Thread by @alshipley

40 years ago today, the world lost one of the greats
Little Feat singer/guitarist Lowell George
April 13, 1945 – June 29, 1979

here's a piece I wrote a couple years ago about Lowell George's most famous song, "Willin'"
stereogum.com/1962413/little…

as John pointed out, the drums at the beginning of "Fool Yourself" gave us a classic breakbeat, used most famously in ATCQ "Bonita Applebaum" and Fugees "Killing Me Softly"

the title track of the same album, "Dixie Chicken," was covered by Garth Brooks and inspired the Dixie Chicks' name. my wife and I danced to it at our wedding.

here's a playlist I posted earlier this week of great Little Feat deep cuts
narrowcast.blogspot.com/2019/06/deep-a…
open.spotify.com/playlist/10l5i…

a decade before Robert Palmer's big MTV hits, he made 2 albums backed by Little Feat that included a cover of "Sailin' Shoes"

Lowell George started Little Feat after a stint with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention circa Weasels Ripped My Flesh (which had cover art by Neon Park, who went on to draw most of Little Feat's album covers)

Little Feat on Old Grey Whistle Test during their first UK tour in 1975. Robert Plant saw this on TV and has called it a major influence on his solo career (LF's Richie Hayward played on Shaken 'n' Stirred)

Lowell George explaining that he plays slide guitar with a Sears & Roebuck socket wrench casing instead of a bottleneck

here's a cool article that gives background on how Little Feat came to record one of their best albums, Feats Don't Fail Me Now, outside Baltimore, which is where my dad met the band
baltimoremagazine.com/2010/7/31/the-…

Lowell George on guitar and backing vocals on a cut from Jackson Brown's The Pretender (Browne wrote 1980's "Of Missing Persons" about George and covered "Willin'" in 2016)

Lowell George on an outtake from the Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street, which he produced. my deadhead father-in-law saw one of the Grateful Dead/Little Feat shows back in the day.

Lowell George wanted to call the first Little Feat album Thanks, I'll Eat It Here. he didn't get his way, and finally used the title for his first solo album, shortly before he died. decades later Little Feat began playing "Honest Man" live often.

Bonnie Raitt sang backup on some of Little Feat's best albums, and most of the band played on her third album

a 1977 episode of Midnight Special with Little Feat playing several songs and backing Emmylou Harris and others

Little Feat's meanest funk, "Spanish Moon," with the Tower of Power horns like on Waiting For Columbus

actually, wait, that is the same D.C. performance that's on the Waiting For Columbus album, nice, i didn't realize there was footage of that show. there's a soundman i work with now and again who was helping out that night, shout out to Jim.

wow apparently John Belushi wanted to play Lowell George in a film, which of course never happened since he soon died at an even younger age

one of Lowell George's last gigs, in NY less than a week before he died in Virginia

Lowell George and The Factory playing a band called The Bedbugs in a 1967 episode of F Troop