Little Feat, Miko Marks

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Hank Randall

A six-piece band on stage.

Little Feat

Little Feat has been cooking its musical gumbo of rock, blues, boogie, country and jazz for more than 50 years — and, by our count, it’s been more than a decade since the band last set foot in Madison. When they do this time, Little Feat will perform its 1978 live album, Waiting for Columbus, in its entirety. Led by 73-year-old co-founder Bill Payne on keyboards and vocals, Little Feat also includes three longtime members and a pair of relative newcomers. The band hasn’t released a studio album since Rooster Rag in 2012, but this is a tight unit intent on carrying the band’s legacy forward. Country-Americana singer Miko Marks opens.

media release: This is a General Admission – All Seated Show

Tickets: $65.00 Advance/$70.00 Day Of Show; Gold Circle: $85.00 Advance/$90.00 Day Of Show

Making a truly great live rock and roll album is an enormous challenge, so difficult that they are a rarity. Waiting for Columbus is a consensus member of that very exclusive club. After two years of Covid-enforced silence, Little Feat has big plans for its return to the stage. Hard on the heels of their November “By Request” tour, the band’s March-April 2022 tour will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the legendary Waiting for Columbus, replicating the album at every stop. Little Feat is the classic example of a fusion of many styles and musical genres made into something utterly distinctive. Their musicianship transcends boundaries, uniting California rock, funk, folk, jazz, country, rockabilly, and New Orleans swamp boogie into a rich gumbo, that has been leading people in joyful dance ever since. It began in 1969 when Frank Zappa was smart enough to fire Lowell George from the Mothers of Invention and tell him to go start a band of his own. Soon after, Lowell connected with Bill Payne, which stirred up sparks. They then found drummer Richie Hayward. They were quickly signed by Warner Bros. and began working on the first of 12 albums with that venerable company. The first album, Little Feat, featured the instant-classic tune “Willin’,” and the follow-up Sailin’ Shoes added “Easy to Slip,” “Trouble,” “Tripe Face Boogie,” “Cold Cold Cold” and the title track to their repertoire. Paul Barrére, Kenny Gradney (bass), and Sam Clayton (percussion), joined up, and the latter two remain rock-solid members of Little Feat’s rhythm section. 1973’s Dixie Chicken gave them the title track and “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” as good a blues as any rock band has ever written. Their career to that point was summed up with the live Waiting for Columbus, truly one of the best live albums rock has ever heard. Fifty years on the road cost them Lowell George, then Richie Hayward and Paul Barrére, but the music has carried them forward. Little Feat in 2021 is: Bill Payne, Keyboards and Vocals; Sam Clayton, Percussion and Vocals; Fred Tackett, Guitars and Vocals, Kenny Gradney, Bass; Scott Sharrard, Guitars and Vocals; and Tony Leone, drums. Fifty years on, they’ve been up and they’ve been down and they know where they belong—standing or sitting behind their instruments, playing for you. And anything’s possible, because the end is not in sight.