1969-1979, 1987-Bill PayneKeyboards, vocals
Lowell GeorgeVocals, guitar1969–1979
Richie HaywardDrums1969–1979, 1987–2010
Roy EstradaBass1969-1972
Paul BarrereGuitar, vocals1972–1979, 1987–2019
Sam ClaytonPercussion, vocals1972–1979, 1987–
Kenny GradneyBass1972–1979, 1987–
Fred TackettGuitar, vocals1987–
Listening to Little Feat, you'd think they came from somewhere swampy, but they formed in Los Angeles. Lowell George grew up in the Laurel Canyon area of the city, which became famous for a scene that attracted the likes of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. His dad was the "furrier to the stars," supplying fur coats to the rich and famous.
Little Feat never had a hit and were never all that popular, but they had a reputation for musical excellence that got the attention of many big names, as evidenced by three star-filled tribute albums, Rock And Roll Doctor (1997), Join The Band (2008) and Long Distance Love (2024). Performers include avowed Feat fans Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews, Brad Paisley and Ben Harper.
Add Little Feat to the list of artists whose best-selling albums are live albums. Their 1978 album Waiting For Columbus went Platinum, selling over a million copies in America. Other acts on that list include Kiss, Cheap Trick and Peter Frampton.
Lowell George and Linda Ronstadt formed a bond that turned romantic. "He was so delicious, and he was so different from the pretty-boy types, that I found him extremely pleasing to look at," she said in the book
Willin' The Story Of Little Feat.
Just one problem: He was married. One night, George stayed over at her house, and the next morning, his wife Liz rang the doorbell. That's when Linda learned that George was not only married, but his wife was pregnant. When they woke him up to confront him, George thought he was home with Liz. "Where's the coffee?" he asked her. That was end of his fling with Ronstadt, who covered the Little Feat song "
Willin'" in 1975.
Lowell George was an underutilized member of Frank Zappa's band The Mothers Of Invention when he formed Little Feat with fellow Mother Roy Estrada. Zappa encouraged him to leave the band - they clashed musically and personally, especially on the topic of drug use. George was pro and Zappa con.
The band name was coined by Mothers Of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black, who told Lowell George he had "ugly little feet." George had weird looking feet, very wide but short, and was often teased about it. They changed to "feet" to "feat" to give it more depth, like how The Beatles used a variation of "beetles."
Bass player Roy Estrada left to join Captain Beefheart, not as a band member, but in security and logistics. He made the move because he had asthma that was triggered by the foul air in Los Angeles where Little Feat was based. Beefheart's home base in Northern California had cleaner air.
Like Toto, members of Little Feat were in demand as studio musicians and took a lot of session work on the side. Bill Payne appears on albums for Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt; Lowell George can be heard on tracks by Etta James, Carly Simon and Maria Muldaur.
Little Feat have a tradition of opening their concerts by singing a spiritual called "Join The Band." You can hear it at the beginning of their live album Waiting For Columbus.
Their song "
Dixie Chicken" was inspiration for the name of the band The Dixie Chicks, who in 2020 dropped the Dixie and became The Chicks.
Lowell George was touring as a solo artist when he died in 1979 at 34 after having a heart attack in a hotel room. He was in rough shape, overweight, burned out and sick with respiratory issues, and drugs may have played a part as well. His death has sometimes been reported as drug related, but apparently there's no hard evidence like a toxicology report to back this up. His wife Elizabeth and daughter Inara were in the room when he died; Inara was just 4 years old and remembers that tragic day.
In their prime, Little Feat felt like they were always on the verge of a breakup, which is one reason their promotion suffered - their label didn't want to sink their budget on a band that could fold at any moment. When Lowell George died in 1979 it shuttered the band, but they regrouped in 1987 and have been active ever since. The mainstay is founding member Bill Payne, who has been a part of every lineup.
Lowell George's daughter Inara George is a singer-songwriter like her dad. She's best known as half of the duo The Bird And the Bee with Greg Kurstin.
