Article Contributed by Alan Sheckter
Published on 2026-08-15
Little Feat - The Center For the Arts | Grass Valley, CA | August 11th, 2026 - photos by Alan Sheckter
Little Feat, a band of historical distinction and devoted following, flourished on all cylinders in Grass Valley on Aug. 11, delivering a compelling, energized array of New Orleans swamp boogie and funky/bluesy rock ‘n’ roll. The performance was enriched by a bevy of individual skills brought together by cohesion gained by maturity and collective synchronicity.
Fifty-seven years after keyboardist Bill Payne joined Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention alumni Lowell George and Roy Estrada, along with Richie Hayward, to form Little Feat, the band’s Last Farewell Tour rolled through Grass Valley, California, in rousing fashion. Familiar riffs from a plentitude of songs etched into audience members’ minds long ago, such as “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” “A Apolitical Blues,” “Spanish Moon,” and “Dixie Chicken,” were performed compellingly and triumphantly at the sold-out, 507-capacity The Center For the Arts, located on Main Street in the small Sierra Nevada foothill town of about 14,000. The vibrant sound flowing through the intimate room was pristine, thanks to its Meyer sound system, installed and operational since 2020.
Coming out of the gate with a crowd-pleasing rendering of “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” a saga of Spotcheck Billy and his quest for romance, followed by the irresistible anthem, “Oh, Atlanta,” George’s “Two Trains,” and their long-covered version of Allen Toussaint’s “On Your Way Down,” the crowd knew it was in for a night that included plenty of beloved material from such classic 1970’s-era records as “Sailin’ Shoes,” from with they performed five songs, “Dixie Chicken” (three), and “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now” (three). To their credit not to exclusively depend on the past, Little Feat also spotlighted three songs – none of them clunkers – from their 2025 album, “Strike Up the Band,” and two from 2024’s “Sam’s Place.”
The first set also included such varied notables as “Cajun Girl,” and a treat pairing of Payne’s “Cat Fever” and George’s “Texas Rose Café,” which appear back-to-back as the final two tracks of the 1972 record, “Sailin’ Shoes.” Prior to the piano-heavy, slow groovy blues of “Cat Fever,” Payne jokingly declared while not wanting to admit his real age, he wrote it while at George’s house “when I was 5 years old.”
Payne, the sole original bandmember (on keyboards and vocals), along with Kenny Gradney (bass) and Sam Clayton (conga, djembe, other percussion, and vocals), who have been with the band since their initial early- to mid-‘70s glory days, musically articulated with Fred Tackett (still consider by some as a “new guy” even after his 38-year tenure, on guitar, mandolin, trumpet, and vocals), Scott Sharrard (guitar and vocals, who joined in 2019), and Tony Leone (drumkit and vocals, who came into the group in 2020). It is notable that both Sharrard’s and Leone’s vocals were somewhat reminiscent of the late-George’s voice.
Payne’s barrelhouse blues style harkened back to rural roadhouse/juke joint sounds from 100 years ago. His extensive list of collaborations includes Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, J.J. Cale, Jimmy Buffett, Jackson Browne, and Leftover Salmon. Providing the bottom end, Gradney was smooth as you please and on point all night, with is integral bass phrasings and passages accentuated by his subtle-but-perceivable swinging hips. While Leone offered proficient and on-point drumming, Clayton brilliantly offered his mastery of an array of percussive instruments, occasional vocals, and frequent, well-timed gravely growls throughout the show.
To open the second set, Tackett (acoustic guitar/mandolin/trumpet), Leone (single snare drum), Sharrard (acoustic guitar), and Gradney (electric bass) all sat together, center stage, for an acoustic set of tunes. Opening with Lee Dorsey/Toussaint’s “Everything I Do Gon' Be Funky,” followed by “Running Out of Time With the Blues” from the “Strike Up the Band” project, Little Feat then delivered acoustic arrangements of acclaimed old favorites, “A Apolitical Blues”, “Willin’,” (perhaps their most famous song of all, which featured a lovely Payne piano /Tackett mandolin arrangement), and “Easy to Slip.”
