Quintessential jam band Little Feat to perform at McCarter Theatre.
By: Susan Van Dongen
If you’re a member of a certain age group and you love music, Little Feat’s classic live album, Waiting for Columbus, is probably in your vinyl collection. A few years ago, the band released a 25th anniversary edition of its monumental album. The new package restores the full 17-song sequence of the original concert, and adds seven previously unreleased outtakes.
Little Feat commemorated the re-release on Rhino records with a benefit concert at Washington, D.C.’s, Lisner Auditorium, one of the two venues where Waiting for Columbus was recorded. The event was celebrated with a couple of dozen of the band’s musician friends including Béla Fleck, Joe Ely, Lenny Pickett and Levon Helm. Even Billy Bob Thornton showed up for the party.
Little Feat is still on the road, its music as fresh as ever, with classically trained pianist Bill Payne still playing keyboard. One of the original and quintessential jam bands, Little Feat will be at McCarter Theatre in Princeton Nov. 13.
Founded in 1969 by the late Lowell George, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, Little Feat mixes a gumbo of every strain of Southern music blues, country, gospel, New Orleans R&B and Memphis funk with a blend of absurdity, surreal lyrics and musical chops. With all the Southern influences, it’s surprising to learn the band actually came from Los Angeles. But the element of free-form California rock is just another ingredient that has given Little Feat its long legs.
It’s been 16 albums and 37 years, but the band has no intention of slowing down.
"We’ll work until it doesn’t make sense anymore, until people don’t want to hear us," says Mr. Payne, speaking from his home in northern Michigan. "Look at Dylan and the Stones, anyone who’s been out there a long time. For working bands, you get out there and do what you do. Maybe the real challenge is not getting staid and stilted. We do that by putting jams into our songs. Not that we want to obliterate the songs until they’re unrecognizable. But we’re musicians’ musicians and like to keep things fresh."
Touted as "one of the hardest working bands in show business," the personnel has changed but Little Feat is still a powerhouse, able to carry on the group’s tradition in both the recording studio and concert venues. The group’s most recent studio album, 2003’s Kickin’ It at the Barn, was produced by Feat-men Paul Barrere, Mr. Payne and Fred Tackett. The release is named after the place it was recorded, Mr. Tackett’s barn studio in Topanga Canyon, which Bill Payne calls "Litt le Feat’s version of The Band’s ‘Big Pink.’"
The keyboardist, who has also recently been touring and recording with Jimmy Buffett, recalls a neighbor complaining about the noise level coming from the barn, which brought the local police way down into the depths of the canyon.
"When they came in, they asked, ‘What group is this?’ so we told them we were Little Feat, and were working on an album," Mr. Payne says. "They said ‘You’re the real Little Feat? Oh, never mind. That’s OK.’ Then they could barely get back up the hill."
It seems like the group was tucked away remotely not in a place where neighbors can hear and grumble. But Mr. Payne says in the countryside, sound travels farther than in the city where it’s masked by all kinds of noises.
"You can hear someone hammering miles away," he says.
In the liner notes for Kickin’ It at the Barn, Mr. Barrere remarks that, if music is a conversation between the players, then the band members must be talking like never before.
"This has been truly one of the most memorable recording projects we’ve done," he writes. "We started with an idea to write songs on acoustic guitar and piano, like the old days before computers and sampling, and then let the band interpret the music."
Eclectic and earthy, Little Feat managed to sell plenty of records. Two went gold and the live album achieved platinum sales. The anniversary edition seems to be pretty popular too. Perhaps Feat fans who wore out their vinyl copies are investing in the Rhino re-release. Or maybe a new generation is discovering Waiting for Columbus.
Mr. Payne thinks the lasting affection for the album is partly because it is so beautifully produced, recorded and engineered, a nod to the late Mr. George’s musical talents and studio savvy.
"When I was in the studio, listening to the way it was mixed, (the album) just gave me goose bumps," Mr. Payne says. "It was an amazing thing. This is from a guy who has spent hundreds of hours in the studio. If it can do that for me, it can do it for everyone else."
If you think back to the ’70s there were a flurry of live albums which, when heard today, sound rather sloppy. Not Waiting for Columbus, though.
"To Lowell’s credit, we went back and patched some things up, redid some vocals for example, which nobody could detect more and more people are taking this approach today," Mr. Payne says. "Lowell had this philosophy if we had access to a recording studio, we should use it and do whatever it takes to make the music better. For me, it’s always been about the music.
"I think ‘Waiting for Columbus’ still rocks today, as well as it did back then," he continues. "It’s interesting that I have a son who is 24 and he has his own music loves Beck, for example but I’ve always been amazed that Evan and his friends gravitated to the same music that I did, from the same era. They like the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills and Nash. There’s something about the era. Things come and go so quickly today, but there is certain music that lasts. Maybe we’re included in that, something that gets into the bedrock."
Little Feat will perform at McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton,
Nov. 13, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $32-$38. For information, call (609) 258-2787. On
the Web: www.mccarter.org.
Little Feat on the Web: www.littlefeat.net.
Bill Payne on the Web: www.billpaynemusic.com

