June 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Step into the world of classic American rock as “Takin a Walk” sits down with a founding member of Little Feat. In this episode, your host Buzz Knight journeys through the origins of the legendary band—born in 1969 when Lowell George left Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention and teamed up with keyboardist Bill Payne, bassist Roy Estrada, and drummer Richie Hayward to create a sound that fused rock, blues, funk, country, and jazz into something utterly distinctive.Bill Payne is a returning guest to the show and he is hear to talk about the bands triumphant new release called "Strike Up the Band, and he takes us behind the scenes into the creative process of the new music which has special guests Molly Tuttle and Larkin Poe and others collaborating on this project. Hear firsthand stories from the early days in Los Angeles, the making of iconic tracks like “Willin’” and “Dixie Chicken,” and the band’s evolution through triumphs, tragedies, and decades on the road. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to the Feat, this walk offers an inside look at the creative spark, musical legacy, and enduring spirit that have made Little Feat one of America’s most beloved and influential band. We also want to put in a loud good word for the band to be recognized for their amazing legacy by getting induction into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So music and art are they're not benign. They're there
to help, They're they're there to guide. I don't mean
just the people that have to write it. I mean
we lock out on a lot of things that we do.
But you mentioned it before too, Buzz, which is it
enables an enacts the spirit of community.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi, I'm Buzznight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
This is the podcast where we love talking with musicians.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We get the inside.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Scoop about what they're up to and how they got
there with their latest project and all other fun high
jinks along the way. I'm very pleased on this episode
to have a returning guest. We were able to take
a walk in person together pretty early on in the podcast,
(00:50):
and it was a delight in person. But if it
can't be in person, it's a delight to welcome back
the one and only Bill Payne from Little Feet to
the Taken Off Podcast. Bill, it's so great to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Save here and yeah, what an honor to be invited back.
I mean, I've been keeping track of the various people
you've had on. It's it's an amazing array of artists
and thinkers and just good people, so creators to all
you're doing mans, it's.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Great having a blast, and you know, for me, it's
so amazing because I get to talk to people that
I've followed and cross paths with or admired over the years,
and you are certainly one of those people. And the
band Little Feet also is very near and dear as
(01:43):
are you to my heart, so thank you for being on.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
It's really tremendous.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you so much, rn Bill.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Since the podcast is called taking a Walk, I do
want to ask you if if you had the opportunity
to take a walk or a saunter with somebody living
or dead, they could be certainly affiliated in and around music,
but doesn't have to be. There's no rules to what
(02:11):
we're doing here. Who would you take a walk with
and where would you take a walk with them?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh my gosh, that's well. I mean, I'm thinking this
book I'm writing, called Carnival Ghost, I've got a huge
section it on surfing for a number of reasons. I
mean not only the art and act of surfing, but
(02:38):
the music that surrounded it, the films that I went
to and watched people on stage narrate their movies. Well,
one of those guys was Bruce Brown, who also did
movies on motorcycles. Bruce had Barefoot Adventure. He went to
South Africa with a couple of different people in another film,
(03:02):
but he had a soundtrack to Barefoot Adventure, which featured
Bud Powell. Let's see I've got Thad Jones, I think
was on trumpet man. Are some great great jazz musicians.
Dennis Budenmeyer was on there. Who I got a chance
to tell me I was aware of this record. I'd
(03:24):
love to take a walk with Bruce Brown. He passed
away a few years ago, and I'd probably do it
up in the Santa Barbara area, on one of those
those beaches up there, maybe even along the cliffs of
a further north of Santa Barbara, between Santa Barbara and
the Gaviota Pass, some lovely territory up there. I spent
(03:45):
a lot of time surfing and just trying to think
out my next moves, and it is a good contemplative area.
I think it'd be wonderful to talk with him up there.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I love it, I love it. We have a lot
to catch up on. We want to talk about the book.
We'll come back to that. Certainly your photography as well.
I want to hear if you've been continuing to dabble
at that. But the exciting news too that we want
to talk about is Strike up the band, the brand
(04:17):
new Little Feet release which has got some amazing folks
on it. You've got Lark and Poe and Molly Tuttle
and Larry Campbell. I want to hear how that all
came together, how this new project came together for you
and the band.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, from the inception of putting the band back together
after Paul Brer passed away in twenty nineteen. Scott Gerard
was on the Very Show the very date in October
that Paul passed away. They joined us. Lynn, Larry Campbell
(04:56):
and Teresa Williams had been on the tour up until
they had a couple of other obligations they had to fill,
so we brought in Scott. I had met him during
the tour with the Dbie Brothers and he was the
musical director for Greg Alman. We had a gig coming
up also in Jamaica. Where are we going to do it?
