Feats Don't Fail Me Now

Little Feat | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002KFB
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,359 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #60 in Music > Rock > Jam Bands > Rock Jam Bands
  • #99 in Music > Classic Rock > Southern Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

One of those bands that perfectly epitomized so many things about the 1970s, Little Feat created a strangely smooth and sexy pastiche of Southern-spiced blues-rock. Main man Lowell George's undulant slide guitar marked the group's early recordings. His vocals, meanwhile, were distinctive in the manner in which he toyed with vowels as if they were yo-yos, tossing them up and down, this way and that. The albums recorded prior to George's 1979 death reflected a jazz influence (albeit one that would grow more pronounced as his influence in the band waned). Being based in Los Angeles also gave them a certain patina they may have lacked if they had been based in, say, Memphis. Feats Don't Fail Me Now features visiting guests Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris and a collection of tight, wryly observant songs. Don't Fail Me's 1973 predecessor, Dixie Chicken, is generally seen as Little Feat's must-have outing, but this album, too, holds up a stunningly strong demonstration the appeal of the band's rock-blues-jazz hybrid. --Lorry Fleming

Product Description

180 gram pressing of 1974 album. Warner. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mount Everest of Feat, August 3, 2004

By 

Crampton Helms (Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Audio CD)

When the big toe died,he took the feats with him. This was their best studio work. The writing, the musicianship, and most importantly, the groove--it all came together right here on two inch tape in a way they could never quite repeat in the studio ever again. I have listened to this album at home and in my car over and over for last 30 years and have never tired of it. I have learned and performed every song on this album in my own band, and while I love every song he wrote, I also have silently cursed the genius of Lowell for making something so complex and deeply funky sound so easy. If you break these songs down, you're going to find the chord structure on every verse is slightly different, the slide playing is nothing short of virtuostic, and the bass lines Kenny lays down are jaw-dropping. This album is easy to put on at a party and talk over, but you are missing one of the great productions of the twentieth century if you don't study it a bit. If you don't know who these guys were, but want to find out, I would recommend you start right here.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sudden introduction, January 24, 2005

By 

K. E. Strayhorn Jr. "ken21756" (Chapel Hill, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Audio CD)

So I'm at this party in the winter of '74, typical college affair, and I was sitting in front of the stereo trying to decide what to play next. My then-GF, just back from visiting her folks in California, hands me an album from a stack of new stuff she'd brought back with her. Now, at this point I was pretty jaded on rock and had been listening to fusion and jazz. She was smart enough to realize that Weather Report would kill a party so she says "put this on to keep the vibe going" and it was Feats Don't Fail Me Now.

I was instantly hooked. What chops! Who are these guys! Remember, this was in the day of no Internet, no real underground college radio, no nothing. It was hard to hear new bands, and they were new to us on the East Coast.

What really caught my ear was "Skin It Back" with those odd rhythms and changes, and over all George's slinky slide playing. I ran out and bought "Dixie Chicken" the next day and those two albums stayed on my turntable for months, only surplanted when Steely Dan came on the scene to also blow me away. And whenever I think of the general excellence of music in the mid-70s, Little Feat and Steely Dan come to mind

So, Denise, if you read this - hope you are happy and life has treated you kindly. Thanks for turning me on to Little Feat. I hope I can continue the karma by turning someone else on to them.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars visionary dream/aduitory nightmare, July 25, 2001

By 

cholliet (Jacksonville, AR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feats Don't Fail Me Now (Audio CD)

First off, I have to say that I own this disc. I also own the old vinyl. The music in these grooves is nothing short of beautiful art. Lowell George created original, deep south, jukin' rhythms and harmonies that were often imitated but never duplicated. Unfortunately, Warner Bros has not seen fit to give this disc the audio treatment it deserves. The disc suffers from the usual 16-bit, wimpy, AM radio sound quality. Sure, it doesn't have the cracks and pops that appear on the worn vinyl but it also lacks the warmth of the vinyl. Therefore, I give the old vinyl record five stars and this disc gets three for artistic integrity. If WB ever gets on the ball and remasters this in 24-bit (or better yet, DTS at 96) I will surely run out and purchase yet another copy. If I were you, thinking about this as a next purchase, I would hold out until a re-release before buying. Buy something with better sound quality, like the Band remasters. Unfortunately, the sound quality on the entire LF catalogue suffers from the neglect of it's current curators.