Topic: If you'll be my Dixie Chicken...
..I'll be your Tennessee lamb.
Right then, the truly legendary, unique Little Feat!
(I agree with you Andre, I also lost touch and interest after Lowell's death.)
Somewhere in late '72, during my second year at university in rural England, my neighbor kept playing an LP over and over, so loud that I picked up enough bits through the wall to become intrigued. He eventually lent me 'Sailin' Shoes' for a couple of days, after which I was as hooked as he was and started telling all of my friends who would listen about this wonderful 'discovery' - very much the same process I've been through with Joe these last four months or so. 
Almost all of my Deadhead friends were as enthusiastic as I was, and so a small but very fanatical group of Feat Freaks came into being. We waited with feverish anticipation for the next album due in the spring of '73, which turned out to be the awesome, legendary (sorry, there is no other word) 'Dixie Chicken', one of the very finest works of music ever, in my humble opinion.
That summer my father brought me their first album from the US, the 'blue cover'. (The LP was not available in England and incredibly, only sold around 11,000 copies.) If anything, that one blew me away even more! Although I faithfully bought and enjoyed all their subsequent LPs till Lowell died, none could remotely equal the power, grandeur, humor and controlled weirdness of the first three. The innovative Neon Park album covers also stood out a mile.
There were so many almost incestuous connections with other bands or musicians who were also important to me.
- Lowell had started out with Zappa in the Mothers. (From Wikipedia) -
There are three legends about the genesis of Little Feat. One has it that George showed Frank Zappa his song "Willin'", and that Zappa fired him from The Mothers, because he felt that George was too talented to merely be a member of his band, and told him he ought to go away and form his own band. The second version has Zappa firing him for playing a 15 minute guitar solo - with his amplifier off. The third version says that Zappa fired him because "Willin'" contains drug references ("weed, whites and wine"). Ironically, when "Willin'" was recorded for the first, eponymous Little Feat album, George had hurt his hand and could not play the song's slide part, so Ry Cooder sat in and played the part. This was one reason why "Willin'" was re-recorded and included on their second album Sailin' Shoes. Sailin' Shoes was also the first Little Feat album to include cover art by Neon Park, who had painted the cover for Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
- Roy Estrada, who played bass on the blue album, joined one of my other all-time favorites, Captain Beefheart.
- Bonnie did background vocals on 'Dixie Chicken'. 
- Bonnie and Emmylou did background vocals on 'Feats don't fail me now'.
- (From Wikipedia) - Some of the prominent musicians and bands to play and record the music of Little Feat include The Black Crowes, The Byrds, Garth Brooks, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Nicolette Larson, Randy Newman, Robert Palmer, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, John Sebastian, Carly Simon, Van Halen, Joe Walsh, Phish, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh.
That'll do for starters. It took another two years after becoming a fanatical Feat Freak before I was able to see them live, but boy, was that wait ever worth it! I shall try to do justice to my first live Feat experience in another post. For now, I'll just let you in on the secret that Little Feat at the Rainbow Theatre, London in 1975 remains to this day the most awesome, stupendous and emotional concert of all the gigs I have ever been to.
Rock On and keep the Faith
That's the info I like because as I said elsewhere here, I wasn't all that into Feat...thanx for the thread.
