Experience the classic blends of Little Feat
Morristown Southern-fried band Little Feat blends blues, R&B, country, and rock and roll on Thursday, Dec. 30 at 8 p.m. at The Mayo Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $32-$57. In his liner notes for Join the Band, Little Feat’s 2008, career-summing CD, Bill Payne described their motivation for recording as a way of locating the band’s influences. When you’ve played together for nearly 40 years and have the instrumental chops and ears that Feat does, that’s a lot of influences, so that they can work with friends from Jimmy Buffett to Dave Matthews to Bob Seger to Emmylou Harris to Vince Gill to Chris Robinson and Mike Gordon - and it all makes musical sense. Little Feat is very possibly the last-man-standing example of what used to be the norm in American music, a fusion of a broad span of styles and genres into something utterly distinctive. Feat took California rock, funk, folk, jazz, country, rockabilly, and New Orleans swamp boogie and more, stirred it into a rich gumbo, and has been leading people in joyful dance ever since. Join the Band sums up that story, and it’s a complex and interesting one. The first album, Little Feat, featured the instant-classic tune “Willin’,” and the follow-up Sailin’ Shoes added “Easy to Slip,” “Trouble,” “Tripe Face Boogie,” “Cold Cold Cold” and the title track to their repertoire. Estrada departed, and the band signed up (on guitar!) Paul Barrere, Sam Clayton (percussion) and Kenny Gradney (bass), and the new guys are still around. Little Feat’s rich legacy was acknowledged at the 25th anniversary of the monumental live album Waiting for Columbus when Rhino Records put out a special two CD edition of the original concert, plus outtakes, along with Hotcakes and Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat, a four-CD, 83 track boxed set featuring hits from all of Feat’s albums as well as alternate takes. And now there’s Join the Band, in many ways a summing up of all that’s preceded it. If you go Little Feat Thursday, Dec. 30, 8 p.m. Mayo Center for the Performing Arts 100 South St., Morristown, NJ 973-539-8008 www.mayoarts.org Tickets $32-$57