Once you become a Deadhead, becoming a Little Feat fan is almost a given. While the two bands don't really sound alike at all, they do seem to attract the same crowd. At least, that's how I got into them, through my Deadhead friends, at a time when  the band was no more, and I was too late to appreciate them live. I mourned for that, because Waiting for Columbus was, and still is, the best official live album I had ever heard.

Lowell George was a guitarist in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention in 1969, and he used to catch a lot of crap from bandmate Jimmy Carl Black about his tiny feet. "If you ever start a band, you should call it Little Feet", and somesuch. One day, Lowell showed Zappa a song he'd written called Willin', and Zappa promptly fired him. He told Lowell that he was too good to be a member of someone else's band, and should form his own. That he did, taking bassist Roy Estrada with him. He called them Little Feat, changing the "e" to an "a" in homage to the Beatles.

The fact that it's really difficult to descibe their sound is one of the main reasons I love them. They're rock, but also country, and that pianist is frequently up to some jazz, and there's some island flavor in that percussion, with a rich gravy of cajun hoodoo slathered all over it. That kind of says it.

Throughout the 70s, Little Feat made a name for themselves not necessarily as a jam band, but as a band that could really jam. Then in 1979 a still-too-young- Lowell George died after a concert of a heart attack. No evidence of drugs was found.



After that, Little Feat was simply a sweet memory. For a while. They staged a triumphant return in 1988 with frontman Craig Fuller. I first saw them opening for Jimmy Buffett (in what was one of the most insane crowds I've ever been in) and saw them several more times during the Fuller years. He's since been replaced by Shawn Murphy, but they're still Little Feat. They're still writing new music and jamming with the same groove (well, maybe a little slower now). But still jamming well nonetheless. Below is a live photo of the current band (btw- Shawn is the woman).



Another thing I love about the current band is their whole-hearted approval of the trading scene. They even have a link to my favorite trading site, Dime-a-Dozen, on their official website.

My intention here, however, is to praise the artistry of Mr. George. Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead NY was host to many fine concerts in a studio setting. There is an audience, but you can tell that it's very small. This was probably a "Playboy After Dark" type of party with more casual dress. Like the Paris Theater shows recorded by the BBC, however, these sessions led to some very fine professional recordings of some very fine performances by some very fine musicians, all made for radio rather than commercial release. I've got Ultrasonic recordings of several bands, and some may appear here.

Little Feat played there at least twice, on April 10, 1973 and September 19, 1974 (there may have been others that I haven't found yet). I have both and they are both fantastic shows. I'm not going to play the 1974 show, because you can listen to it yourself, by downloading the whole thing legally and for free right here. No special software needed, just click and point. You can get the format you want, but I would take the flac files. Download this free program to decode them, and burn to one CD. I suggest this because then you get an accurate digital copy of the original recording, whereas the other file types available all cut sound frequencies out of the song to make the file smaller. What's the sense of that? If I want to hear music, I want to hear ALL of it.

Anyway, jollykay is the only one who gets the 1973 show (well, O'Tim knew it too, so he can have one if he wants). I am fortunate to be able to post three songs in one track that all blend one into another, and show what this band was capable of even in their early days. The songs are called Cold Cold Cold, Dixie Chicken, and Tripe Face Boogie. Let me know what you think.

  

In two weeks: His band has a sousaphone in place of a bass guitar.
(The first to post the answer wins a copy of the show!)