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    • Excellent article. Mousey.

      The description of how the band appealed ro the counterculture freaks in NZ rings very true with my teenage experiences among the freaks of Pinner and North Harrow.

      John Peel was an early fan in the UK and did a lot to boost interest.

      https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Little_Feat

      The article captures how important word -of-mouth fame was back in the day.

      One thing that was unusual in those pre-internet days, was that New Zealand crowds were turning out to see a band that had really had very little exposure through the usual channels. Little Feat had no hit singles, no commercial airplay, and hadn’t been on television. Their music appeared to have spread by osmosis.

      One local fan who may have aided this spontaneous process was Malcolm McSporran. “I used to crusade. Everywhere I went I would carry a bag of records with me and I would browbeat, force people, evangelise – and Little Feat were one of the bands I would evangelise about. The word of mouth would crackle through the undergrowth and the subculture. Freaks up on the Coromandel peninsula and down on the West Coast of the South Island, and I guess they were all in touch with each other. It was kind of a dissemination of class acts.”

      Local musicians also helped spread the word. Midge Marsden remembers discovering the group in the early ‘70s through their first album, though it was not even released here. He began performing Little Feat songs with his group The Country Flyers, and recalls other local groups such as Mammal and Rockinghorse doing the same. When guitarist Martin Hope left the Wellington-based Flyers to join The Human Instinct in Auckland, he brought Little Feat songs with him into the Instinct’s repertoire.

      If Little Feat’s stellar musicianship was one reason for their appeal, there was also an anti-establishment ethos that seemed to be encoded in their songs. In ‘Willin’ Lowell George sang of the “weed whites and wine” that kept the long distance trucker – or touring musician – going until the next town. And there was ‘Sailin’ Shoes’ with its ‘cocaine trees’ and rock’n’roll doctor’s with their mysterious prescriptions. They caught the mood of the counterculture.[

  4. Mention of the New Zealand counterculture made me curious to know more. This article is very interesting reading.

    https://teara.govt.nz/en/communes-and-communities/page-2

    In New Zealand, as in other western countries, the late 1960s and 1970s saw an explosion of counter-cultural activity. Many idealistic young people, dissatisfied with suburban nuclear-family life, headed for the countryside, while others set up urban communities.

    Bonnie’s wiki page tells of all the years of hard slog before he achieve commenrcial success

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Raitt

    Music was not her first interest…

    In 1967, Raitt enrolled at Radcliffe College, and majored in social relations and African studies.[7] While at Radcliffe, she was in a music group called the Revolutionary Music Collective, which played for striking Harvard students during the student strike of 1970.[16] Despite her abilities, Raitt did not consider music to be anything more than a hobby.[17] Her plan after graduation was to travel to Tanzania, and improve the local government under president Julius Nyerere.[17

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