Oil Well Bootlegs - RSC CD: Little Feat - Long Distance Love

Little Feat - Long Distance Love
Oil Well RSC 061

1 Skin It Back 5:37
2 Fat Man In The Bathtub 5:53
3 Walking All Night 4:22
4 Apolitical Blues 3:33
5 Oh Atlanta 4:32
6 On Your Way Down 6:29
7 Day Or Night 7:31
8 All That You Dream 4:39
9 Romance Dance 4:32
10 Long Distance Love 2:40
11 Cold Cold Cold 4:52
12 Bag Of Reds 4:01
13 Willin' 4:35
14 Teenage Nervous Breakdown 3:36
15 Spanish Moon 4:37

Note
All songs by Little Feat
~~Live in Los Angeles, California - October 31, 1974~~
Live at Orpheum Theatre, Hamilton Place in Boston, Massachusetts on October 31, 1975

Lineup
Bass – Kenny Gradney
Drums, Vocals – Richie Hayward
Guitar, Vocals – Lowell George, Paul Barrere
Keyboards, Vocals – Bill Payne
Percussion, Vocals – Sam Clayton

This album is a clone of: Little Feat – Bag Of Reds - Oh Boy – OH BOY 1-9076
This Oil Well version has a fine cover, fine quality.
Please note that track 12 is a medley: Bag Of Reds + Triple Face Boogie (reprise).
On the front cover Lowell George performing live during a concert in the 70s.

Limited to 200 copies only. Due to its rarity and good quality, this disc is recommended.
This bootleg is one of the rarest from this italian bootleg label; for years we had not any infos about.

Audio quality:

Quality content:

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Live at Orpheum Theatre, Hamilton Place in Boston, Massachusetts on October 31, 1975

This recording is a must-have for every Little Feat follower. This concert was broadcast live on WBCN Boston and taped on an 8 track recorder. The tour was in support of The Last Record Album disc, the last studio album produced by Lowell George. The band had just finished doing five consecutive nights at Paul's Mall (small Boston Club of the era) and this performace was recorded at the Orpheum Theatre (~2500 seats) on the night following that run. Perhaps the 5 previous nights help account for the band's over-the-top tightness and rhythmic pocket heard on this performance. This show was originally broadcast live on WBCN 104.1 FM in Boston.

There was at least one re-broadcast on WBCN about 6 months after the show.
This live set is one of the best sounding (but not perfect) radio sets of it's kind I've heard in a long while. The sound (I was told) is taken from the original master DAT radio tapes from a rebroadcast, and have been transferred with some care. Pristine? An audiophile's delight? No. But there are glitches (and possibly some splices) on this tape--so you've been warned. And the mix could be better in spots with some instruments--a relatively minor quibble. But the performances are just so good any glitches are of relatively small consequence if you're a Feat fan. There's some small talk between songs but nothing lengthy. Some may wish for just the music--to each his own on that. If memory serves me well part of this set was issued as a single disc, "Hellzapoppin'", on the All Access label a while back--if you own that album--check it out to be sure.

The tunes are from previous Little Feat albums with the added edge of a live recording. Many (if not most) fan's favorites are here, and are performed with that certain Little Feat sound and feel that made this band distinctive. Trying to talk about highlights is pretty useless--you're either a Little Feat fan or you're not. And if you're not a fan, you're missing some great music. The vocals are just right, and the musicianship is the usual great playing from this band. Nothing sounds hurried--the music just unfolds in that funky/rocky way Little Feat are well known for--listen to the rhythm section, and then the guitars--yes.

Little Feat a biography
Ranking among the most original and humorous innovators of roots-rock, Little Feat revisited blues, gospel, country, boogie, soul, funk, rhythm'n'blues and rock'n'roll on albums such as Sailin' Shoes (1972), Dixie Chicken (1973) and Feats Don't Fail Me Now (1974), and detailed them with bizarre instrumental parts. Little Feat left the avant-garde groups in Los Angeles but were successful in bringing up a new sound, which was an intelligent and ironical revision of roots-rock, in a period where rock was turning in the direction of tradition. Little Feat owned a very peculiar ability in mixing blues, country, soul, funk and rock that other bands would have exploited for personal gain, while this band preferred to preserve in an "alternative" form.

