Little Feat at The Warner Bros Music Show - 1975

I've been thinking of writing about the 1975 Warner Bros Music Show for a while.

Now would seem to be the ideal time, because I've just discovered a recording of the legendary concert at London's Rainbow Theatre, when Little Feat stole the show from headliners The Doobie Brothers.

For once, the legend doesn't lie; they really did blow the headliners off the stage!

To begin at the beginning, this sampler album (59p, how could I refuse?) pointed the way for me, in terms of new musical discoveries in 1975.

The back cover of the sampler

The Warner Bros Music Show was released to coincide with a European tour of the same name in January 1975. Each band - The Doobie Brothers, Graham Central Station, Little Feat, Montrose and Tower of Power - were given two tracks on the promo album. As a result of hearing this sampler I bought records by all of them. So well done Warners, you got me!

The 1975 tour included dates in Germany, France and the Netherlands, plus shows at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and London's Rainbow Theatre.

On the last day of the UK tour, Sunday 19th January, two shows were scheduled. The afternoon show had The Doobie Brothers as the headline act, supported by Little Feat. In the evening, the support act was Graham Central Station.

History doesn't record how GCS fared, but Little Feat's exploits have become truly the stuff of legend.

Clearly, Little Feat were not unknown, because from the recording it's obvious the audience was in a state of deep excitement from the word go.

Appearing on the BBC's 'Old Grey Whistle Test' show, 1974

Their music had snuck into the UK through various means. I can remember hearing DJ Nicky Horne play Willin' and Dixie Chicken on his Capital Radio program, 'Your Mother Wouldn't Like It'.

The band were already a favourite of hipster music journalists and fellow musicians, including the Rolling Stones. Mick and Keith were at the Rainbow shows, as was Rod Stewart.

Little Feat's set from this time will be familiar to anyone who has heard the various bootlegs from their mid-70s concerts, such as Electrif Lycanthrope. Indeed, it was on the strength of that particular bootleg album that Little Feat's reputation had grown in the UK at this time.

The show started with a shout-out to Robert Palmer on his birthday. Lowell George had played on Palmer's first solo album, Sneakin' Sally Thru The Alley, alongside The Meters. And Palmer used Little Feat as his backing band on albums two and three (Pressure Drop and Some People Can Do What They Like).

George would often tell little stories between songs and for this gig he repeated the story, heard on one of the bootlegs, about meeting his hero, Howlin' Wolf.

Davey Johnstone & Elton John meet Lowell George backstage

It involved George asking Wolf to play a guitar he'd just bought. Wolf told him to fuck off.

As Little Feat's show drew to a climax with Tripe Face Boogie, the audience acclaim was unrelenting. Remember, this was the support band, you're not supposed to get this kind of adulation and show up the headliners.

Skunk plays the steely guitar

Called back for their usual encore of Willin' they enlisted Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter from the Doobie Brothers (and formerly Steely Dan) to play pedal steel guitar on the solo. As far as I know, this is the only time Skunk ever played with Little Feat.

Mick, Keith and Rod meet the Doobie Brothers backstage

And finishing with Teenage Nervous Breakdown, the crowd would not let them go. The stage announcer tried to tell the audience they were running to a tight schedule and there was no time for a second encore. The crowd went crazy - Boo! More!!

So the Feat came back on stage and played Wait Til The Shit Hits The Fan.

And that's the story of how Little Feat blew the Doobies off the stage at the Rainbow. It's all true folks...

Hear it for yourself here, with grateful thanks to PMH5001 for taping it on his Philips cassette recorder back in the day, digging it out recently and posting it on youtube last month.

On tour, Larry Graham jamming with the Doobie Brothers

His memory of the show is "It was hard on the Doobies (who were actually pretty good) being completely upstaged by Little Feat. 

"I turned off the machine after a few seconds of Black Water, quite a few of the audience walked out at that point. After about three numbers the Doobies stopped, invited another round of applause for Little Feat and started again."

