Little Feat have been around, in one form or another, since 1969. They are rated by many fans – including the lovely PR guy for this album, who touts them as his favourite band of all time – as arguably the most underrated groups of all time. Maybe THE most underrated. It’s hard to disagree. I bought a couple of their reissued albums way back in the 1990s (Sailin’ Shoes and Dixie Chicken) and really liked both. Somehow I never got round to buying any more, and having read somewhere that their leader Lowell George had died tragically young at 34 in 1979, I guess I just presumed they’d broken up after that, and, seemingly like most other people, I forgot all about them.
What this new record, Strike Up The Band, does so well, is to emphasise what incredible musicians Little Feat truly are. So much so that I went back through several albums from their back catalogue, and was astonished to find that they’d not only released a whole eight long players with George, but that there was a whole wealth of them – nine – since his sad demise. The good news is that pretty much everything I listened to was like nectar for the soul.
I love the way ‘4 Days Of Heaven 3 Days Of Work‘ begins so intensely, straight at you from the off, sounding a little like Duke era Genesis briefly, until the brass section comes in, which leads us into a kind of swampy blues rock that is just perfect to play in the car on a sunny day with the windows down. Another highpoint is the emotive title track, featuring the gorgeous backing vocals of the Lovell sisters who make up Larkin Poe. It’s a really lovely song, with affecting lyrics that begin: “From Vienna to Savannah, the struggle moves your hand / And there’s a fragile human nature in every woman and man / The wise and the weary can find some sweet relief / If you can raise a voice together and find your true belief.”
Now featuring Greg Allman Band man Scott Sharrard on vocal duty (who has a euphonious, laid back feel to his tones), Strike Up The Band continues to impress with its pleasing diversity, whilst at the same team remaining true to the Little Feat ouvre, with tracks like ‘Bluegrass Pines‘ truly excelling, the backing here calling to mind Chuck Prophet‘s recent collaborators ¿Qiensave?, and then you have the fun, 70s funk feel of the delightfully daft ‘Too High To Cut My Hair‘ or the Tunnel Of Love era Springsteen aura of ‘When Hearts Fall‘. Sure, here and there, some of the tracks go a bit Doobie Brothers (or, probably more specifically Michael McDonald), but then is there anything really wrong with that? I don’t think so, and as a result, the record is yet another worthy addition to the Little Feat canon. Here’s to the next 56 years!
Strike Up The Band is out now on Hot Tomato.
