Little Feat

Sam’s Place

Hot Tomato Productions / MRI

Little Feat’s 55 years have encompassed a colorful mélange of seven configurations, 13 members including nine singers, and six of them principal lead singers. Their music has traversed a spectrum from garage rock and roll to the blues, country, impressionistic jazz, and swamp-drenched and New Orleans-styled rhythm and blues. Seventy-eight-year-old Sam Clayton, the brother of gospel singer Merry Clayton, joined Little Feat in 1972, three years after pianist and songwriter Bill Payne and the late visionary songwriter and guitarist Lowell George formed the band. Clayton brought multi-layered percussion and deep baritone accent vocals to the performances of what is referred to as the “classic lineup,” the band behind such albums as Dixie Chicken and Waiting for Columbus. Clayton has been a mainstay ever since, but rarely has he sung lead. So, the big question after exiting Sam’s Place for the first of what turned out to be many times, is, what the heck took so long?

Clayton commands all nine songs on the album with incredible vigor and unlimited range, his throaty baritone placing him in the category of major blues singers. Sam’s Place is one hundred percent blues, a first for Little Feat. Plus, it is the band’s first studio album in twelve years and the recorded debut of this edition. “Classic” veterans Clayton, Payne, and bassist Kenny Gradney, are joined by longtime guitarist Fred Tackett, and relative newcomers in lead guitarist and lead vocalist Scott Sharrard and drummer and vocalist Tony Leone. Sharrard and Leone have without question revitalized Little Feat, the band’s passion in these performances elevated and unwavering. They sound unmistakably as Little Feat should, but also at the drop of a hat display the innate grit of a down and dirty Chicago blues band. Their take on Little Walter’s “Last Night,” featuring woeful harmonica by guest Michael “Bull” LaBue, provides monumental proof of the latter.

Several of Little Feat’s signature songs stick in the psyche like wet leaves on cement. Add “Milkman” to that list, the opener to Sam’s Place and the album’s lone original penned by Clayton and Sharrard from Clayton’s own experiences. Clayton’s charred voice provides as much of a hook as the galloping, horn-peppered beat. Willie Dixon’s “You’ll Be Mine” has the same effect, the rollicking song offering Sharrard a chance to show off his slippery, arresting slide guitar playing. Sharrard grew up on Lowell George and Duane Allman and become the longtime musical director in Gregg Allman’s solo band. But he plainly belongs in Little Feat.

Bonnie Raitt joins the band for a duet with Sam on Muddy Waters’ “Long Distance Call,” she sultry, and he down to business, their longtime kinship resulting in a beautifully natural blues. In fact, all these blues shine brilliantly, right up to Sam’s Place’s apex of a relentless barreling through Willie Dixon’s “Mellow Down Easy.” The song’s quaking rhythms and Clayton’s manhandling of the iconic lyrics are impossible to shake.

Little Feat has been extraordinary onstage these past three years. Sam’s Place confirms that this very colorful band is once again in full flower.

 Tom Clarke for MAS

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