Tres Songs

Written by Jim S.

Wherein I dispense with my usual long-winded historical diatribes and randomly list three songs for your dining and dancing pleasure. You might consider this a “three-peat” as I’ve featured all these artists at one time or another. Purely by coincidence, all three are known for great slide guitar players (although none on the first tune.

Forty years after the death of their founder Lowell George, Little Feat keeps on truckin’. They’re on what looks like a limited tour (although their last studio album was in 2012.)

From their 1998 album Let it Roll, the title track which just cooks relentlessly. For my money you can’t beat car/sex analogies:

Oh she’s like a smooth stretch of highway 
Oh she’s like a cool summer breeze 
If my motor’s runnin’ right, we might lose control tonight 
Got the shape I love to squeeze, looks that bring me to my knees 
Oh please, let it roll tonight

Spotify link

“Get Rhythm” was originally the B-side of Johnny Cash’s 1956 “I Walk The Line” on Sun Records. (There’s a hell of a single, eh?) I once heard NRBQ do this tune live opening for, I think, George Thorogood. Ry Cooder liked it so much he named an album after it.

Interestingly, Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks plays keyboards on this album and the late actor Harry Dean Stanton does vocals on one tune. Go figure.

This tune is way closer to early rock and roll than it to country. There was something in the air at Sun.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ry Cooder, “Get Rhythm.”

Spotify link

A while back I wrote about the great Los Lobos. (Who, BTW, I subsequently saw live but never posted about. Need to see them again as I’d had bad day as I recall.)

Anyway, one of the tunes I featured was “Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes” which was co-written by Lobos’ Cesar Rosas and the ubiquitous T-Bone Burnett.

Bonnie Raitt and her band tore into this one a few years back on her Dig in Deep album. She lays in some fairly scorching slide on this one:

Spotify link

 

 

13 thoughts on “Tres Songs”

  1. I always forget that Little Feat kept going without Lowell George. My friend saw George in an airport once – said he didn’t make very healthy dietary choices.

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    1. Yes, before I posted I had looked him up, not recalling how long it had been since he died. This gem was in Wikipedia, “George led an overindulgent lifestyle of binge eating, alcoholism and speedballs (heroin and cocaine mixed together) and he became obese in the last years of his life, weighing 308 pounds.”

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    2. I said this to J: I’ve been listening to Little Feat’s ‘Rad Gumbo: The Complete Warner Brother Years 1971- – 1990’ a fair amount on Spotify. Not everything’s a gem and with studio and live versions there’s some repetition, but there’s a lot of good stuff.

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  3. I’m in agreement with Bruce, that’s a pretty nifty trio of tunes. I love Little Feat a lot, love the tune Get Rhythm (even if it’s not Johnny, Ry’s version is great) and Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes is also a winner. Perfect Monday afternoon vibes and shaking off the cobwebs!

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    2. I’ve been listening to Little Feat’s ‘Rad Gumbo: The Complete Warner Brother Years 1971- – 1990’ a fair amount on Spotify. Not everything’s a gem and with studio and live versions there’s some repetition, but there’s a lot of good stuff.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I’ve seen that compilation, but I have all the albums (well, the Lowell stuff) in some format or another. My Little Feat go tos are Sailin’ Shoes, Dixie Chicken, and Waiting For Columbus.

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  4. Little Feet and Ry have been stuck in my rotation lately. Feet just keep sounding better. Bill Payne adds his touches as always. Ry kills ‘Get Rhythm’. CB’s style of music (along with a hell of a lot more) for sure. Every time I hear Bonnie I think I should listen to her more especially when I hear cuts like this. Rosas is a rocker. T Bone could produce an album by Doc and CB and it would sound good.

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