Despite the band’s name and the origins of the moniker, there has never been anything little about Little Feat. Since their inception in the late 1960s until now, they’ve pushed the envelope of the genre, finding ways to make their rock, blues, R&B, funk, country, and soul sensibilities become one. This result is a sound so singular —a seductive, Southern-flecked soul meets a head-swirling funked-up blues—it can only be described as Little Feat.
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Behind the Name
Little Feat began in 1969 when singer-songwriter Lowell George left Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, forming his own band with pianist Bill Payne. The two had met when Payne uneventfully auditioned for the Zappa-led band.
Together, they recruited another veteran Mothers player, bassist Roy Estrada, as well as Richie Hayward—a drummer George had played with in a previous band. While it was probably apparent that forming a rock act from a band like Mothers of Invention was no little feat, that’s not how the band got its peculiar moniker.
It instead came from a member of the Mothers. According to the band’s biography, this particular player once pointed out George’s small feet to him “with an expletive,” explained Paul Barrere, one of the band’s longtime guitarists who joined the fold in 1972. “Lowell deleted the expletive, and the name was born with Feat instead of Feet, just like the Beatles. Neat, huh?”
The name and the band as a whole proved to be more than just neat. In 1971, Little Feat released their self-titled debut, an album that would introduce the band’s soon-to-be iconic sound to the world by way of the track “Willin’.” Over the next near-decade, Little Feat would churn out classic upon classic, including iconic ditties like “Dixie Chicken,” “Sailin’ Shoes,” “Rock and Roll Doctor,” “Spanish Moon,” and “Oh, Atlanta.”
However, with the sudden death of George in 1979, the group disbanded, leaving an incomparable rock legacy dormant for years.
Little Feat Today
Little Feat reformed in 1987, with the band’s surviving members taking to the road and eventually recording new music.
Today, Little Feat is made up of founding member Bill Payne, longtime percussionist Sam Clayton, later addition guitarists Fred Tackett and Scott Sharrard, veteran bassist Kenny Gradney, and drummer Tony Leone, the band’s latest addition.
Photo by Erica Echenberg/Redferns
