tret Fure (1973) was produced by Lowell George of Little Feat; and she later toured as the opening act for several major rock bands that included Yes, the J. Geils Band and Poco.
“LSD-25” by the Gamblers is one of several surf instrumentals toward the end of the Pebbles, Volume 4 CD. This track dates from 1961; the allstar line-up includes Bruce Johnston, Larry Taylor (later in Canned Heat), Elliot Ingber (Fraternity of Man, Captain Beefheart, Little Feat, etc.), and famed drummer Sandy Nelson. According to the CD’s liner notes (by Nigel Strange): “Actually, surfers were the first subculture to embrace LSD, at a time when it was almost exclusively the plaything of the academics. With their footloose existence, and a sometimes mystical rapport with the ocean, the early surfers (we’re talking years before the craze, of course) were in many ways the true inheritors of the beatniks’ existential tradition, standing outside normal society and contemplating the void. In any event, this must surely be the first acid reference to appear on a record by several years.”
(December 2014)
