All Back to Sam’s Place with Little Feat

With a storied career that stretches back some 55 years, it seems that there’s nothing Little Feat hasn’t achieved. 

Despite a series of personnel changes, including the early loss of their leader and musical mainstay, Lowell George, the band has managed to persevere as a vital and varied ensemble under the helm of its ongoing core membership — keyboardist Bill Payne, percussionist Sam Clayton, bassist Kenny Gradney and guitarist Fred Tackett — as their newer recruits — guitarist Scott Sharrard and drummer Tony Leone. 

Since they first formed under the guidance and mentorship of Frank Zappa (following Lowell George’s stint in Zappa’s Mothers of Invention), the band can claim a number of standout releases, among them, Dixie Chicken, Sailin’ Shoes, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, Waiting For Columbus, Time Loves a Hero, and any number of authorized live bootlegs that continue to reflect their prowess as an exceptional live ensemble. So too, their signature songs — “Dixie Chicken,” “Easy To Slip,” “Time Loves a Hero,” “Oh Atlanta,” “Rock and Roll Doctor,” and “All That You Dream,” among the many — remain set standards, continuing to tie the band’s past to its present.

The group’s latest release, Sam’s Place, marks a change of course of sorts, courtesy of a set of blues standards that feature Clayton — who co-wrote “Milkman,” the album’s sole original entry — on lead vocals. While it’s not the first time the band’s dipped a collective toe into the blues idiom  — their self-titled debut album featured a medley that combined two classic tracks by Roosevelt Sykes and Howlin’ Wolf — it’s their first whole-hearted nod to the genre. It finds them revisiting songs by Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Willie Dixon, with Clayton’s gritty vocals effectively channeling the spirit and sensibilities of the old masters. 

“I’ve worked with B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and Taj Mahal, and I feel like I know a great blues singer when I hear one,” Payne said when Rock & Roll Globe caught up with him recently. “I always thought that Sam had the goods. But sometimes, things take a while to develop, and this album is the result. We’re so proud of it. Plus, it was great to have Bonnie Raitt contribute on ‘Long Distance Call,’ a song she suggested that we consider covering, which, of course, we did.”

Once they decided to pursue the covers route, it became a matter of narrowing down their choices. Payne mentioned that each band member was charged with choosing some selections. 

“I said to them, ‘Why don’t you guys go through a list and pick some songs,’” Payne continued. “So everybody sort of contributed to the task of getting involved in this record, which I think was a really good idea. I wasn’t really a part of that process other than saying, ‘Hey, I think this sounds cool.’ They picked ‘Got My Mojo Working,’ and because a lot of people have covered it, we had to figure out ‘How do we deal with that?’ My thought was, ‘Well, just let’s just try it. If we play it, and it feels good, let’s put it out. That was my inclination. If it sounded great, then we’ll put it on the record.”

Still, being that the blues is such a well covered genre, we asked Payne what he thinks it takes to stand out when one attempts to seize on that sound.

“It’s a great, great question,” Payne replied. “First and foremost, I kind of attack it from the standpoint of being a keyboard player. How do you distinguish yourself from somebody else that’s seen as a keyboard player — or a guitarist, or whatever you play — and make yourself distinguishable from anybody else? Our band does have a distinctive sound, so we’re wrapping that up with the blues. A couple of people we know were listening to the album early on and going, ‘Oh, gosh, I love Little Feat, but they’re putting out a blues album and a lot of groups do that.’ I heard they were skeptical of what we were doing. True, often bands and artists do blues albums, because it’s an easy thing to kind of jump into. It’s taking the easy way out. But then they said that they listened to this record and went, ‘This is cool. This sounds great.’ So there you go.”

Of course, there have always been elements of blues and R&B, as well as country and other archival elements imbued in the band’s sound since early on. In fact, Payne mentioned that he’s writing a memoir  — “I’m 70,000 words into it so far,” he insisted  —  one which will detail the band’s history as well as  his own. As always, he continues to do sessions on a regular basis for other artists, resulting in a reputation as one of the busiest musicians on the session scene for the over the past 50 years.