Here's the track listing for Little Feat's performance:

00:00:00 Intro/Dedication to Robert Palmer (birthday) and Howlin' Wolf
00:01:41 Apolitical Blues
00:05:17 Two Trains
00:09:54 Walkin' All Night
00:14:22 On Your Way Down
00:21:12 Spanish Moon
00:30:42 Fat Man In The Bathtub
00:36:33 Sailin' Shoes
00:41:13 Rock And Roll Doctor
00:45:16 Oh Atlanta
00:49:23 Cold, Cold, Cold
00:54:10 Dixie Chicken
01:01:54 Tripe Face Boogie
01:05:59 Bag Of Reds
01:07:01 Tripe Face Boogie
01:09:01 (Encore Applause)
01:10:49 Willin'
01:15:21 Teenage Nervous Breakdown
01:19:00 (Encore Applause)
01:22:24 The Fan
01:28:51 Intro Doobie Brothers
01:29:08 Black Water (The Doobie Brothers)

Footage of the Warner Bros tour is rare indeed, but there are a couple of very rough clips from the Paris show by Little Feat, playing Tripe Face Boogie and Willin'.

Tripe Face Boogie, live in Paris, January '75

About five years after buying the Warner Bros Music Show, I was working on Fleet Street in London. The record shop across the road from my office still had several copies of the album on sale. So I bought another one. I kept it in mint condition for years and continued to pay the first one to death. When I began playing vinyl again in this century, I put the mint album on the deck and it was just like being thrown back in time. What an amazing collection. I only wish I'd known about the tour sooner, I was too late onto that one.

Nonetheless, I got a musical education for just 59p.

Willin', live in Paris, January '75

Here's a compilation of footage of the bands from the Warner Bros Music Show tour, put together for an Old Grey Whistle Test Special in 1975.

Musicians and crew on the Warner Bros tour

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See also on this blog:
When Lowell George Was The Future Of Rock n Roll

The Who 'Put The Boot In' at Charlton FC, 1976

A tribute to Paul Barrere

2-Tone and possibly my best gig ever

Queen's 1976 Free Concert in Hyde Park

Memories of the Reading Festival, 1975

Five Days of High Drama at the Isle of Wight, 1970

From Pinner to LA - Elton's Big Breakthrough, 1970

My Woodstock 50th Anniversary Diary

A Wizard, A True Star - my all-time favourite album

Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's Artistic Peak in the 1960s

 Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Tribute to Little Feat's Paul Barrère

"Livin' the life, livin' the life, lovin' everyone"

Sad times for fans of Little Feat as news comes through that guitarist Paul Barrère passed away on Saturday, after a prolonged bout of liver cancer.

Paul was a mainstay of Little Feat from 1973 onwards, when he joined the band in its second incarnation, as they moved away from the folk rock style, to the more funk jazz style of albums like Feats Don't Fail Me Now and The Last Record Album.

As well as being a master guitar player, he was also a good songwriter, contributing several key compositions during Little Feat's classic period, including Skin It Back and All That You Dream. He also co-wrote Feats Don’t Fail Me Now and Romance Dance, among others.

In the band hiatus after Lowell George died in 1979, Paul had various solo band set ups, and penned one of my favourite song titles – If The Phone Don’t Ring (You Know It’s Me).

He kept busy between Little Feat's latter-day touring schedule by playing acoustic live shows with his guitar partner in Little Feat, Fred Tackett.

In 2015, he was diagnosed with liver cancer but managed to continue working while undergoing treatment right until this month, when he cancelled appearances on Little Feat's 50th Anniversary tour. At the time, he wrote:

"Dear Friends,

As many of you know, for the past several years I have been dealing with liver disease. When we finished the second leg of our 50th Anniversary tour, I was beginning to develop some edema, which has been making some things a little more difficult. It has been a bit of a roller coaster as I go through the treatments my medical team has prescribed, and I have had good days and not so good days. Lately, the not so good days have been more common. 

