In the annals of American rock bands, Little Feat is one of the more criminally underrated acts to arrive on the scene. Launched by the initial quartet of vocalist/bassist Lowell George and bassist Roy Estrada (originally from the Mothers of Invention) along with keyboardist Bill Payne and drummer Richie Hayward in 1969, the band has gone through myriad changes with Payne the only original member left standing.
While peers like the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead and the Eagles may have reaped significant commercial success, Little Feat has occupied its own niche thanks to a sound that mixes blues, rock, New Orleans funk, jazz and country. It’s a big part of why Payne has kept the Little Feat legacy going for nearly six decades.
“I’m very protective and territorial about the group because I’d have to play in 10 different bands to play the width and span of music that Little Feat plays,” Payne said in a mid-April interview.
That determination has seen Payne and his compatriots survive the deaths of George (heart attack in 1979), Hayward (lung disease in 2010) and longtime guitarist Paul Barrere (liver cancer in 2019). That said, Little Feat’s core of Payne, singer/percussionist Sam Clayton, bassist Kenny Gradney and multi-instrumentalist Fred Tackett (all members since Little Feat reformed after an eight-year break in 1987) have rallied to release Strike Up the Band, the group’s 17th album and first collection of original material since 2012’s “Rooster Rag.” The addition of guitarist Scott Sharrard in 2019 and drummer Tony Leone the following year provided the latest creative shot in the arm for the band.
“When Tony and Scott got into the band, Fred Tackett and I looked at each other and thought that there was nothing this band couldn’t play,” Payne said. “We can tackle anything we want to play right now and that wasn’t always the case. For both of them coming into this band, growing up and listening to us—there is a pressure they felt and articulated a couple of times—they knew the shoes they were walking into. But to their credit, they’ve taken it on as their own.”
Last year’s Sam’s Place introduced fans to Sharrard and Leone via a platter made up of predominantly blues covers sung by percussionist Clayton that included standards by the likes of Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Willie Dixon. For Strike Up the Band, Grammy Award-winner Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton/Phish/Jack White) was tapped to produce. Decamping to Powell’s Tennessee-based Blackbird Studio and Sputnik Sound, Little Feat whipped up 17 songs in a three-week dash with 13 jams making the cut. For Payne, having the band join forces with Powell was the key.
“Some of my favorite parts were working with Vance for the first time,” Payne said. “I’ve never worked with anyone that’s quite that quick in the sense that he was two to three steps ahead of me almost the entire way. I really felt like I didn’t have to say anything. I’d start to say something and then he’s already there. A couple of times I was able to interject something and then he’d suggest to try something and I’d give it a shot. Most of all, I was happy that people were having fun recording this project.”
That unmistakable Little Feat feel for irresistible grooves is embedded throughout Strike Up the Band. The horn-soaked lead single “Too High to Cut My Hair” chugs along in a manner reminiscent of vintage Tower of Power, while the opening jam “4 Days of Heaven, 3 Days of Work,” a Payne/Sharrard/Leone co-write, bears those unmistakable Feat slide guitar runs that conjure up the ghost of the late George. Elsewhere, Payne dipped into his trove of songwriting collaborations with the late Robert Hunter, emerging with “Bluegrass Pines,” a kind of New Orleans-flavored tango featuring guests Molly Tuttle, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams that has nary a shred of bluegrass woven into it despite the title. It all allows for even more eclectic song choices fans can expect from the Little Feat set lists on this tour.
“We’re going to play a couple of songs from Sam’s Place along with classic Little Feat songs people expect to hear,” Payne said. “And then we’ll play some songs off of Strike Up the Band. A fourth pillar or leg in this thing is to have a deeper dive into our catalog. There are so many songs we don’t play and Scott is a real champion of that, as am I. I’ve always wanted to play more songs than less in terms of what we have at our disposal. And I don’t mean more songs necessarily in the set. I think another part where Little Feat really shines is being able to construct songs and insert jams into them.”
Little Feat plays at 8pm on June 13 at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $65/$95 Gold Circle available at pulseproductions.net.
