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As Time Goes By: Best Of Little Feat

Little Feat - As Time Goes By: Best Of Little Feat Audio CD

A fair review of the Little Feat "As Time Goes By: Best Of Little Feat" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Little Feat reviews here, or go back to the Little Feat tabs.

Band: Little Feat
Title: As Time Goes By: Best Of Little Feat
Rating:

Release Date: 1999-05-31
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Dixie Chicken 2: Willin' 3: Rock 'N' Roll Doctor 4: Two Trains 5: Truck Stop Girl 6: Fat Man in the Bathtub 7: Trouble 8: Sailin' Shoes 9: Spanish Moon 10: Feats Don't Fail Me Now 11: Oh, Atlanta 12: All That You Dream 13: Long Distance Love 14: Mercenary Territory 15: Rocket in My Pocket 16: Texas Twister 17: Let It Roll 18: Hate to Lose Your Lovin' 19: Old Folks' Boogie 20: 20 Million Things

Good Selection, Horrible Recording
I went shopping for a representative "Best of" CD and the other collections available, I feel, have poor selections and don't represent the group's best tunes at all. I have most of Little Feat on vinyl records and enjoy the group tremendously. This disk has many of the selections I wanted, so I ordered it. Unfortunately, the sound quality of the remastered CD is so bad that I don't find it enjoyable at all, in fact it's distracting and unpleasant because I know what the songs SHOULD sound like. Digital recordings are generally regarded as higher fidelity than vinyl but on this particular one, the original vinyl recordings are much more detailed and rewarding. The sound quality is muddy and what's more, the mixing is very poor, with instruments overwhelming the vocals and not at all comparable to the original recordings. In the final word, unfortunately there are no collections of Little Feat that properly represent the group; the only alternative is to purchase two or three separate CDs which include the songs you like most--for me these are "Feats Don't Fail Me Now," "Time Loves a Hero" and probably "Dixie Chicken. " My money was wasted on this "Best of. " When purchasing 70's-vintage analog to digital recordings I expect some loss of fidelity and have no problem living with it. However this one is so bad that the tunes are barely recognizable.

Little Feat Import
Also, there are not any live versions on this CD, only the original studio versions. This CD has several good songs not found on the "Best of Little Feat" CD. However, when comparing the sound quality, I find the "Best of" has markedly better dynamic range than this import.

MORE REPRESENTATIVE THAN 'THE BEST OF LITTLE FEAT' COMPILATION
I have 10 LF albums featuring each of their lead vocalists : Lowell George (7), Craig Fuller (1) and Shaun Murphy (2). I am, by no means, a LF completist but I do like a lot of their music. I also have this compilation - it was bought for me by someone who didn't realize that I already had most of the tracks.

I suppose this album, like many compilations, is aimed at people who like the artist in question but have never actually got round to buying the original albums. If this is you, and you are reluctant to 'fork out' for most of LF's back-catalogue, then you could do far worse than buying this album. Also, it is an excellent introduction to the band's early work for those who might only be familiar with LF's output from the 1980s onwards. 'As Time Goes By' is also available as a 12 track re-mastered version (same album cover) and other compilations are available - the more recent The Best of Little Feat being the one most likely to attract your attention (but more about this later).

The album contains 16 tracks from the band's first 6 studio albums (all Lowell George), 1 track from Lowell's solo album ('Thanks I'll Eat It Here') and 3 tracks from 'Let It Roll'/'Representing The Mambo' (Craig Fuller). There are no tracks from 'Down On The Farm' (which doesn't surprise me because, along with 'Representing The Mambo', this has to be one of LF's weaker efforts). There are no tracks from later albums featuring Shaun Murphy as lead vocalist, and there no 'live' tracks either.

There are a few serious omissions : 'Cold, Cold, Cold/Tripe Face Boogie', 'Roll Um Easy', and 'Fool Yourself' - these are all on 'The Best Of' compilation but 'Cold/Tripe' has had about 3 minutes edited out. Unfortunately, 'The Best Of' has even more significant omissions : 'Rock n Roll Doctor' and 'Feats Don't Fail Me Now' (can you believe it ?), also : 'Two Trains', 'Trouble', 'Sailin' Shoes', 'Spanish Moon', 'Long Distance Love' and 'Mercenary Territory'. Both compilations exclude a few classic numbers - 'Skin It Back' and 'Juliette' spring to mind immediately.

So, which compilation should you buy ? Without hesitation, I'd say go for 'As Time Goes By' - it's far more representative of the band's early music, you get 3 more tracks, it is slightly cheaper (at the time of writing) and the sound quality is reasonable. You might want to buy both compilations - it's an option if the duplication of 6 tracks doesn't bother you - better still, buy 'Sailin' Shoes', 'Dixie Chicken' and 'Feats Don't Fail Me Now'! I'd forget about the 12 track version of 'As Time Goes By' - I've heard a few tracks and the re-mastering didn't seem to make much difference (maybe I chose the wrong tracks). .

Pre-MP3 days
This would be VERY high on my list. In the pre-MP3 days, there was the game of choosing the one album you would want if stranded on a deserted island.

shock announcement -- little feat not "southern rock"
Let's see. The editorial review calls Little Feat a "Southern rock" band. . . Lowell George's father was a furrier from Hollywood, CA and Lowell was an LA kid who grew up around actors and artists, not rednecks. Before Little Feat, Lowell played in a California garage psychedelic band and then with Frank Zappa. Zappa's musical eclecticism and the surreal psychedelic blues of Zappa's friend Captain Beefheart are important influences on Lowell's music. Then we have Roy Estrada, a former Mother of Invention, Little Feat's original bass player. So out of the original 4 members of Little Feat, two are LA musicians & former Frank Zappa band members. How's that "Southern rock"? Bill Payne was from Texas, but the band was based in LA, and the feel is very experimental, psychedelic and sophisticated.

The "Southern rock" label is applied by superficial listeners because of Little Feat's funky rhythmic feel and the fact that Lowell played slide guitar. But Lowell's playing, while influenced by Delta blues, is much more musically advanced than most Southern rock, it is jazzy, subtle and experimental. If Duane Allman was influenced by Coltrane's extended linear solos, Lowell was more of a Thelonious Monk, exploring fractured rhythms and dreamlike, otherworldly harmonic textures. listen to Sailing Shoes or Trouble. These songs stop and start, then collapse and flow like melting honey. Lowell's slide playing was all about ornamental texture and atmosphere, he mostly played behind and around his vocal lines creating rich sound shadings to emphasize and enhance the emotional expression of the lyrics with tone colors. Check the slide on "Got No Shadow" -- for would-be slide players like myself, this is a master-class in how to extract a molecular explosion of tone from a few sustained notes. Lowell's lyrics, are closer to people like Dylan than Skynyrd. "Lady in a turban and a Cocaine Tree," "The footprints on your ceiling they're almost gone".

OK, I'm done, case closed. Listen to Lowell, he's the doctor.

.

You can see a complete list of all Little Feat discography, or go back to the Little Feat tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.