“I have met with my team at UCLA and they have told me that what I am experiencing is common and treatable. However, the timing is not ideal, as they have directed me to stay home in October while they fine-tune the treatment in order to get me back to where the good days are the norm.

“Needless to say I am beyond disappointed as I was really looking forward to the shows in October. This whole year has been a musical dream come true and none of it would have been possible if not for the enduring support of all of you, the Feat Fans!

“Fortunately, the shows will go on. I have no doubt the band is going to rise to the occasion. As a band, for over 50 years we have always had each other’s backs and I know they will continue to put on the best possible show each and every night. That’s the way we roll."

"My plan is to follow my doctor’s orders and sit tight, but I have every intention of getting back to Jamaica in January and rock’n on the beach with all of you. Until then, keep your sailin’ shoes close by… If I have my way, you’re going to need them!

"Very best wishes, Paul".

As news of his death came on Saturday, the band's official website posted this message:
https://www.littlefeat.net/news.html?n_id=3859&fbclid=IwAR38joBqW5bKGtFu-kqXC84toUFx5ekoOnVANKOyP_DHlAZGeEHmr9n6raA

The future of Little Feat would appear uncertain. The core members are now just founder member and bandleader Bill Payne, with Tackett, bassist Kenny Gradney and percussionist Sam Clayton. Payne has been on tour this year with The Doobie Brothers, who have been supporting Santana on their US tour dates.

Whatever happens, it's the end of an era, as Little Feat loses another of its key members and the voice for so many of their songs, since the loss of Lowell George.

Thanks for the music Paul.

Bill Payne has posted a very personal statement about Paul on his Facebook page, which I've pasted here as it's well worth reading:

The Fierce Terrain: A Friendship and Alliance

I will leave it to others to memorialize, to exalt into the heavens someone who wouldn’t have wanted it. Paul Barrere was my band mate, my friend, someone I leaned on and occasionally pushed away. We spent a good measure of our lives engaged in the art of making and playing music with a band that could have only been conjured in a dream. But it was all too real. Little Feat was the one thing that could collectively bring us all together for the purpose of creating something with purpose, our place of refuge and exploration, of comfort, of dismay, and of ultimately what Paul might have called Home Ground. 

I met Paul in the summer of 1969 at Lowell George’s rustic home, tucked a bit off Rowena Avenue in Los Feliz. The story of Paul auditioning to play bass with Little Feat is well documented, but what isn’t as evident, or wasn’t to me at the time, was just how well he played guitar. Three years later, following the recording of Sailin’ Shoes for Warner Brothers, Lowell alluded that he needed someone to take over some of the guitar duties in Little Feat. He wanted to concentrate more on playing slide—I thought he also wanted to spend more time writing, and having another person in the band might give him more freedom to pursue that and other avenues. Richie Hayward told me about a warehouse in downtown L.A. where Paul would be performing and that we should check him out. 

That evening Paul Barrere was tearing up the stage with some remarkably aggressive riffs on the guitar. He had a command of the blues that floored me. Richie and I took one look at each other and smiled. Little Feat is shrouded in myth, of course, so there were many roads and scenarios as to how Paul joined the band, and given how life works, they all probably aligned with his becoming the second guitarist. Myth gives way to reality, though, and it wasn’t merely a matter of keeping Lowell happy; Richie and I had to embrace whomever came in, as well. Paul more than exceeded our standards. It was obvious to us he should be in Little Feat. Paul felt the same way.

The miles upon miles and time warps that envelop 50 years of knowing someone, the sharing of life’s fortunes and missteps, is what brought me to a convulsion of tears following the second to the last show of our 50th Anniversary tour, October 26, 2019. Leaving yet another hotel—I had been away from home for three months—I saw my friend and manager Cameron Sears standing outside the bus. 
 After putting my luggage in the bay, I came back around to ask if he had any news on Paul. He solemnly told me Paul had passed away at 1:15 that morning. I had been dreading the news ever since he had had to cancel coming out on what would be the last leg of the tour. 

