Add cult favorite Little Feat to the list of classic rock bands who have either announced or already embarked on their “farewell tour.”
But despite those who have been less-than-trustworthy with these announcements and don’t seem to ever want to truly leave the road (we’re looking at you, Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd, both now with zero original or classic-era members), Feat bassist Kenny Gradney says you can take their proclamation to the bank.
“Oh God, man! It’s been 56 years! Everybody’s old! It wasn’t a hard decision, dude. Time to finish it!” he laughs on the phone from his home. “I’m the youngest of the [classic lineup], and I’m 76. We’ve very tired!”
Gradney is quick to point out, though, that this doesn’t mean the end of Little Feat as a recording unit or participant in one-off gigs like this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. They’ll play that the day before coming to Houston’s 713 Music Hall on May 3 for a stop on “The Last Farewell Tour.”
In fact, the current lineup—which includes original member Bill Payne (keyboards), classic era members Gradney and Sam Clayton (percussion), longtime member Fred Tackett (guitar), and “new guys” Tony Leone (drums) and Scott Sharrad (vocals/guitar), came out just last year with Strike Up the Band. It’s a more-than-solid collection of new and original material.
But when we start to ask Gradney about it, there is a series of strange, sharp, gasping noises coming from his end, like someone is struggling mightily to breathe. Temporarily panicked, we ask Gradney if he’s OK. And hopefully, he isn’t having a personal “last farewell” while on the phone with the Houston Press.
“Oh, that’s my dog! She’s a chihuahua and when she’s not getting much attention like right now, she gets mad,” he laughs. “Stop, Lucy, stop!”
Many classic rock bands eschew putting out new music, either because “nobody’s buying records anymore” or only their diehard fans will want to hear anything outside of their older material. But Gradney says it was important to put out something that features the current lineup, Sharrad’s first with largely original material.
“We were trying to have something to take to Europe with us but also introduce the new guys and show the quality of their playing. And I thought it was a good idea!” he says. “We had done the blues standards album with Sam singing lead [2024’s Sam’s Place], but that wasn’t a real Little Feat album. Even though we got nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album!”
Strike Up the Band features several co-writes between Payne and others, including Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr (“Bluegrass Pines” and “Bayou Mama” respectively), several Sharrad tunes (“Shipwrecks,” “Midnight Flight,” “Disappearing Ink”), and one each by Leone and Tackett.
Sharrad and Tackett collaborated on the humorous “Too High to Cut Hair.” The video features each member sitting in a barber’s chair before realizing that the woman wielding the scissors (played by Lilly Winwood, daughter of famed classic rocker Steve Winwood) might be a bit, uh, incapacitated to wield sharp objects and trim any straight lines. They each bid a hasty retreat.
The kicker comes when the last member—Gradney—shows up with a giant dark afro wig, looking very much like his real 1976 self. It is eventually chopped down to his current short and mostly gray-flecked look.
“That’s more my 1974 look!” he laughs. “It was my manager’s idea for me to come in like that, and he already had the wig. But I told him he had to get an afro comb with a fist at the end. He didn’t think he could find one, but he showed up with three or four of them, and I had one sticking out. We were having a good time!”
Little Feat was formed in Los Angeles in 1969, the brainchild of singer/guitarist Lowell George, who had left Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention (with the boss’s blessing) to do his own thing. Their mix of rock, soul, blues, and funk with a heavy touch of New Orleans was hard to classify on records like Sailin’ Shoes, Dixie Chicken (whose title track is probably their most recognizable number), Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, and Time Loves a Hero.
But it was 1978’s Waiting for Columbus that became their biggest seller and one of the greatest live albums of the decade. By 1979, the band was coming apart and George’s heart attack/drug induced death that year seemed to seal their fate. But the rest of the classic lineup (Payne, Gradney, Clayton, guitarist/vocalist Paul Barrère drummer Richie Hayward), Tackett, and singer Craig Fuller came back in 1988 with the well-received Let It Roll.
That began a continuous recording and performing career, with female singer Shaun Murphy taking over as lead vocalist. A 2002 Houston gig at the long-defunct Garden in the Heights was part of the Houston Press Music Showcase Series.
The current lineup last came to town in 2022 as part of the “45th Anniversary Tour” of Waiting for Columbus, and the Houston Press spoke with Payne about it.
Little Feat will also get the career documentary treatment with the upcoming release of the unimaginatively titled Little Feat: The Documentary. Directed by Jesse Lauter and narrated by Jeff Bridges, it premiered last month at the Big Sky Documentary Festival. Gradney himself has not seen the finished version but will at a special screening in New Orleans tied to their Jazz Fest appearance.
Tackett and Gradney also do an offshoot New Orleans show every year around Jazz Fest with blues singer/guitarist Anders Osborne and a bunch of guys as “Dead Feat.” A typical set list includes songs by Little Feat and the Grateful Dead, covers, and long jams.
The two groups have shared a common history, and legendary Dead manager Dennis McNally (who wrote what is likely the definitive band bio, A Long Strange Trip) is currently Feat’s publicist.
“Dead Feat is a lot of fun!” he says.
Gradney says he’s especially excited to come to Houston in May because he’s going to get to meet for the first time ever an uncle who is his father’s youngest brother and lives in town.
“My father’s from Raywood, Texas, which is just outside of Liberty. But most of them live in Houston,” he says, adding that his mother is from New Orleans where he was born.
The words “Liberty” and “Houston” have also come together in Little Feat history as the fabled Liberty Hall was the site of some of their earliest shows. A local stop that was made even more enticing by, um, the presence of a group who the band dubbed “The Houston Welcoming Committee.” A gaggle of young ladies who, er, made sure that the band had a really good time in the Bayou City.
They were even name checked in a couple of Little Feat songs: “Tripe Face Boogie” (“I was entertained in Houston”) and “Roll ‘Um Easy” (“And I never met girls who could sing so sweet/Like the angels that live in Houston”).
Gradney laughs at the mention of the HWC, and—like Payne in 2022—wonders if some of those members are still around.
Finally, while Little Feat is on the short of list of many rock critics’ most egregious snubs from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Gradney says it doesn’t really bother him that they aren’t enshrined in that glass pyramid in Cleveland.
“I don’t care. It’s not really part of the music industry. I mean, they put Dolly Parton in there! And think of all the people who are aren’t there besides us. And who have nothing to do with rock and roll. It’s ridiculous. But it wouldn’t change anything if we were in,” he sums up.
“You know, we’ve never won a Grammy and we’ve never had a hit record, but everybody comes to listen to us. I even saw Uma Thurman at one show. Just a head sticking up over a body—she’s tall!”
Little Feat plays Sunday, May 3, 8 p.m. at 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin. For more information, call 832-204-6920 or visit 713MusicHall.com. $48-$252.
For more on Little Feat, visit LittleFeat.net