ALBUMS: Sailin’ Shoes (1972); Hoy Hoy (1986)
MVC Rating: Sailin’: 4.0/$$$; Hoy: 4.0/$$$
Little Feat and its leader Lowell George started with a foundation of Southern blues rock a la the Brothers Allman, added a touch of the Brothers Neville and topped it off with some funky Brothers Isley.
When I think of Little Feat I think of their song Dixie Chicken and the great swinging opening:
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis
And the Commodore Hotel
And underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle
Well she took me to the river, where she cast her spell
And in that Southern moonlight, she sang a song so well
And the refrain that sticks in your brain like gum on a shoe on a hot day.
If you’ll be my dixie chicken, I’ll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland .
Lowell George formed Little Feat after leaving Frank Zappa’s Brothers, er, Mothers of Invention. George said he was encouraged to leave Zappa because Frank, who eschewed drugs, didn’t like the drug references in the George song “Willin’. This is seemingly ironic given that the Mothers had released the psychedelic album of the ages in ‘Freak Out’ — but, oh yeah, with Zappa he wasn’t laughing with them, he was laughing at them. (Tripping hippies, I’m talking about).
‘Sailin’ Shoes’ was the second in a handful of consistently good albums. As the band started to fall apart in the 80’s, Lowell George went on tour behind a very good solo album, ‘Thanks I’ll Eat Here.” See MVC review,
He died in a motel room in Virginia, the victim of his appetites for drugs, alcohol and food, especially food. He reportedly weighed more than 300 pounds at death.