The cliché that our lives pass before our eyes before we die might hold some truth, but I can tell you that Paul’s passing left me with a kaleidoscopic montage of his and my life, interrupted, by life unfolding in real-time. Images of Paul and I breaking down in tears after the tribute gig to Lowell at the Forum in Los Angeles; surfing with Bert Toulotte on the East Coast; playing golf in Essen, Germany, with older club members and their Lolita-like caddies; taping a jam at our rehearsal room near Cahuenga and Barham, where we somehow spontaneously and simultaneously played a series of licks that came out of the ether, accompanied by our looks of utter disbelief as to just how we had accomplished that, while much later inserting them into what became “Day At the Dog Races”; the drive to his house discussing putting Little Feat back together in 1986, resulting in Let It Roll in 1988; plans and more plans; one of our last calls about his health, his concerns for everyone in the band and his hopes for rejoining us again at some point.

The fierce terrain we were enjoined in over these 50 years was reflected in our music, in our journey, and in our understanding that none of it would be easy. Honesty is not always benign, but it is necessary if you are to be truthful to yourself and others. That honesty translates into the songs we wrote, which is why they resonate with so many people. Paul touched many hearts and minds by sharing the gifts he possessed. 

We have the songs, his voice and all the inflections he commanded, his incredible musical sense as a player, whether playing a searing and soaring slide part or a gentle acoustic guitar. He was a master at rhythm and creating stellar parts to songs of almost any genre. I still can hear the laughter in his voice, still feel the reverberations over misunderstandings, along with knowing that throughout it all we were brothers. I know well the intensity of who he was as a musician, as a man, and I honor that.

My tears are of sadness, both for him and for those of us that knew him, that loved him and that carry him in our hearts.

The souls circle the sun
They play with the moon
Live amongst the stars
Their reflections on the river
Are gifts to your heart
from Bill’s River Blues

Bill Payne, Montana, October 29, 2019

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See also on this blog: When Lowell George Was The Future Of Rock n Roll
https://bangnzdrum.blogspot.com/2012/06/when-lowell-george-was-future-of-rock-n.html

Frank Zappa and Lowell George together
http://bangnzdrum.blogspot.com/2012/08/frank-zappa-and-lowell-george-together.html

The Heyday of the NME

There's a been a lot of talk this week about the closure of the NME's print edition - the end of an era and all that. In his Guardian obituary for the music paper, Alex Petridis reckoned the NME had umpteen “golden eras” which he said usually had less to do with the quality of the writing "than whether or not you were 17 or 18 when you were reading it".|

That's true-ish, but really, the legend of the NME as the cool, trend-setting weekly bible for music fans, was formed in the first half of the 1970s, which was really a hangover from the late 60s. It was a wild and often chaotic paper in those days, informed by the underground press vibe of Oz and IT, that had spawned some of the NME's own writers including Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent.

It was the first break with the formal traditions of music writing, passed down through the jazz age in the 50s and the still formal and respectful pop journalism of the 60s. The more anarchic style of the NME's new brand of hacks made star names out of maverick characters like CSM, Nick Kent, Mick Farren and Ian MacDonald.

They were given as much space as they wanted and used the opportunity to write think pieces about relatively obscure artists. Kent's long elegy to Nick Drake soon after the singer's death, was a landmark in UK rock journalism, influenced no doubt by the kind of intelligent analysis they had seen in Rolling Stone.

The central storyline of Kent's 1975 three-part series on Brian Wilson, 'The Last Beach Movie', was the collapse of the Beach Boys' 'Smile' project. It was the first time most of us had heard any details about the album Wilson was forced to abort in 1967 and Kent's detailed account was rightly acclaimed.

