Dixie Chickens

Little Feat: The classic blues-rock band will bring the sound of its newest album, Join the Band to the Turning Stone Resort and Casino this week.

The responsibility for the group’s
formation is in large part credited to Lowell George, a slide guitar
player who clocked time in Frank Zappa’s masterful Mothers of Invention
during that group’s early years. When George passed away in 1979 due to
the side effects of a lifetime of the rock lifestyle, the group went on
hiatus, only later to pick up the torch again in 1988 with frontman and
former Pure Prairie League vocalist Craig Fuller, and again later with
Shaun Murphy, Little Feat’s current lead singer. You’ll have a chance
to check out how the band has survived through the years when Little
Feat performs at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino Showroom, Thruway Exit 33, Verona, on Friday, Jan. 2, at 8 p.m. 

Fred Tackett, a friend of
George’s since the earliest days of the band’s Los Angeles birth, and
the group’s current guitarist, mandolinist and trumpeter, remains a
resident of that city. Tackett recounted the old days during a Dec. 23
telephone interview from his home, describing the setting of Feat’s
formation in a way that calls to mind the psychedelic images of the
1960s as portrayed in recent films like Walk Hard. 

“We all were living in this house, and
there was this party going on 24 hours a day,” Tackett explains. “One
day I went down stairs and Lowell George was like playing the sitar in
the living room. It turned out he lived right next door to my future
wife, Patricia, and she had brought him over to the house. He’s all
dressed in white, and playing the sitar. He was studying at Ravi
Shankar’s school here in Los Angeles.”

Tackett officially joined the group during its 1988 reincarnation, but had contributed the song “Fool Yourself” to Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros.), Little Feat’s third studio album, and had been friends with Little Feat members for decades. Dixie Chicken
has been influential enough to inspire the Dixie Chicks, the
contemporary country femme fatales, to name their group after it. That
throwback is one that Tackett explains the band takes as a high
compliment.

“It was great. We used to see those girls when they’d be playing in Austin, doing bluegrass. So, yeah, they’re the Dixie Chicks,
man! We like them a lot. We were of course very honored that they would
do that, and of course nobody could ever believe it. We go, ‘Yeah, it’s
true!’”

Little Feat has released a new album this year, Join the Band
(Hot Tomato), which is a collaboration between Feat and many of the
musicians who have been fans through the years. A brainstorm of Jimmy
Buffet, the album was recorded at the parrot head’s studio in Key West,
Fla., and included scores of accompanying musicians on the recording,
including the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, Dave Matthews, Bob Seger,
Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck, Mike Gordon of Phish and many other cameos
in addition to George’s daughter, Inara George.

Tackett describes the band’s experience
in Buffet’s studio as strange, but memorable. “It’s this shack that’s
right on the water in Key West, right in the middle of the most popular
part. It’s one room you can sort of walk in and say, ‘I’m in the
fourier,’ and then you’re in the control room in the studio. It’s just
enough room for everybody to find a corner and sort of sit down and
file in one by one and get in your spot, you know? It’s real tiny, but
it’s right in the middle of all the boats and all the people, and it’s
unbelievable. It was Pirate Week {a Key West pseudo-holiday} when we
were recording, and there are all these people dressed up like full-on
pirates. It was surrealistic and funny, and we had a great time.”

Although the group has no formal plans
to record an album in the upcoming year, Tackett explains the band’s
members will likely release a CD after they take inventory of the songs
they have recently written. In the meantime, Tackett says Little Feat
is glad to be supporting the ambitions of Join the Band, and
has been having a laid-back time on the touring circuit. Perhaps the
furthest thing from the sunny weather of Key West, Tackett even shared
memories of having performed in the Salt City over the years.

“Syracuse has always been a really great
town for us, because it’s a college town: the Orange, you know? We
always had a great time playing in Syracuse at college gigs and gigs at
the Landmark Theatre, and we had some memorable gigs with Levon Helm at
City Hall, with a blues band that opened up for Little Feat. Syracuse
is a good Little Feat town for us.”

Tickets to the show are $25, $30 and $40. For more information, call
361-SHOW.

—Matt Mumau