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| Little Feat Throws a Party With New "Join The Band" Forty years into an iconic career that has produced dozens of wonderful songs and a host of admiring musical peers, Little Feat has united the two with a new release, "Join The Band, " that features some of their classic tunes - "Fat Man in the Bathtub, " "Dixie Chicken, " "Sailing Shoes, " "Oh, Atlanta" - re-recorded with creative friends like Dave Matthews and Jimmy Buffett among many others, as well as new material like Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." A distinctive and eclectic blend of rock, funk, folk, jazz, country, rockabilly, and New Orleans swamp boogie, Little Feat's musical style was forged when Lowell George was fired from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and told to form his own band. Bill Payne, Richie Hayward and Roy Estrada joined with him to create Little Feat, a band that would continue recording, touring and transcending musical boundaries long after the tragic and premature death of its founder. "LITTLE FEAT: JOIN THE BAND" is in stores August 26th on 429 Records (Savoy Label Group). "JOIN THE BAND" was an idea born in 2004 just after original Little Feat keyboardist Billy Payne had played on Jimmy Buffett's chart topping album, "License to Chill." Jimmy suggested flying the band out to his Shrimp Boat Sound studios in Key West to put together the all star project that had been planned for years prior. With the production team of Payne and Buffett associates Mac McAnally and Alan Schulman in place, the project began to take shape. Just as it was impossible to easily categorize the sound of Little Feat, "JOIN THE BAND" is a true collaboration amongst stellar talents - the current members of Little Feat, including Billy Payne ( keyboards), Richie Hayward (drums), Paul Barrere (guitar), Sam Clayton (Percussion), Kenny Gradney (bass), Fred Tackett (guitar) and Shaun Murphy (vocals), would often provide backup on songs sending tracks to artists giving them full reign over their contribution. Some songs such as Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" feature Little Feat members on vocals with guest artists Mike Gordon from Phish laying down the bass. The resulting confluence of Feat, Phish, Guthrie, blues folk and gospel creates a musical gem unique to the spirit of "JOIN THE BAND." Little Feat will be on tour throughout the Summer and Fall of 2008 - dates TBA. 429 Records is a unit of the Savoy Label Group (SLG). SLG is the North American unit of CME (Columbia Music Entertainment), the oldest music company in Japan. The Savoy Label Group has evolved into a leading independent company in the adult music genres consistently outperforming competitors in key music categories as monitored by Billboard Magazine. SLG is lead by Steve Vining and CME is headed by Chairman Strauss Zelnick, founder of Zelnick Media which owns interests in and manages an array of media companies. Little Feat is: Paul Barrere guitars, vocals Sam Clayton percussion, vocals Kenny Gradney bass Richie Hayward drums, vocals Shaun Murphy vocals, tamborine Fred Tackett guitars, mandolin, trumpet, vocals Bill Payne keyboards, vocals write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Jazz News :: home page |