Little Feat - Waiting For Columbus

To my mind, the litmus test of a band’s musical ability is their live performance. The truly great groups have a synergy that is formed when the collective efforts of the musicians coalesce to create the special sound that gives the group its identity, and brings to fruition the musical vision of the members, (or, in some cases, their leader’s vision). If we are to apply this principle as a guideline to the many hundreds of live recordings that have been released over the years, it would be my respectful submission that “Waiting For Columbus” by Little Feat should be considered summa cum laude in that respect. 

Little Feat was a wonderful American band from the Los Angeles area who, in their first incarnation, lasted about ten years (1969 - 1979). Their classic lineup was a sextet; original members Lowell George (guitar, lead vocals), Bill Payne (keyboards, vocals) and Richie Hayward (drums) and newer members Paul Barrere (guitar, vocals), Kenny Gradney (bass) and Sam Clayton (perscussion). The double live recording “Waiting For Columbus” was the band’s seventh release, their last complete recording as a band, and ironically, their best selling album (although “Down On The Farm”, the album released after “Waiting For Columbus”, was technically the last Little Feat recording, Lowell George left and the group formally disbanded partially through the recording process. Tragically, two weeks later, Lowell George was dead). 

According to Little Feat’s website, the title for their live recording, was taken from the name of the painting that graced the album’s cover. Neon Park, the artist who had created it, had decided to call the work he created  “Waiting For Columbus”. Apparently his reasoning for doing so was that Christopher Columbus had discovered the tomato when he discovered the Americas, and the “hot tomato” in the hammock was waiting, (like an aspiring Hollywood starlet) to be “discovered”.    

Little Feat had struggled mightily for some years to become more than a critics’ favourite or cult status group. They had commenced a slow but steady upwards trajectory after the release of “Dixie Chicken” (their third album), and had earned an enviable reputation as a solid live act. However, in a situation all too familiar to the music business, tensions were building. The leader Lowell George had a vision of the group’s musical styling, which was based on a strong mixture of Southern R&B, but with more than just standard blues changes. The songs had a gritty, funky feel, but with well thought out melodies and harmonic structures. They also had great hooks and changes, coupled with a killer grooves. The lyrics in the songs that Lowell George wrote featured his sardonic wit, and quite often dealt in a humorous fashion with the ups and downs of the male/female relationship. Lowell George had served an apprenticeship in Frank Zappa’s “Mother of Invention” prior to launching his own career, which may account for this offbeat sense of humour. The band also had two other very good song writers in the band, (Bill Payne and Paul Barrere), and unfortunately, Little Feat was not going to be able to accommodate them all. According to an interview with Lowell George shortly before his death, he felt Bill Payne was becoming too enamoured of the jazz-rock fusion of the day, and was writing in that genre, which was not at all Lowell’s cup of tea. To be fair, some of the tension over song-writing also had to do with Lowell George having gradually becoming more distant from the group, and the other members needing to come up with material for their records. In hindsight, it may have been that Little Feat had run is course, and that they needed a break. But when Lowell George came up with the idea of recording a live record, everyone in the band agreed it was great idea, and they all pitched in to make it happen. 

By this time, Little Feat had many years of great material to work with, so there was no shortage of songs to choose from. The decision to record was made prior to the performances, so the band picked two different venues; the Rainbow Theatre in London England, and the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C. Seven nights in total were recored during August of 1977, and in anticipation of the project, a decision was made to add the horn section from Tower of Power. In hindsight, this turned out to be a stroke of genius. Recording engineer Warren Dewey was hired for the project, and has since said that being such a great band, Little Feat were easy to record. In the production stage, (post recording), there were some sonic imperfections that were cleaned up and overdubbed, but according to Warren Dewey, the band, and in particular Lowell George, resisted any efforts to polish up the product. Other than really obvious flaws, they stuck to what was done.

I should mention at this point that “Waiting For Columbus” has gone through some variations over the years. Originally, it was released as a double vinyl album. That meant that there were a number of songs that were good enough to be included, but due to the limitations of available space, were left off the record. When Warner Brothers began to transfer Little Feat’s catalogue to compact disc, a decision was made to reissue “Waiting For Columbus” on a single disc, which meant that some songs from the original release had to be excluded. However, the good folks at Rhino released a deluxe edition double compact disc version of “Waiting For Columbus” in 2002. This version contains all of the material from the original twin album version, as well as  previously unreleased outtakes, and outtakes that had been previously issued on another Little Feat compilation. 

“Waiting For Columbus” has been recognized as one of the great live albums of all time, making several “best of” lists (including a very good and recommended review in allaboutjazz.com (https://www.allaboutjazz.com/little-feat-waiting-for-columbus-by-c-michael-bailey.php).  As I previously indicated, there are several versions available, but in this writer’s humble opinion, the Rhino reissue is the ne plus ultra version. While all of the songs are great, two of the tracks that I’m particularly fond of are “Mercenary Territory” on disc one, and “Cold, Cold, Cold” on disc two. “Mercenary Territory” features tremendous ensemble playing, and a sax solo from Lenny Pickett that goes into full face-melt mode. On “Cold, Cold, Cold” we get to hear just how funky this band could play, and just what a great vocalist Lowell George was. Interestingly, the band reformed in 1987, and continues to perform to this day.

It is always presumptuous to declare any recording of music a “desert island” disc, but this one I would certainly take with me if I had a finite list. If you haven’t heard “Waiting For Columbus”, please do yourself a favour and have a listen.