No mean feat - Little Feat interview

They blew The Who off the stage at Celtic Park 32 years ago, and some of them lived to tell the tale. Now southern-fried rockers Little Feat are back in Scotland, and sounding as good as ever , says Barry Gordon

IT'S Saturday, 5 June. The year: 1976. Location: Celtic Park, Glasgow. Twenty-eight-year-old guitarist Paul Barrere is relaxing backstage, content to have finished the gig without being bottled off stage. He doesn't know it yet, but his band – southern fried rockers, Little Feat – has just pulled off the impossible: blowing The Who off the stage.

"A lot of people have said that," says Barrere, looking back on his band's first foray into Scottish territory. "It was a bit of a blur really – a good show. The night before, Keith Moon hooked up with Lowell (George, Feat's originator), Richie (Hayward, Feat's drummer) and me. You know what? I don't think we slept that night. Maybe Moonie was around us to ensure we stayed tired."

If so, it didn't work. Overshadowing The Who at any point in their career is, if you'll pardon the pun, no mean feat. Keith Moon may have been on the verge of being fired by The Who at the time – his dependency on narcotics taking a severe toll on his playing ability – yet surely even a half-fit Moon could still muster enough energy to show these boogie-chillin' bandits from the States who's who?

"He was a fun guy and he liked to have a good time, we could see that," says Barrere. "One time, Moonie was driving down the highway wearing a full German army outfit and got pulled over by the police. He was no holds barred, a great wit. You couldn't help love the guy."

Formed in 1969 by ex-Frank Zappa alumni, Lowell George and Roy Estrada, Little Feat (named after the size of George's feet, as pointed out by Zappa drummer, Jimmy Carl Black) achieved little in the way of commercial success on their first two albums. Enter Paul Barrere.

"They'd just come from Zappa's world. You know, that note-for-note essence. Whereas when I and (percussionist) Sam Clayton came on board we added a little more – for want of a better word – funk to it all."

And funk it up they most certainly did. Long regaled as their seminal album – and influencing the likes of Robert Palmer and Bonnie Raitt in the process – the country-funk of Dixie Chicken earned Little Feat a cult following, as well as a means of making a living. However, things might have turned out different had Hollywood guitarist Barrere not flunked his initial audition to join the band.

"I'd known Lowell for a lot of years," says Barrere, speaking from his home in L.A. "He enjoyed the little garage band I had up in Laurel Canyon called Led Enema. He stopped by my house one day carrying a bass and asked me if I would like to audition as a bass player for a new band he was putting together. Led Enema just missed out on getting signed to Atlantic Records so I said I'd try, but I failed miserably. When he left, I told Lowell if he ever needed a guitar player to just call me. Two years later he did."

From 1973 to 1979 Little Feat were on a roll. With albums receiving both critical and public acclaim, Barrere now found himself as one of the chief songwriters, making him partly responsible for the band's more jazzy offerings. And in 1978 the band released, arguably, the finest live album ever put on vinyl, the double-sided Waiting For Columbus, recorded in London and Washington over seven performances.

But what should have been a career highlight was quickly followed by a series of tragic circumstances. A year later, George announced Little Feat had broken up. On tour to promote his solo album, Thanks I'll Eat It Here, George, aged just 34, was found dead in his hotel room in Arlington, Virginia, his death thought to have been caused by a heart attack brought on by George's weight, the strain of touring, and his formerly chronic drug usage. Many stories have since suggested that it was George's disillusionment with the musical direction the rest of Little Feat were taking that forced him to disband the group. Barrere, however, says otherwise.

"It was never like that at all. Lowell always said that rule No1 was there was to be no musical boundaries; that we could go in any direction we wanted. He was an enormous influence, especially on me because he broadened my horizons, musically."

However, Barrere adds: "Lowell felt really weighed down by the pressure to keep the band together. When I first joined the band Lowell was a fun-loving guy, but towards the end he felt stranger and stranger. The only contention was the band wanted to do more touring while he didn't. If he was alive today – with all that technology has to offer musicians? – Lowell would probably be spending all his time in the studio."

