Little Feat – Little Feat (Numbered Gold CD)

Little Feat’s 1971 Landmark Debut Puts Southern-Fried Spin on West Coast Sound

Seldom does a band announce its arrival with such convincing results. Led by vocalist/guitarist Lowell George and bassist Roy Estrada, both of whom played in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Little Feat introduced Southern-fried accents and funny personality sketches to the West Coast’s country-rock template, yielding a self-titled 1971 debut that remains singular in its aural and narrative visions of America.

Just as iconic illustrator Robert Crumb’s characters evoke weirdly sympathetic figures and optimistic hippie gurus, so too do George’s cartoonish character-driven narratives. His tales of big-rig drivers on speed (the much-covered classic “Willin’”), roadside affairs (“Truck Stop Girl”), rum-drunk seafarers (“Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie”), and wayward drifters (“Strawberry Flats”) seem to come from a dusty, long-lost comic book—or at the least, a secret history of American culture that’s a helluva lot more exciting, fun, colorful, and authentic than most anything you’ve heard before. Liberating, freewheeling, and lined with subtle streaks of dark humor, Little Feat is the musical companion to Easy Rider.

And now, it has the widescreen sonics to match. Sourced from the original analog master tapes by Mobile Fidelity engineers, this CD of Little Feat is more raw, bluesy, immediate, and open than any previous version. The first-ever album produced by three-time Grammy-winner Russ Titelman (Linda Ronstadt, Eric Clapton, Randy Newman), the record’s eclectic sound is the stuff of swinging saloon doors, muddy Delta rivers, and humid Bayou docks. Benefitting from a fully revealed dynamic range, the blend of dirty harmonicas, sliding guitars, and rolling pianos is guaranteed to make tubes glow and speakers sing.