Fifty Years Of The Last Record Album

Tiggerlion on The Last Record Album by Little Feat released 17/10/1975

Little Feat began as Lowell George’s band and were born out of a desire to enjoy the three classic pleasures of life: wine, women and song. George had been working for Frank Zappa, appearing on Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Burnt Weeny Sandwich and You Can’t Do That Anymore Vols. 1, 4 & 5. He also claimed to have played guitar on Hot Rats. Zappa was experimental and avant-garde regarding his music but conservative and autocratic when it came to running a band. Drugs of any kind were not tolerated. Zappa might have appreciated George’s first tune, Willin’, but not its sentiment. He suggested George should form his own band if he wanted to sing about dope.

Originally, Little Feat were a four piece with Richie Hayward on drums, Bill Payne keyboards and Roy Estrada, who had also been a Mother, on bass. The debut album is uncannily like an acid-fried The Band. There’s some Country, some Howlin’ Wolf, some hallucinations and some scorching slide guitar. Sailin’ Shoes is altogether smarter. It starts brightly with a pop song unashamedly about ‘nodding’ from cannabis, features a second reading of Willin’ and begins side two with another song about trying to score cocaine. Neither album sold and the band split up. When Little Feat reformed, Estrada was replaced by Ken Gradney and two additional members joined, Paul Barrere, an old school friend of George’s, on guitar, and Sam Clayton congas. The band found their signature sound, a laidback, rolling funk, country with a shuffling beat and the spirit of New Orleans. They didn’t improvise often, instead combining the discipline of a battle-hardened rock band with the flexibility of jazz musicians. Little Feat loved to boogie but were happiest digging deep into the groove where no-one else could go. George was forever looking for a snag in the melody to latch onto your soul and a “cracked mosaic” in the rhythms that only Little Feat could make coherent. They sounded like no-one before them or since. The songs romanticise the life of an itinerant musician, constantly on the road, visiting the local bars and hostelries, dallying with groupies and prostitutes, highs and lows sustained by various substances. It’s all they knew. Dixie Chicken is probably their definitive statement. Critics drooled over it. Sadly, praise doesn’t pay the bills and sales remained poor. They eeked out a living constantly touring and acting as session musicians for hire. In 1973, they displayed their versatility, playing jazz-funk on Chico Hamilton’s The Master and country-folk for Kathy Dalton’s debut, Amazing. Even so, there were times that money was so short, they struggled to afford food and heating. They split up a second time with Payne joining The Doobie Brothers and Haywood Tina Turner. Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, as the title states, was a desperate throw of the dice. Side one is probably their finest side of vinyl, five superlative tracks sequenced to perfection but, by side two, they had exhausted their supply of songs. They resorted to playing old ones to flesh the album out. The Fan dates back to the debut and its freak out tendencies had proven tricky to record, yet worked well at a gig, so they captured it as live in the studio, alongside a medley of two Sailin’ Shoes songs. Sales picked up, the album just about managing to break into Billboard’s top forty.

Little Feat were saved by their record company, whose boss, Larry Waronker, kept the faith when most would have let them go. Warner Brothers organised a European tour featuring several acts on their roster: The Doobie Brothers, Graham Central Station, Little Feat, Tower Of Power, Montrose and Bonaroo. A budget priced LP called The Warner Brothers Music Show helped promote it. In January 1975, the show arrived in London at The Rainbow. Little Feat opened for The Doobie Brothers and ‘blew them off the stage’ according to the critics who went. The crowd were so impressed, they demanded two encores and half left when they realised they weren’t getting a third. The Doobie Brothers were unable to win over the remaining audience and Little Feat’s reputation as a hot live act took hold. They gained whispering Bob Harris’s endorsement when they performed Rock & Roll Doctor and Fat Man In The Bath Tub on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Add to that the legendary bootleg, Electrif Lycanthrope, capturing a magnetic live recording in September 1974 for an FM radio show, increasingly available as the seventies wore on, and Little Feat’s stock was rising. However, constant adversity wore them down. George’s fascination with drugs had translated into a problematic addiction and Haywood was injured in a serious motorbike accident, incurring significant medical bills. The band were on the verge of breaking up once again but Robert Palmer kept them ticking over. The entire band, with Fran Tate on backing vocals, worked on 1975’s Pressure Drop. Here With Me Tonight, the album’s highlight, is a performance by a band as snug in the pocket as it is possible to be, and George’s Trouble is rollicked by Payne’s bar-room piano into a beer-soaked singalong. When the tapes were rolling, their sacrifices seemed worthwhile.

