Little Feat first came to my attention with the release of their incredible powerhouse single "Strawberry Flats" b/w "Hamburger Midnight," and, as expected, those two cuts are the standouts on the group's debut album. But that doesn't mean, as it so often does, that this is a weak album. Little Feat is quite a complex group, with many extraordinary things to say, and the little taste they give us here will, hopefully, be expanded upon in the future.
It would be easy to dismiss Little Feat as "another one of those groups that sounds like the Band" were it not for two standout features: Lowell George's searing guitar (man, if anybody's got blisters on their fingers, I'll bet George does
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— it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that smoke comes out of his guitar) and the earthy, just-right lyrics, which seem to dwell on girls (that's right — they say it just like the Beach Boys) with piled-up hair and truckdriving. When those two elements come together in "Truckstop Girl" the result is unbeatable.
Like the Band, Little Feat's music is tight, complex, and moving. In fact, when they settle down for a relaxed jam like "44 Blues/How Many More Years," the result is so odd that one might dismiss it as trivial. My only complaint, and it is a minor one, is that several of the songs (most notably "Hamburger Midnight") sound like they could be much longer.
Regardless. I think I've played this album fifty times since I got it, and it keeps getting better. And what with all the garbage that just seems to keep piling up in front of the stereo, that's no little feat, indeed!
Oh, one more thing. Congratulations to the Los Angeles Fine Arts Squad for the cover. It says more about the mood of the music inside than I could ever hope to. (RS 75)
ED WARD
There was a time when Little Feat were way cooler than the too-jammy festival circuit band they became in the '80s, no lie. Their first record bumps and grooves with the ghosts of the past in the same way the best stuff by the Band does. "Snakes On Everything" and "Hamburger Midnight" are the highlights, but don't miss their note-perfect take on Howlin' Wolf's ".44 Blues.
