Review: Little Feat, New Box Set, ‘The Last Record Album – Deluxe Edition’ – Original LP, Outtakes, Concert Recording

A couple of weekends ago Little Feat returned with another box set that this time looks back to their 1975 album The Last Record Album. This comes only a little over year after they released a deluxe edition of Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, their first album to go gold, with a similar configuration: original LP, outtakes/demos, and finally a live show. I was busy posting about Patti Smith’s new Expanded Edition of Horses and David Gilmour’s new live album The Luck And Strange Concerts, to post about it immediately, but finally got to kick back and spend some time with this set over the weekend.

I absolutely love Little Feat and the late Lowell George who founded the band after being kicked out of Frank Zappa’s band. There are a myriad number of stories as to why he was kicked out of Zappa’s band: writing about weed on the song “Willin'” (Zappa was notoriously sober); because George actually was smoking weed; George playing a 20 minute guitar solo with the amp turned off or finally, Frank felt it was time for Lowell to form his own band and he left by mutual agreement. I’m not sure we ever got the real story there.

While I am now into Little Feat, that didn’t happen until later in life. “Dixie Chicken” was the only track I ever heard from these guys on my local radio and when you’re young you collect/follow what you hear on the radio… well you did when I was a young music collector. There ain’t much on terrestrial radio anymore, sigh. Eventually, I discovered this band and fell in love with their swampy, New Orleans-influenced blues funk/rock. I loved their quirky debut album (but then I always love debut albums), their next two Sailin’ Shoes and Dixie Chicken were to me, the height of their output, and I dug Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, my first Feat LP purchase once I’d gotten on the bandwagon. Of course Waiting For Columbus is one of those essential live albums. Lowell George was the leader of the band, wrote a lot of the songs and sang many of them. On top of that he was a hell of a slide guitarist. He played slide with a spark plug socket. He also produced many of Little Feat’s records.

I have to admit, that when we turn our attention to The Last Record Album – a title which was probably chosen by the band to express their frustrations with each other – the wheels were starting to come off. This one is where it got dicey for me… well, until I listened to the album for the first time in a while. All great bands, even in decline (see U2) manage to put out some classic tracks on each record and Little Feat was no exception. Here we have the great tunes “All That You Dream,” which includes a backing vocal from Linda Ronstadt (who covered the track later and had already done a few Little Feat/Lowell George tunes prior including “Willin'”), and of course “Long Distance Love.” I also always liked “Romance Dance,” and Carly Simon covered “One Love Stand.” “Mercenary Territory” is a nice funky tune as well to end the album.

The issues Little Feat were having by 1975 were fairly typical and mostly centered about artistic control. Up to this point George had pretty much controlled the band with the same iron fist that Zappa used in his band. By this point in Little Feat’s history the lineup had coalesced around Lowell George (vocals/guitar), Paul Barrere (vocals/guitar), Bill Payne (vocals/keyboards), Sam Clayton (percussion/congas), Richard Hayward (drums), and Kenny Gradney (bass). Bill Payne and Paul Barrere wanted more creative input on the band’s albums. They unfortunately favored a jam-based approach that George despised. We were still a few years away from Lowell describing Payne/Barrere’s stuff as jazz fusion when he said (in an unflattering way) that they sounded like “the Weather Report” but the tension while nascent here, was real. Many people have criticized this record for having that So Cal, mellow mafia vibe. I think the lack of energy is stemming from the band members antipathy for each other coupled with Lowell George’s utter apathy toward the new music. He’s more an absentee landlord than mellow So Cal producer. He just wasn’t into it. Well, and let’s admit Lowell was struggling with the demons of addiction and bad health which are never positive ingredients to add to the gumbo that is a band’s chemistry.

There really is enough material on The Last Record Album, as mentioned earlier to keep it interesting. About half this album still has that Feat magic. But many of the tracks sort of fall flat. “Somebody’s Leaving” penned by Payne leaves me a little cold. Maybe if George had sung it instead of Payne? “Down Below The Borderline” has promise but doesn’t feel fully realized to me. The half that is good will cause any Little Feat fan to want this album, but the half that falls just a little short – and it was all just so close to recapturing that classic groove – is still relatively interesting.

On disc 2, we get demos and outtakes. The first three tracks are demos and both “Rockin’ Shoes 1 & 2” and “Fool On The Avenue” are pretty interesting. Of course, I love songs about fools. We do get some alternative versions of all the best of the album from “All That You Dream” to “Mercenary Territory.” More interesting to me was this early version of “High Roller” that was slated for this album and the title was printed on the album sleeve, then marked out with “Maybe next time” printed by it. True to their word, “High Roller” kicks off their next album Time Loves A Hero. It’s a song that might have picked up the energy a little bit here, too bad they left it off. At eight songs, they had room. Another track that caught my attention was “Front Page News (Outtake)” which didn’t appear until the album Down On The Farm. 

The real gold in this set is the 2-CD live disc that wraps it up. Taken from a show on Halloween night 1975 recorded at the Orpheum Theater in Boston, MA. I spent a summer in Boston made fun by some great guys I met at the Food Center Liquor Store but I don’t think I ever made it to the Orpheum Theater. I have to say, right up front, that Little Feat were nothing if not a great, great live band. Despite tensions – Lowell George would physically leave the stage when Payne/Barerre would get into too much jazz fusion jamming – they still killed on stage. While Bill Payne once said that Lowell George was a great guy but a bad band leader, he seems to really marshal the troops when they played live.

You get all the classics played live here. They kick off with “Two Trains,” a personal favorite. Lowell is playing his usually spectacular slide guitar. The fun continues with lively versions of “Skin It Back” and “Fat Man In A Bathtub.” They do “Apolitical Blues” later covered by Van Hagar and “Oh Atlanta” is exceptional as always. We also get a great Allen Toussaint cover on “All The Way Down.” They often collaborated with him so it makes sense to bring that Nawlins vibe (aka New Orleans).

At that point (toward the end of the first disc of the live stuff) they start playing the new stuff with “Day Or Night” and “All You Dream.” I think the new stuff is even better live vs the studio but I’m biased about live music. To start the second disc from the concert – and I love when bands do these expanded editions and include a whole concert from the then contemporary tour – we get “Romance Dance” and a beautiful “Long Distance Love.” Ah, we’ve all been down that fruitless road. The band then jumps into an over 20 minute jam with the medley “Cold, Cold, Cold/Dixie Chicken/Tripe Face Boogie/Bag Of Reds/Tripe Face Boogie (Reprise).” I generally dislike medleys – hey we don’t have time to play all the hits kids so we’ll do a medley, sigh – but this had been done on Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, so it should be expected. My only complaint is that they include arguably their biggest track, “Dixie Chicken,” in the medley. That’s a song for an encore, folks.

“Willin'” kicks off the end of the concert and it’s sensational as always. “Written about some truck drivers…” It’s a nice arrangement and it also has a band intro section at the end. After an manic “Teenage Nervous Breakdown,” we get “Spanish Moon” as a set closer. It’s a great to close it out with a slinky slab of New Orleans funk with “hookers and hustlers.” Barerre and George didn’t seem to get along but when they lock into a joint guitar groove, they were somethin’ else. Of course we included “Spanish Moon” on our Playlist: Songs About the Moon.

This box will be fascinating to true fans of the band and with this live concert included it should also be of interest to more casual fans. This album might be considered under the category of “what could have been” or “missed opportunities” but there’s enough good stuff to keep you interested and enthused. The live concert is yet another example of how great these guys were when they set aside their differences and just played rock n roll.

Cheers!