Forty-five years ago, Little Feat traveled to the U.K. and set up shop for a four-night stand — Aug. 1-4, 1977 — at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The Los Angeles rock act then quickly returned to the U.S. where it would play three shows — Aug. 8-10 — at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C.
And the tape machines were most definitely rolling as the band — which vocalist-guitarist Lowell George, keyboardist Bill Payne, bassist Roy Estrada and drummer Richie Hayward formed in 1969 — rolled through such numbers as “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” “Oh Atlanta,” “Spanish Moon” and, of course, “Dixie Chicken.”
The result was Little Feat’s first live album, the 1978 double-LP “Waiting for Columbus,” which went on to become the most commercially successful outing of the band’s career.
Having just broken into the top 20 for the first — and still only — time in its career, Little Feat seemed well positioned to capitalize on the momentum of “Waiting for Columbus.” Unfortunately, it was not to be and the band broke up in early 1979. Not long after that, George died of a heart attack at the age of 34.
In the late ’80s, Little Feat reformed and has been rocking audiences ever since. The group is currently celebrating the 45th anniversary of the “Waiting for Columbus” shows with a tour and has also released “Waiting for Columbus: Super Deluxe Edition,” an eight-CD box set from Rhino Records that includes a remastered version of the original album plus three previously unreleased concert recordings. Visit rhino.com for details.
I recently had to chance to chat with Little Feat’s immensely talented Bill Payne — who has also performed with Bob Seger, the Doobie Brothers, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris and many other acts — about the “Waiting for Columbus” anniversary.
Q: How did the idea for this live album come about?
A: It’s a little foggy in my mind as to who suggested it. Some people thought it was Lowell. Others thought it was Warner Bros. In my mind, it could have been both. But Warner certainly had to be close to the people who maybe approached Lowell first and said, “Hey, the band’s strengths are in the live performances.” That makes sense to me.
Q: Looking back 45 years later, how do you now view these recordings?
A: I kind of view them in a place where they should be — which is they are iconic recordings of this band. But there is also a part of me that kind of views a lot of things, like a lot of us do, which are like home movies. It was our second time in England. The first time we went over there was with the Warner Bros. Music Tour. The Rainbow Theatre was a pretty good place to play and people just went nuts for the band. And they have pretty much been in our camp ever since — as has D.C., by the way.
Q: Fans hold up “Waiting for Columbus” as a real milestone for the band. Is that how you see it?
A: I see it as just a blip on the screen — but a big blip, indeed. But there were too many back and forths taking place for the band to really take advantage of anything for very long.
It was just the times. Lowell was who he was, just like Jerry Garcia was who he was. A lot of drugs around. It wasn’t just on Lowell. Everybody was in a position to have to sort of see where they were.
Yeah, the (band) trajectory was pretty good for awhile. But I think the real highlight for us, on a level of, you know, kumbaya moments, was a few years before that in Hunt Valley, Maryland where we did (the 1974 studio album) “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now.”
But “Waiting for Columbus” was unbelievable. It just sounded so good. We were very pleased with the way it sold. Then things sort of drifted back to what we were doing before, which was maybe not the healthiest cycle to be in.
That album — a lot of people view it as like the pinnacle, which it was at the time. But it wasn’t the overall pinnacle moving forward. It was more of a beginning than an end. But, obviously, when we cut that record in 1977 — it was released in 1978 — you can’t see the future.
Q: What’s it like revisiting the album in concert?
A: We’ve been really been enjoying playing “Waiting for Columbus.” When we first got into it — because we were playing all these other tunes, a month or two before that — we thought, “What’s it going to be like playing the same set every night? Will it get old? Will it kind of fossilize the music?”
It’s been anything but that. It’s been just an adventure every night, getting out there and trying different things. We’re not obliterating the music — where nobody knows what we’re playing or what they are listening to. It’s the same stuff. It’s just what we’ve always done. You react to certain areas that you’d like to jam on something and take it for a spin, maybe implementing some world music — a percussion here and there — and just keeping an open mind about arrangements.
Q: Are you playing the album in its entirety at each concert?
A: We are playing every song. But we are not replicating every song. Some people do this stuff where it’s like, “Let’s see how close we can get it to sound like the album.” Nah, we aren’t doing that. We take our songs and we do what Little Feat has always done.
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