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Product Details
Guess it seemed that every rock band with a "twist" that came along around 1970 had some random association with Frank Zappa. That's probably not saying a whole lot but as time passed Little Feat proved to be the pick of the litter. Aside from Lowell George's writing and the bands diverse sound they sure had plenty of energy and plenty of New Orleans style funk n roll to spare. This album doesn't quite find them at that point yet. It's all pieces but nothing that comes together into any kind of well unified statement. The pieces that are here are very good though."Fourty Four Blues" at least has some progression but,as with a lot of music here such as "Hamburger Midnight","Truck Stop Girl" and "I've Been The One" it all ends up sounding a bit like a more beefy Grateful Dead. It's nothing that isn't to be expected. In 1971 southern rock was just finding it wings and,if you were a band like this or say the Allman Brothers a lot of the sounds from without that they integrated into their own as a base were themselves in the trial and error stages."Bride Of Jesus" is one standout with this deeply set gospel/soul flavor and "Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie" ends the general affair on a fun and bouncy note anyway. But even as "Snakes On Everything" and "Willin" try.........the funky groove that was so important to their classic sound an album or two later just wasn't fully formed for Little Feat. Well you cannot expect everything from a debut and if your a fan of early Southern rock,especially if you don't like a little but not too much extra flavor to it this album will do just fine.
Product Reviews
 (5 stars) - Le First et mon préféré !
Après Weasel ripped my flesh où Lowell ne faisait que rire, là il nous faisait bondir de joie avec ses compères Roy Estrada, Ritchie Hayward et Bill Paynes. Des Serpents partout au café Texan de Rose, Weeds, white and ... c'est bien sur Willin' avec les éternels glissando de Ry, un autre antropo de la musique routière américaine. Une pèche et des sentiments.
(5 stars) - Great Album
I hate being the guy that's leaving all the 5 star reviews for the Little Feat albums (I left a 5 star for Down on the Farm last week, after 25 years of listening to it), but I'm currently listening to this particular album pathologically over and over again, so I have no choice but to answer the (currently) sole 3 star review with the following.
The self titled Little Feat album was the one Little Feat album I never owned back in the day, in the early eighties after Lowell George's death when I first got into the band. None of the songs were on the live album, Waiting for Columbus, except Willin', which was also on Sailin' Shoes, so I figured I didn't need another studio version (although now I am looking for any version of the song I can get -- just picked up Heart Like a Wheel because Linda Ronstadt does it on that record...). Also, I think it was out of print, so I would have had to get it on LP, and my record player was out of commission for part of this period -- but I digress.
As I said above, I am currently obsessively listening to this album, and I have analyzed what I like about it quite a bit, and it is fresh in my mind.
The music on the album is unlike anything Little Feat would ever do again. It is more mainstream rock like ("like" because none of this ever got onto the radio) in that it is less funky (for lack of a better work) than what they would do later, but also more experimental. The band shows a lot of good musicianmanship (if that's a word); everyone plays all out all the time. Bill Payne sticks to piano, and holds down the chord changes (while playing every key on the keyboard -- really reaching for them, but with a lot of taste), while Lowell George plays some extremely far out slide guitar fills throughout (Ry Cooter plays slide on Willin' and Forty-Four Blues -- and it's interesting to compare the styles of two slide guitar collosusses). Later Little Feat had the dueling guitars, so Payne was a bit more restrained, and had a multiple keyboard set-up.
The song writing is awsome as well. Stawberry Flats... Willin'... Hamburger Midnight... I've been the One... Truck Stop Girl... These are all very honest songs with interesting lyrics and great vocal performances. Half the songs on the album have been covered by other artists at one time or another. The band was young and full of energy, the music is raw and interesting, and really cutting edge. It is definitely different from what they turned into, but that is not a criticism -- at least not in this case.
I think the previous critique gets it wrong in several instances. Little Feat were not a southern rock band, but a California band. I think they had some early success with Dixie Chicken (great album, too), and so people kind of put them into that category, and later on, after Lowell George's death, they kind of marketed themselves as a New Orleans party band, but other than some funky beats (which southern bands do not have a monopoly on) there really wasn't anything linking them to the south in their hay-day. They never played the blues (at least not in the Allman Brothers sense of the word) or tried to get the macho Lynard Skynard guitar thing going, opting for understated interplay between the instruments.
The present album has these elements in a more raw form, but it is really fun to hear Lowell George turn up his guitar and rock out over some really cool tunes. Great Album.
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