Eight years after George's death, the remaining members of Little Feat reconvened, in 1987, and a gold album, Let It Roll, appearances on Saturday Night Live, and regular sold-out shows indicated that there was indeed life after George.

"When we got back together, we compared a song we'd recorded around the time of Dixie Chicken to one we'd recorded recently. You honestly couldn't tell which era it was from, and is an indication as to why we've survived so long – we never went with musical trends. Nowadays, though, the band is more musically accomplished; sane and focused. We keep things fresh by improvising and rearranging; none of this note-for-note thing so many older bands are used to. I guess people think anything that's been around as long as us has got to be good. Yet look at George Bush," laughs Barrere.

Pulsating with renewed vigour, Little Feat have just released a new album, Join The Band. It took four years to make, but, says Barrere, it's been worth it, especially when you consider who got involved. "It's basically old, great songs of ours reworked. We have Dave Matthews singing Fat Man (In The Bathtub), Jimmy Buffet singing Time Loves A Hero, Emmy-Lou Harris performing Sailin' Shoes, while Bela Fleck and many others are on there, too."

When not playing shows half the year, Barrere is a busy father ("I get up at an ungodly hour for a guy who's in rock and roll"). Earlier this year, the recently-turned 60-year-old took time out from his paternal duties so that he and fellow Feat axe-man, Fred Tackett, could undertake a wee Scottish acoustic tour that would have taken them all the way to the Dunnet Head lighthouse. Sadly, it didn't happen.

"An Irish promoter, who was initially going to book Little Feat some gigs in Europe, said he would only book us if Fred and I cancelled our dates. Then it turned out the Irish promoter booked Little Feat for just one gig. When I see him, man…" The good news is, though, Paul and Fred have rescheduled their wee shindig across Scotland for the end of November. Better yet, the full Little Feat line-up (including female singer, Shaun Murphy) will make an appearance in the Highlands and one in Edinburgh at the end of the month.

"Last time Fred and I were over we played Strathpeffer," says Barrere. "People from Glasgow and Edinburgh drove all the way there to see us. It was amazing. They were serving beer, so, you know, a good time was had. We'd have come back sooner but that Irish promoter messed things up for us. In any event things have worked out pretty well. We're coming back over and that's the main thing."

And should Barrere happen to bump into the Irish promoter who has caused him, and his fans, so much frustration over the past few months? "Well, you know, I want it to be a surprise. I'll probably kick the guy in the balls," chuckles Barrere.

• Little Feat play the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, on 28 July, as part of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival. They also play the Ironworks, Inverness, on 29 July.

• www.littlefeat.net

LITTLE AT LARGE

&149 1969: Lowell George, a member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, forms his own band with Bill Payne, Richie Hayward and Roy Estrada. Different people tell different versions of George's departure from Zappa's band – in one, Zappa, below, fired him because he thought he was so talented he should have his own band; in another, he was sacked for playing a 15-minute guitar solo with his amp switched off. The band go on to release two acclaimed albums, Little Feat and Sailin' Shoes, but split up after a lack of commercial success.

• 1972: The band reform with a new line-up and a more funk-influenced sound, recording Dixie Chicken, one of their most popular albums.

• 1975: The band release The Last Record Album, which takes them in a more jazz rock direction, a musical journey they continue on 1977's Time Loves A Hero. If you look at the sleeve of The Last Record Album, you'll see that the lyrics of the song Hi Roller are included but scored out, with a note that says "maybe next time". The song ended up as the first track Time Loves A Hero.

• 1979: Lowell George dies of a heart attack in his hotel room in Arlington, Virginia. The rest of the band finish the album they had been working on, Down On The Farm, then break up. A retrospective double album compilation of rare outtakes and live tracks, Hoy-Hoy!, is released two years later.

• 1988: The surviving members reform, adding singer-songwriter Craig Fuller, who had toured with them in 1978, to the line-up. Their first new album together, Let it Roll, is a success, going gold.

• 1993: Craig Fuller is replaced by Shaun Murphy, who had previously sung with Meat Loaf, Eric Clapton and Bob Seger.

• 2008: The reformed band mark their 20th anniversary.