While the stage crew transitioned things back to an electric setup, Payne serenaded the audience with “Rita Was Her Name,” a song he wrote the music to accompany late-novelist Richard Wheeler’s touching lyrics.
Once set back up and raring’ to go, Little Feat’s all killer-no filler second-set sequence included explosive versions of “Rocket in My Pocket,” “Spanish Moon” (given splendid treatment that included Payne on both organ and piano improvisations), “Skin it Back,” Willie Dixon’s Little Walter’s “Mellow Down Easy,” “Dixie Chicken,” “Tripe Face Boogie,” and “Let it Roll.” The final four songs featuring spirited flourishes by dynamic guest guitarist Jeff Pevar, known to many for his work with CPR that included David Crosby and his son, the jam-band Pink Floyd tribute group The Gilmour Project, and work with Jazz is Dead.
While the moniker, “Last Farewell Tour” seems to connotate Little Feat’s final bow, Payne, toward the end of the first set, deflected that notion and that the tour name was perhaps just a play on the similar-sounding title of their “Last Record Album,” which in 1975 was far from their last. Payne seemed to give that idea clarity: “We’re gonna see what we want to do. But we’re gonna be around for a while. So don’t anybody fret about any of this stuff.”
Articulating further before the first-set closer, Payne also paid homage to present and past bandmembers, “This song goes out to everybody in this band. We’ve got, with Scott Sharrard and Tony Leone, a couple of great musicians in this group. And stalwarts like Fred Tackett, Kenny Gradney, and Sam Clayton. And with me, myself, we’ve held the fort for a long time, and we’re having a ball doing this, OK? … We’ve got three guys who are not with us but are always in our hearts. That’s Lowell George, Richie Hayward, and Paul Barrere and this goes out to them as well. This song is called ‘Time Loves a Hero’.”
While, as like the group itself, Little Feat fans have gotten a bit older a realization that was quite evident when one scanned the room, the band did not perform their song, “Old Folk’s Boogie.” Such omissions were not a disappointment, but a testament to their vast song catalog. While the Little Feat “rolled right through the night” (to coin a lyrical phrase of theirs) for an impressive two dozen songs, the set list, which changes more from night to night than most performers, couldn’t include all of their standards.
George, the original leader of the group, died in 1979 while on a solo-album tour at a time when Little Feat was apparently on its way to being disbanded. After a long period of inactivity, the group reemerged eight years later with the core members – Payne, Gradney, Clayton, guitarist/vocalist Barrere, who joined Little Feat in 1972, co-wrote the hit songs, “All That You Dream” “Old Folks Boogie” “Time Loves a Hero” and “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” and remained an important component until his passing in 2019. It’s important to note that, drummer and band co-founder Richie Hayward, who in the mid-‘60s was in George’s first band, The Factory, remained with the Little Feat until shortly before his passing in 2010. Little Feat’s resurfacing included the tenures of vocalists Craig Fuller (1987-1993) and Shaun Murphy (1993-2009).
Set one: (electric) - Fat Man in the Bathtub, Oh Atlanta, Two Trains, On Your Way Down, Honest Man, Cajun Girl, Midnight Flight, Too High to Cut My Hair, Cat Fever, Texas Rose Café, Time Loves a Hero.
Set two: (acoustic) – Everything I Do Gon' Be Funky, Running Out of Time With the Blues, A Apolitical Blues, Long Distance Call, Willin’, Easy to Slip; (Payne solo) – Rita Was Her Name; (electric) – Rocket in My Pocket, Spanish Moon, Skin it Back, Mellow Down Easy*, Dixie Chicken*, Tripe Face Boogie*, Let it Roll*. (* with Jeff Pevar on extra, guest guitar)