This was also a time when the market was clearly divided between pop and rock, albums and singles, US and UK - two very distinct music markets in those days. America was still a foreign land in those pre-cheap transatlantic travel days. The NME writers schooled us ordinary folk in the different music coming out of New York, Detroit, LA and San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the thinking freak's rock critic, Ian MacDonald, a Cambridge drop-out, was writing feature length pieces about Todd Rundgren, Steely Dan and Sparks - expanding our consciousness and daring us to go along for the ride. Ian Mac was the guy that turned me on to all these artists and more.






















It wasn't all ground-breaking though; much of the rest of the NME was throwaway - entertaining that Thursday when it hit the streets but not meant to last. Nonetheless it was a reflection of the time. Rock had yet to become an 'industry'. The lunatics were still running the asylum. The Lone Groover, Tony Benyon's stoned cartoon character, was emblematic of the long-haired freak scene, a hangover from the sixties that persisted until the advent of punk. The NME's album reviews were often wildly funny, but often dismissive - and downright wrong - about albums and artists whose work is now justly revered. From Bowie to Joni to Marley and even the early punk scene - there are individual examples where the NME's writers didn't get it right.

But collectively they had great taste, as the 1974 Top 100 albums demonstrates. Every single one of those 100 albums remains a classic, which I suppose goes to support the idea that the period up to 1975 was the classic era for rock and roll.

No doubting that things changed from '77 onwards, and if truth be told, the NME's writers were as blindsided by the new wave as any of the other music mags. For a time though, in the first half of that decade, they created the lasting legend of the NME. The rebelliousness was now led by the musicians themselves, and arguably that's just another form of PR. But the legend of an NME full of edgy, exciting music writing allowed it to remain in business way beyond any of the other music papers of the time. Melody Maker and Sounds went the way of the dinosaurs. Smash Hits was wildly successful for 20 years but was closed in 2006. It's a wonder the NME lasted as long as it did.

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Frank Zappa and Lowell George together

For a brief period in late 1968, early 1969, Lowell George was a member of The Mothers. He can be heard on the album 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh' and the first disc of 'You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5', which included a version of "Here Lies Love" with Lowell as lead vocalist. 

Whether he jumped or was pushed, there's not a lot known about why he didn't last very long working alongside Frank Zappa. I imagine he was ambitious enough to think he might be able to get some of his tunes included in the set. 

Although Lowell acted as vocalist and played slide guitar for the Mothers’ shows in his brief tenure with the band, he was kind of peripheral and it’s not hard to see why he didn’t last long with Zappa. Frank saw that Lowell was ambitious as a writer.

But of course, this was Frank's band and Frank's music. George said he was fired from the Mothers because he "wrote a song about dope". Anyway, for whatever reason, Frank suggested Lowell should go and form his own band. So thanks to Frank, we got Little Feat.

There isn't much photographic evidence of Lowell with Frank, but a few have drifted out in recent years, including the one at the top of this page, released by a member of Lowell's family.

Lowell appears here, top left, in another photo backstage with fellow Mothers.

And here's another that's recently surfaced, from early 1969. From left to right: Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner, FZ and Lowell

Here's a Reprise Records promotional photo, probably the only to feature Lowell.

Also on this blog:

When Lowell George Was The Future of Rock 'n Roll 

Little Feat at the Warner Bros. Music Show, 1975

There's a lot to like in the ZAPPA movie

It's Frank Zappa Day in Baltimore
 

When Lowell George was the future of rock 'n' roll

In December 1975, the NME put Little Feat’s Lowell George on its cover and proclaimed that, for the next 7 days at least, he was the future of rock ‘n’ roll. 

At the time Little Feat were riding high on the success of their recent release ‘The Last Record Album’. On critical praise alone, the band could justifiably claim to be world beaters. Their studio albums were all highly rated. 1974’s ‘Feats Don’tFail Me Now’ had refined the musical template to include not just country-blues but funk and odd time signatures. But it was the bootleg release of a 1974 radio broadcast, entitled ‘Electrif Lycanthrope’ that sealed their reputation as the hottest band on the planet at that time.