Notably, Sam’s Place was recorded live in the studio, hardly a surprise considering the fact that Little Feat has always excelled both on the stage as well as in the studio. 

“We find that it’s just as important to entertain yourself as well as the people you’re playing in front of,” Payne remarks. “If you can’t get off on what you’re doing, you’re not gonna bring anybody with you. I think this album demonstrates that. What we’re sharing as artists are our influences as much as anything. So if you like Little Feat, and you like Sam’s Place, you might check out Willie Dixon if you don’t know who he is already.  Check out Muddy Waters — his was one of the first albums I looked at when I was at Lowell George’s house the very first day we met in 1969. On our first album afterwards, we did two blues covers, so that’s been a part of our vernacular for a very long time.”

Naturally, that brings up the subject of George himself. Although it’s been 45 years since the singer, songwriter, producer, and guitarist died of a heart attack due to a drug overdose, his spirit still hangs heavy over Little Feat’s legacy. 

“I’ve got a good story for you,” Payne suggests when the subject is brought up. “It pretty much sums things up. I was at an event in Aspen, Colorado — oh gosh, a long time ago. Mainly it was just people from the industry that were there to have a conference. They had a table on stage and they had a microphone passed around between the eight or ten people who were there to speak. I was given a heads-up by the moderator that sometimes it could be a tough room. They gave me a lovely introduction, and as I’m walking up to the stage, this guy comes up who was obviously loaded and goes, ‘Where’s Lowell?’ So when I got up to the mic, I went, ‘Lowell is always with us.’”

Today that the trajectory continues.

“When [drummer] Richie [Hayward] died, we asked ourselves,’What are we now? A cover band?’ No, we’re not. I’ve always thought that Little Feat are the center of who and what we are. It’s the great musicianship that’s involved with this group and the songs, most of which are pretty darn good. Not all of them, but most are for for sure. It’s bigger than all of us. And I think that it took a while to really register with me, particularly after Lowell’s death. Once I started doing sessions, I tried to distance myself from from the band, but it was something I couldn’t really escape, nor needed to escape, as it turned out. What I saw was the effect that Little Feat had on other musicians, on fans, and on people that love the music. It blew me away. I don’t know why it did; I should have been a little more awake or susceptible to it. But it really drove home the importance of the band to me.”

VIDEO: Little Feat “Milkman”

Payne said he recognizes that for some people, the early incarnation of Little Feat will, nevertheless, always remain the essence of who they are. “I’ll say this too, that for a few people that are out there, and afraid to go beyond Lowell George, I get it. Lowell doesn’t deserve to live as some sort of thing that’s shoved away in our memory. You should share Lowell George with others. That’s what you do when you have something that really works. And in this case, it does. Little Feat works on its own, whatever we do, but we always look back to Richie Hayward, and look back to to Paul Barrere, who passed away in 2019.  We honor Lowell George, and we honor each and every one of them because of the legacy. And that legacy is what I’m writing about in this book. I describe the legacy in detail. Ultimately, I don’t like operating in a vacuum. I want to share what I know.”

As for the band’s future plans, Payne mentioned that the group will be heading out on the road in the coming weeks and joining Tedeschi Trucks and later, Los Lobos for a series of co-headlining shows. 

“We have got a tour going on this fall, which is gonna be great,” Payne mentioned. “So there’s a lot of stuff looming in the future for 2025, including a new record. I don’t have a publishing date on the book yet, so we’ll try and figure that out too. I could probably use a little pressure to get things finished. —  just to keep the ball rolling.”

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Lee Zimmerman

Lee Zimmerman is a writer and columnist based in beautiful Maryville, Tennessee. Over the past 20 years, his work has appeared in dozens of leading music publications. He is also the author of Americana Music: Voice, Visionaries, and Pioneers of an Honest Sound, which will be published by Texas A&M University Press early next year.

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