ALBUM REVIEW: Blues Flavors the Brew on Little Feat’s First Studio Album in 12 Years

The feet are the same, but there’s a new voice above them. For Sam’s Place, Little Feat’s first studio album in 12 years, they bring conga player Sam Clayton to the mic for the whole session. Clayton has been in the background for most of Feat’s career, one of the trio (along with bassist Kenny Gradney and guitarist Paul Barrere) asked to join the band after Feat’s first eponymous effort was released in 1971. Founder Lowell George’s laconic languid moans presided over the aggregation until his untimely death in 1979, which broke up the band for eight years. The group re-banded and hit the road again in 1988, and have been there ever since, though the lineups have changed.

These days, Little Feat is Fred Tackett on guitar and vocals, Scott Sharrard on vocals and slide, Bill Payne (the only remaining original member) on keys and vocals, Kenny Gradney on bass and vocals, and Tony Leone on drums and vocals. And, of course, Clayton, waiting patiently in the background for his chance to be heard over the pounding of his congas.

Little Feat, from left, Bill Payne, Kenny Gradney, Fred Tackett, Scott Sharrard, Sam Clayton, and Tony Leone (photo by Fletcher Moore)

Finally let loose on the mic, Clayton is a natural, a growler of the first degree of low-downness. He sounds like Redd Foxx in his Fred Sanford persona, but this is no joke. His gravel-garglin’ vocals fit this stuff perfectly. Although the rest of the record is covers of songs by blues notables including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Little Walter, along with swamp pop legend Bobby Charles, Clayton’s original composition “Milkman,” a co-write with guitarists Sharrard and Tackett, sounds like it came from the same bluesyard.

Sam’s Place is Feat’s first album to be labeled all blues. But just like everything else the band has ever put out, it’s not all anything. You can put virtually any Feat song on a blues stage and tear the house down with it. There’s plenty of juke-joint bump and grind and flat-footed pounding going on, but there’s other stuff sneaking in at every bend and wiggle in the music. And you’ve got Feat’s patented sneaky syncopation running through it all, a knee-bending strut that makes it jump and shimmy.

They get considerable help from the twin horn section, Marc Franklin on trumpet and Art Edmaiston on sax, borrowed from the Gregg Allman Band.

Sharrard tries to wring all the juice out of his fretboard, sliding around like a chunk of butter on a hot griddle on Willie Dixon’s “You’ll Be Mine,” with Payne raising hell on the same piano Jerry Lee Lewis whacked out his hits on at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, where Sam’s Place was recorded.

Swamp pop pioneer Charles (“Walking to New Orleans, I Ain’t Got No Home,”) gets proudly represented on “Why People Like That.” Here Feat gives everybody in the band a shot at slinking around, and they second line all over the joint, Payne channeling a fiery burst of Professor Longhair and Clayton sounding like Dr. John in a gargle-off with Foxx.

Bonnie Raitt steps in for Waters on “Long Distance Call.” You can’t really call it a duet: Clayton tries to get a word or two in during her vocal but seems to quickly realize he’s outclassed and drops out to let her sultry moan carry the tune. Raitt gets him back on the outro, jumping in over his vocal to git ‘er done.

And if there are any doubts about how this stuff will go over, the crowd reaction to the live version of “Got My Mojo Working” that closes the album oughta push ’em away. Whatever you want to call it, when it’s in the hands of Little Feat, this project has legs.

Little Feat’s Sam’s Place is out May 17 on Hot Tomato Productions/MRI.