Sooner or later, everyone returns home to the blues. Back to the nourishing headwaters. Back atop the foundational bedrock. Back to speaking the mother tongue, 12 bars at a clip.
Sam’s Place is Little Feat’s homecoming. An honest-to-goodness, bottleneck-fired, piano-pummeled, harmonica-ventilated kind of got-my-mojo-workin’ homecoming. It arrives as the first new studio album in 12 years. And, of the 30some other studio and live albums accrued since their 1969 inception, this also is the bluest Feat on record. An actual blues record, at last. Well, they say, time loves a hero.
Not that Little Feat—originally pulled together by the late Lowell George, after splintering off Frank Zappa’s absurdist Mothers of Invention—are novices to the blues in any possible way. Their 1971 debut LP, Little Feat, called upon the mighty Howlin’ Wolf’s “Forty-Four Blues/How Many More Years” to send the strong, clear message that blues were on the band’s mind when formulating their own identity sound, a monogrammed synthesis of styles. That statement was hard to miss: One lone cover, unmistakably blue, among a field of originals. As the creative wheels of invention continued chugging and the stream of albums kept flowing, blues in their own design started cropping up shortly thereafter and promptly serving as pillars of onstage setlists. “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” tunefully surging in waves, and "Old Folks Boogie” remain among those perennials.
Here, though, the L.A. band takes on a major Chicago mindset. Sam’s Place represents a full dive into the deep end of the blues pool, waters patrolled by the city’s as well as genre’s godheads like Muddy Waters, Little Walter, and the previously mentioned Wolf. Yet all done without spoiling Little Feat’s own signature sense of groove, one of rock’s most elastic and user-friendly.
Vocally, the stars nicely aligned for this all-out blues session, given that the ideal delivery system for such grabs the microphone: percussionist Sam Clayton. Clayton, part of the classic 1972 lineup, has been there ever since Dixie Chicken. So has keyboardist/charter member Bill Payne and bassist Kenny Gradney. But this is Clayton’s first on lead vocals for an entire album. Hence, Sam’s Place.
A natural coupling occurs between the jagged serrations in his voice and leading the stampede that is Wolf’s “You’ll Be Mine” and, after that, the stampede that is Muddy’s “Don’t Go No Further.” But that back-alley rumble really does the trick when the blues are at their raunchiest. Such as “Can’t Be Satisfied.” Although playfully yo-yoing on pristine swells of slide guitar (albumwise, Scott Sharrard is either shaking a bottleneck across the strings or bending them to launch moonshots), a combination travel invitation/threat of violence gets issued. Payne’s saloon piano ripples constantly. Or, raunchier yet, when talk of sex gets translated into innuendo, laid bare when reading in between the lines. Enter “Milkman,” a case of form following function; namely, rhythmically slinking around in the moonlight, offering midnight ‘services’ (wink, wink). It’s a new original, jacketed by horns, that works in the same carnal camp as, say, “I’m a King Bee,” “Crawling Kingsnake” or “Back Door Man.”
“Mellow Down Easy”? Yeah, right. Fat chance of that. Little Walter’s 1954 shaker does anything but honor its title. Instead, doubling as a dogfight between guitar and harp. It clocks in as a four-minute-and-forty-five-second blowout. “Last Night,” another pluck from the iconic harpist’s playbook, does move at a slow, deliberate pace, scanning for an emotional out from the aching lonesomeness brought on by loss. Alas, no exit is lyrically found, leaving Clayton to rely upon that harp, then the guitar, then piano to take extended turns at exorcising sorrowful demons. The so-cool-yet-hot organ, however, commiserates throughout.
“Long Distance Call” does stand apart. Working off of the 1964 acoustic blueprint gracing Folk Singer (rather than the 1951 electric single) means drawing in everyone breathtakingly close. The performance purposefully oozes. Whenever trading lines with Clayton, Bonnie Raitt’s guest vocals float through like smoke rings. A resonator guitar’s metallic zing versus the loitering snare drum and wheezy harmonica stretch the mix’s depth. The sound glows.
And to certify the extent of this spunky homecoming, “Got My Mojo Working,” Muddy’s vibrating anthem, indeed races through as a live, seven-man heave, complete with gang-shouted refrain. So, is Little Feat—forever indestructible, forever touring, forever fun—up for turning 100% blue in order to take a crack at a stack of favored songs that likely spun on their turntables? Oh, yeah. They’re more than … willin.’
Label: Hot Tomato
Release Date: 5/17/24
Artist Website: littlefeat.net
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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