The songs on The Last Record Album are road weary, no longer in thrall to the romance of the nomadic musician: the girls are less easily persuaded to bed, hopes of commercial success are depressed, the loneliness is more acutely felt, the nightlife less enticing, people are threatening to leave and money has become seriously contentious. There is humour, self-deprecation and moments of heartbreak. It’s not like the White Album where you can hear the bickering in the grooves between the tracks but this is undeniably a band falling apart, albeit doing so together. It’s simplistic to describe the creative tension between Payne and George as giving the album its spark, inspiring the musicians to better each other and draw out outstanding performances. In truth, both Payne and Barrere were increasing in confidence, demanding and deserving more vinyl time for their songs, whereas George’s writing output had plateaued. If anything, The Last Record Album is more like Abbey Road in that the band decided to set aside their differences and pull together for one last hurrah.

George’s authority was on the wane but he gives everything he can to this LP. He remains the producer, a role he occupied since Dixie Chicken. He generates a rich, warm glow for the album, the keys to which are the full-bodied bass and the softening the skins on the snare and toms, providing just the right amount of weight at the low end. The use of the acoustic three dimensions is masterful. Every element of the keyboards, guitars and percussion have enough space to be easily distinguished. The solos are bright, clear and incisive. There are several backing vocalists at various points, none of which are lost in the mix, often joining with the lead as equals. Even without extra instruments, such as horns, the weave of sound is intricate and detailed. George’s production cannot be faulted. His smooth slide tone is created by running his Stratocaster through twin studio compressors. He can sustain, slur and bend notes like most slide players, however, it’s the precision of his note picking that is his trademark, placing his chrome-plated socket wrench directly onto the fret, performing spectacular leaps from note to note. George deploys his slide guitar beautifully, twinning perfectly with Barrere. Their interplay is as exemplary as Harrison and Lennon on Revolver or Richards and Taylor on Sticky Fingers. He writes just three songs but each of them is a peach. Payne makes the biggest writing contribution, being involved in five of the eight songs, but mostly in collaboration with Barrere +/- Gradney. The songwriting scales may have tipped away from George but he still retained the lead vocalist role, blessed with, perhaps, the most mellifluous voice in Rock. He sings with passion and commitment. Payne knows his limitations as a vocalist and is gracious enough to recognise George’s superiority in this department. George sings lead on a further two he had no hand in writing, relishing Barrere’s lyrics in particular. Barrere’s voice blends well with Payne and Fran Tate, who was almost a seventh band member at this time, co-leading on a further two, leaving just one for Payne himself.

Romance Dance introduces the album, opening with Barrere’s intricate little guitar figure, some smooth slide, then piano, but it’s the rhythm section that stars. It has a wonderfully staccato rhythm that most bands couldn’t cope with, but Gradney/Haywood/Clayton make it funky. Clayton’s percussion is sorely under-rated because he never over-complicates, filling in holes, keeping the rhythm on the move. His bass voice rumbles away, enjoying a raunchy spotlight towards the end. Payne is trying to persuade a pretty girl in a lonely town to share a bed with him. His case is undermined by a revery in the middle section in which he reminisces, fondly, about a liaison with someone else. The band, however, never lose focus. All That You Dream is a glorious pop song, chiming guitars, splashing cymbals and sprightly keys, one of the very best Little Feat ever recorded. George relates to Barrere’s lyric extremely well, perhaps too well, considering the subject matter is coming to terms with the inevitable breakup of a band. It’s punchy, bright and cheery, with Linda Ronstadt, no less, in a cheerleading role on backing vocals. John Hall played guitar on All That You Dream. He was later elected to Congress, representing the Democratic Party, between 2007-2011. How cool would it be to have an MP who played with Little Feat? In 1975 David Bowie demanded one damn song that could make him break down and cry. Lowell George provided it with Long Distance Love, an exquisite, beautifully constructed love song whose bassline tugs on the heart strings. George’s soft caramel voice, salted by tears, has never been better. Who’d have thought that pretty toes could carry such emotional heft? Day Or Night is remarkable for the musical duet between the keyboards and the drums in its latter half. George had little to do with this one, allegedly disliking its jazz rock feel. However, there is little that could be described as jazz about it, it’s too carefully constructed and it has a rhythm that smoulders. The lyric continues the theme of longing to settle down in blissful domesticity, the city night life having lost its lustre. Payne has two solos but is outdone by Haywood. His kit is the lead instrument carrying the tune and he deploys every piece of it, demonstrating no loss of dexterity after his injury. His playing is a perfect example of Little Feat’s trademark syncopated funk, neither on the one nor the off, derived from the ‘second line’ Afro-Cuban rhythms of New Orleans. Then, he pulls off a breathtaking solo for the last two minutes, the best drum solo ever committed to a recording, one that enhances the song rather than detracts from it, concluding side one of the LP with a false ending and a satisfying reprise. 