The bootleg captured the full measure of Little Feat’s syncopated swamp funk and created such a buzz that, when the band appeared in Europe as part of the ‘Warner Brothers Music Show’ tour in 1975, they delivered a rousing performance at London's Rainbow Theatre that headliners The Doobie Brothers found it hard to follow.  They were at their most potent during this period; a tight rhythm unit led by three talented songwriters in George, keyboard player Bill Payne and guitarist Paul Barrere.

The legendary Little Feat bootleg 'Electrif Lycanthrope'

From the start, when Lowell George formed Little Feat in 1970, the band dynamic had been a powerful combination of forces, especially between Payne, George and drummer Richie Hayward. ‘Strawberry Flats’ on the first album is the sound of a band already in its stride, with Payne’s songwriting and piano work well to the fore. Lowell got most of the credit though, and rightly so because he fronted the band and it was his songs, such as Willin’, SailingShoes, Dixie Chicken and Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor  that got the radio play. As well as his distinctive songwriting, Lowell had a sweet soul voice and was arguably as good a bottleneck blues player as Ry Cooder or Duane Allman.

Pete Erskine's NME review of The Last Record Album said, "Little Feat are the only band in the world who retain a consistent grasp of the secret of creating inner tension within their music." Of Lowell George, he said, "the consistency (of songwriting) he's shown through four albums as Feat mentor must elevate him to a position as the genre's foremost writer."

The Last Record Album captures the band at a crucial point, where they were moving towards more polished and ever-so-slightly jazzy material, reflecting the growing influence of Bill Payne in the dynamic of Little Feat.

At the time, no one really questioned that Lowell was the leader of the band. He still grabbed the glory in the NME's review, and the stand-out track on The Last Record Album is one of his songs, Long Distance Love. But the album was slicker and jazzier on the whole; it was evident that the group was more important than any one person.

The NME’s review of  The Last Record Album acknowledged this in the headline "...two cheers for democracy". So this is really the point at which we see Little Feat firing on all cylinders in the studio. Erskine asserted that The Last Record Album was "momentous, because group democracy has lent new fervour to all elements of the band, while relieving some of the pressure on George."

The creative tension Erskine wrote about must have been hard to sustain though, because once Lowell George relinquished leadership of the band, the fruits of their collective creativity were a swiftly diminishing return.

In 1976 and through into early 1978, the band consolidated their reputation with the studio album Time Loves A Hero and the excellent live double album Waiting For Columbus, augmented by the Tower Of Power horn section.

The quality tailed off though and the band lost momentum, pulled apart by musical differences between George and Payne, that were exacerbated by Lowell's drug intake. 

In the interview with Sounds (see below), published the week of the Charlton gig in 1976 with The Who, Bill Payne is frank about the tensions between himself and Lowell: "Lowell and I are opposites, like night and day. He takes a long time to do a lot of things, including writing songs, whereas I work rather quickly. I'd just personally like to push for a quicker way of doing things, cause that's when you catch the spontaneity."

Signs of disharmony in the band from this 1976 interview 

With his hold on the band weakening, Lowell's songwriting was seemingly in decline too, to judge from his 1979 solo album, Thanks I'll Eat It Here. 

The record was warmly received, but it contained only five songs out of 10 written by Lowell, and four of those were co-writes. By the time of Little Feat's 1979 lacklustre release 'Down On The Farm', the band was over.

It had been a rapid descent and very sad to see such a talented group fold, and then the ultimate tragedy of seeing their leader die. Lowell George was 34 - another victim of a cocaine-obsessed rock and roll lifestyle - his creative instincts having deserted him. But in that golden period from 1970 to 1975, George's songwriting "cut the best of his contemporaries' efforts to shreds," said Erskine and Long Distance Love represented "his personal apex".

In 1975, for a short while at least, Lowell George was a contender.

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THANKS

 'Rock 'n' Roll Doctor' - from the session released as 'Electrif Lycanthrope' in 1974

 ALSO ON THIS BLOG:

Little Feat at the Warner Bros. Music Show, 1975