Their sound was distinguishable for their instrumental parts which were always original and bizarre, even if they weren’t lengthy jams. Little Feat were a bridge between the Band’s generation and the Doobie Brother’s one. Lowell George was the leader of Factory, a folk-rock band whose 1965 repertoire was later published in Lightning Rod Man (Bizarre, 1993) and then he had played with his former schoolmate Frank Zappa and with Standells. Little Feat formed in 1970 in Los Angeles and had Lowell George as the lead vocal and guitar player; Billy Payne was the keyboardist, Rich Hayward (formerly in Fraternity Of Man, a bizarre blues-rock formed by Elliot Ingber, who played for Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart) the drummer and Roy Estrada (ex Frank Zappa) the bass player.

Little Feat (Warner, 1971), was still linked to the standards of 1960s "blues revival" (Truck Stop Girl, the lenghty Fortyfour Blues). Hamburger Midnight, Snakes And Everything and the country-psychedelic ballad Willin' (their first classic) anticipated the unpredictable sound later displayed in their albums. Sailin’ Shoes (Warner, 1972) highlighted the musical characters of George and Payne. The first one wrote the massive part of their material, with a peculiar use of his slide guitar, while the latter introduced gospel, soul and jazz elements in these songs. Their unconventional creativity handles their songs always in a different way. Together with rural , relaxing and cadenced songs like Willin’ and the psychedelic blues of Cold Cold Cold, other songs like Triple Face Boogie and Teenage Nervous Breakdown displayed a brilliant, nearly ferocious, nervousness, while grotesque surrealism is the main feature of both Apolitical Blues and the crazy blues of Sailin’ Shoes. This album is an excellent mixture of gospel, soul, blues, boogie, country and rock and eventually it’s very unitary in and for his mad eclecticism.

Because of its commercial flop, Estrada left the band. A tougher line-up recorded Dixie Chicken (Warner, 1973), who was influenced by New Orleans rhythm & blues, and remains their best and most articulate effort. George and Payne were in their artistic zenith and the band, now a sextet, filled and fulfilled the rest. Kiss It Off, a strange combinations of congas and synthesizers, the instrumental LaFayette Railroad, the syncopated rag of Dixie Chicken, the funny Fat Man In The Bathtub are the best continuations of Sailin’ Shoes’ non-sense while Two Trains is the classic. Little Feat’s form is clear in the fluid and elegant Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Warner, 1974) where Payne was clearly beginning to take the control and his funkier sound improved their commercial strength. Skin It Back, Rock And Roll Doctor, Oh Atlanta, the frenetic gospel of Feats seemed too sophisticated for an hippie band like them. A rearranged Triple Face Boogie, for congas and organ, is the logorrheic medley which consecrates the leader’s neurosis.

The Last Record Album and tour
From the following album on, George was gradually marginalized by Payne and Paul Barrere, their new guitar player. George’s contribution is still evident in The Last Record Album (Warner, 1975) where he wrote the excellent Down Below The Borderline e Long Distance Love even if the most successful songs were Day Or Night e All That You Dream; Time Loves A Hero (Warner, 1977) featured a more intense use of electronic keyboards (Old Folks Boogie), while the sound was more similar to jazz-rock. Their last album Down On the Farm is paradoxically dominated by George (Kokomo, Six Feet Of Snow, Be One Now). This album was released after Little Feat was disbanded by George himself in April, 1979.

Before his premature death (caused by an heart attack in June of 1979), Lowell George succeeded in recording one more album, as a soloist: Thank I’ll Eat Here (Warner, 1979) where he excessively trusted the strength of songs written by others. Barrere and Payne reformed Little Feat with new singer Craig Fuller to record Let It Roll (Warner, 1988), that spawned the hit single Let It Roll, a frenzied disco dance. But Representing The Mambo (Warner, 1990), Shake Me Up (Warner, 1991), and Ain't Had Enough Fun (Warner, 1995) are mediocre attempts at reviving the legend.
Waiting for Columbus and As Time Goes By are Little Feat anthologies.