In this new MoFi reissue of Little Feat’s eponymous album, legendary producer Russ Titleman wrote an introduction and explains how the group and album came about. In 1969 he was attending a school held by Ravi Shankar on Eastern music; Titleman was quite smitten with the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Within You, Without You and its Shankar-inspired sitar part, played by George Harrison. In a sitar class, he met Lowell George, a talented and charismatic musician who could actually play the sitar – and any other instrument he touched – and they soon became fast friends. George, Richie Hayward and Roy Estrada had just left Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, and were forming a new band; they soon met Bill Payne, formed Little Feat, and began rehearsals. Lowell George and Russ Titleman wrote songs together, and generally just hung out a lot; when Little Feat was ready to sign a record deal, Titleman convinced George to meet with his friend Lenny Waronker at Warner. When the deal was done, Titleman was also signed as producer of the project, his very first album. Little Feat went on to record seven studio albums and one live album, Waiting for Columbus, which is widely regarded as one of the great live rock albums of all time. The group experienced tremendous success with classic albums such as Dixie Chicken and Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. In 1979, Lowell George decided to disband the group and went solo; during the tour he was found dead in his hotel room of an apparent heart attack. His weight and excessive use of recreational drugs were ultimately given the blame. Little Feat reformed several times, and still tours and records to this day, enjoying a moderate level of success. 1988’s Let it Roll became their biggest selling studio album, and fans still flocked to their concerts.
Little Feat is one of the seminal albums of the early-seventies L.A. music scene; it enjoyed modest success commercially, although it did receive quite a bit of critical acclaim. The songs were of quite simple construction, and were effective tools to showcase the band’s strengths, which included a dynamite rhythm section, Lowell George’s astonishingly good slide guitar work and Bill Payne’s superb pianisms and vocals. Many have compared them favorably to The Band; a lot of Little Feat’s vocals were more or less “by committee,” very similar in style to the vocals of The Band’s Rick Danko and Richard Manuel. Their music – also like The Band – hearkened to the average American, with songs like “Truck Stop Girl,” “Willin’” and “Hamburger Midnight,” they were the opposite extreme of just about anything on the airwaves at the time. The only song on the album that even approached hit status was Lowell George’s “Willin’,” and that was mainly due to Linda Ronstadt’s inclusion of the tune on her breakthrough album Heart Like A Wheel. While there’s much to enjoy here musically, the album’s greatest importance lies in the establishment of groundwork for Little Feat’s greater success to come.
The disc lives up to MoFi’s high standards in terms of sound quality and packaging – it’s packaged in one of those really nice Japanese-style mini-LP gatefold sleves. While a very good-sounding record, Little Feat is not an audiophile cornucopia of delights – it’s sound is on par with most good-sounding seventies-era rock albums. If you’re a huge fan of the band, this disc is absolutely essential listening; casual fans may find the $25 or so dollar price tag a bit prohibitive for an album that clocks in at about 33 minutes. Your mileage may vary – you be the judge. Still Recommended.
— Tom Gibbs