The way George sings One Love Stand, with the accent on the off-beat, you’d think he actively enjoyed being taken advantage of and abandoned by a woman, Valerie Carter tormenting him from a backing microphone. The vocal support from the male voices is life-affirming. Every single instrument is percussive and restrained until the slide squeals with delight and Barrere plays a sublime solo. The point is emphasised on George’s own Down Below The Borderline, in which the band indulge in some sleazy, slinky funk and George conjures up some choice suggestive phrases to describe an individual who is clearly a dominating character. Any song that includes the word “onomatopoetry” is special but the relentless build in the coda to the conclusion is breathtaking. Payne sings Somebody’s Leavin’ on his own because it’s a personal message to George, dressed up as a love song. “Did you hear me when I told you I loved you?” The bridge, with its eery backward vocal, is as surreal as one of George’s flights of fancy. After it, the song escalates the intensity and the slide makes its presence felt, seemingly oblivious to the real meaning of the lyric. The majestic Mercenary Territory is even more upsetting. George reflects on his career which is “temporarily qualmless and sinking.” He seems to have a dig at Day Or Night but he’d do it all again even though he has nothing to show. It feels like a sad farewell. Payne’s piano nags throughout but seems louder in the fade, desperate to make George change his mind.

The graphic artist Neon Park was the band’s cover designer since Sailin’ Shoes. His art-work, like the album title, alludes to the 1971 movie, The Last Picture Show, a coming-of-age movie set in a small town where people lived a pointless existence. Hollywood Boulevard, including depictions of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Frederick’s of Hollywood, is deserted, and the Hollywood sign is on a dessert, a mountainous jelly with cream and a cherry on top, the pun very much intended. It’s a colourful, cheering cover which, like the music within, belies its bleak subject matter.

The Last Record Album secured Little Feat’s career. It’s a complete vinyl LP, four tracks per seventeen-minute side, strong songwriting, great musicianship and a consistent tone and sound with enough variety and peculiarities to reward close attention and repeated listens. Its sales continued the upward trajectory that began with Dixie Chicken, becoming their first to chart in many countries including the UK and matching Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’s position in the US. However, it was the associated tour that really paid off. They played to slightly bigger audiences to great acclaim. Add in the Tower Of Power horn section to the stage show and material from follow up LP, Time Loves A Hero, and soon Little Feat made their definitive artistic statement, the live double album, Looking For Columbus. However, it was already too late. Musical differences were blamed, in particular a move towards jazz fusion, reputedly spearheaded by Payne. The main offending piece, Day At The Dog Races, doesn’t sound that different to the apparently perfectly acceptable The Fan, or the work they did with Chico Hamilton. The truth is that Lowell George was less capable of making his presence felt. He doesn’t produce Time Loves A Hero, wrote little for it, sings on just a few tracks and his signature slide guitar is largely absent. He embarked on a solo career, releasing his debut album, Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here. On the tour to promote it, he succumbed, prematurely, aged just thirty-four, to a heart attack attributed to too much cocaine. His love of drugs, Sweet China White according to one of his last songs, caught up with him in the end. He was such a unique talent with a range of gifts: songwriting, singing, guitar and production. 

Little Feat were a band that staggered from day to day, scratching a living. They stuck together because of a passion for the music and a deep respect for each other’s ability. Like many a close-knit family, they both loved and loathed one another but there was no better feeling than when they gelled as they played, usually onstage. Great art is an expression of the human condition. There is a swagger to their preceding albums but real life includes injury, ill-health, fall out, breakup and heartache. The Last Record Album was created during adversity and owes its existence to perseverance, compromise and self-belief. There are just eight songs, three different songwriters with some additional contributions, and three lead singers. Yet, it’s remarkably cohesive and perfectly balanced, performed by a band where each individual musician is on top form but playing together as a single, complete unit. The sound is syncopated, economical and tight, with two guitars, a forensically detailed rhythm section and elegant keyboards. After trying for years to capture the excitement of their astonishing live act, they found a studio sound that suited them, warm, soulful and versatile, one where every instrument and every voice carries equal weight, one that emphasises they were a collective, not just a vehicle for one individual. The Last Record Album demonstrates to us all what can be achieved with talent and determination when backs are against a wall, when a band decide to bury their differences, focus on what they love the most, trusting and serving the songs. The LP flows beautifully, rolling right through the night, its potency still beating with a hot-blooded heart today. The music of Lowell George era Little Feat never dies.

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