Legendary Little Feat at The Box tonight
BY LAURA RASKIN INDEPENDENT ARTS WRITER

Little Feat appears tonight at the Chicken Box. The band has been in its current configuration since its last member came on board in 1993.

Fred Tackett relaxed at home during a rare moment of peace from the road and rock ’n roll and watched as a trolley drove by his house in the preserved Victorian tourist town of Eureka Springs, Ark.

He rattled off the pains of being itinerant in a telephone interview: It is a dollhouse-like existence on a bus. It beats flying, but it means endless hours of transporting sleep — going to bed in one state and waking up in another. It means waiting for the crew that travels with you to break down sets after shows, making departure time 6 a.m. It means traveling 120 days a year that ooze out and feel like 365. It means seeing family less.

For Tackett, a member of the original jam band Little Feat, it can get old. It is old, but for Little Feat and other stalwarts like the Rolling Stones, now on tour, it appears to provide sustenance from the fountain of youth. Tackett has been with Little Feat since 1988 but has lived the life and known most of the members since he was 21.

“Traveling is what you have to go through to play for a couple hours. It sounds cliché, but it really is fun to play. It’s part of our souls now,” said Tackett, who lends his voice, guitar, mandolin and trumpet to the act.

The seven-person Little Feat has been in its current configuration since its last member came on board in 1993. Richie Hayward and Bill Payne have the most institutional memory, having been with the band since its inception in 1969. Little Feat plays at the Chicken Box tonight, Aug. 31.

"It's a real vampire kind of life," said Tackett, in a cheerful southern chirp. He grew up in Arkansas and Louisiana.

Truly American music, Little Feat is a mix of rock, Dixie, boogie, country, folk and blues. American music, as welded, soddered and fused as it has become, is in fine shape, said Tackett. The only problem is the labels it incurs. “That's one of the great things Lowell George could do. He could listen to old folk wave records of African tribes [and] chants. Lowell would say, 'Listen, that’s Howlin’ Wolf!' It’s all just notes put together in time and space," said Tackett.

Songwriter, performer, but best known for his slide guitar playing, George founded Little Feat in 1969 on the suggestion of his former Mothers of Invention bandleader Frank Zappa. The initial line-up recorded the band’s first two LPs, including 1971's selftitled debut.

George died of a heart attack on July 28, 1979 after playing a successful show at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Although he was a long time drug user, the policeman who attended the scene of George's death reportedly found no evidence of drug paraphernalia or of drugs having been removed from the scene.

A general unhealthy lifestyle seemed to have caught up with him. Tackett was not a part of Little Feat at the time, but he was best friends with George and was traveling with him the night he died. Lisner Auditorium was a favorite haunt.

At the time, Tackett was a songwriter and session musician, working on the albums of Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown and Bob Dylan. The devastation of Lowell's death meant the end of the band.

"Everybody was just shattered. It came to a grinding halt," said Tackett.

But they had a good and natural transition back after an eight-year break. Original members Payne and Paul Barrere were working on a song called "Hate to Lose Your Lovin'" and it took off from there.

"Payne had a voice that was similar to Lowell's," said Tackett, "the same timbre. He could do Lowell's style."

Tackett reported that most of the band's current fans do not remember the first half of their career.

Carrying on George's acceptance of musical influence, the band listens to funk, hip-hop, rap and African music.

“A lot of jazz, a lot of Miles Davis, Primus, Les Claypool, Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise. The Brian Wilson album ‘Smile,’ ” Tackett rambled on. “Everybody's got iPods now, so it’s wild. “Blonde on Blonde,” he said, adding Dylan to the list.

Tackett was a musician at age five, playing the trumpet like his father and brother. "When Elvis came along, I grabbed guitar and drums," he said. He played in high school bands and shady clubs on the outskirts of Little Rock where he was born. He met local legends like Levon Helm of the Band. Eventually Tackett ended up in Los Angeles where he met George, who was playing the sitar at the time, a student of Ravi Shankar. "1967, the summer of love," said Tackett, recalling a big house in the small town atmosphere of Hollywood. “It was like reality television.”

“He was like a sweetheart,” said Tackett of his friend George, an “amazingly great musician.”

“We’d sit around and listen to Indian music all the time. Indian vocal music was his main influence. We partied very hard in the seventies, made a lot of great music. He was my best friend until the day he died.”

Little Feat has not been to the island that Tackett can recall. The band has a song list of 150 and is not featuring a particular album. They do have a new record called “Barnstorming, Vol. I” and they have been enjoying the artistic freedom of their own label, he said. “Barnstorming” is a compilation album, “special nights when things were just right and the magic happened.”

Tonight might be another one.

Little Feat appears tonight, Aug. 31, at the Chicken Box, 14 Dave St.

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