(05:16):
Are we? We decided, with the way Scott was playing,
the way we all felt about it, that we should
definitely do that a cemented relationship with Scott, which we did,
and a few months later we brought in Tony Leoni
on drums, so everything was set and in COVID hit
(05:38):
so we were communicating the well exactly what you and
I are doing now over the Internet and sitting tracks
back and forth and recording and whatnot, but no get togethers.
That didn't happen until tomorrow, November twenty twenty one. When
we did get together, we had this agenda which management
(06:00):
helped figure out, which was let's go and take song
requests from fans, which we did, which opened a whole
catalog that we hadn't played in a long time, songs
like Strawberry Flats for example, off the very first album.
But it's shortly to follow that. Bud was there the
(06:21):
notion of going out and playing Waiting for Columbus, which
I had always sort of balked at, to be honest
with you, but it made perfect sense now that we
had this band that could play anything. It was a
gutsy move to try and replicate a record, if not replicated,
at least play songs in order and then put our
(06:41):
spin on it. I thought it was a necessary thing
to do. But even so, the notion of putting in
a record together was deeply planned. I'd written twenty songs
with Robert Hunter, for example, four of which had been
recorded in twenty twelve on Richter ragg I just thowt like,
(07:03):
we don't have to prove we can play Dixie Chicken.
Somebody asked me how to keep that song so fresh?
And I said, well, what do you do when you
sing happy birthday to someone? You see it from the heart.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I hope, yeah, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That kind of thing. That's what we do. So this
was a long, securitious answer to a project that was
the inception was in the beginning of the band coming
back Together, which was in twenty twenty. But we brought
Advance Powell, who works with Christa Ableton. He's engineer and
(07:38):
worked with Fish. He was one of those guys. Honestly,
we recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, which he helped
put together with George Massenberg was also involved in that,
who was also one of our engineers for many, many years.
Advance is one of those guys a buzz that can
just before you even think of what you're going to
(07:59):
say to him. He's already there, or when I contemplate saying, hey, listen,
when we oh, no, you've already got that. Okay, God,
he was ten steps ahead of me almost the entire way.
He brought in Christian Rodgers to sing backgrounds on some vocals.
She's out now with Post Malone, so I mean his
(08:20):
taste are great. He solidified that by choosing Littleviedt I
thought to work with. But he and I as a
production team also fell into line very well with any
kind of scene like that. It takes a while for
people to sort of acclimate to one another, which was
(08:40):
the case with the band and with Vance. But he
was so adapt at making people feel comfortable, and we
had a couple of all ramps we could take with
Scott Grard, who wanted to work with our engineer who
he also brought in, which is Charles A. Martinez turn
Els or Charlie as we call him. That work with
(09:03):
Steely Dan, with with Donald Fagan, those credittions alone the
doors wide open for him as far as I'm concerned.
So then it was a matter of songs. I started
writing songs with with I went back to New York
to write with Tony and with Scott. We came up
with a couple of things there. One of them was
the very first track on the record, which is a
(09:24):
title that I'd come up with and actually had to
start to some music with as well, and some lyrics.
Four days of having three days of work. And when
people hear that, I mean, I'll literally be in an
uber in Denver, in New York and Saint Louis, wherever
the heck I am, and I'll ask the drive where
are you from? And do you sally? They're from Africa,
(09:45):
sometimes Guatemala. Wherever I'll play them, I'll play first, I'll
play some where they're from. I'll play that music where
they're from. Oh you're from the Congo. Here's some Congolese
roombaut for you. And I say, well, now here's a
big I play with, and I'll play that track and
they're like, oh that's.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Good, Oh that's awesome. Those are like many focus groups,
you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And honestly answer. I mean to throw it out in
people like that. It's you know what it's like, It's
you get honest reactions from people sometimes strike up. The
band reminds me greatly of of of Let It Roll.
For one main reason is that Letter Roll we were
we were reintroducing the band to people. We were in
(10:32):
a very similar position this time, and when things are
running smoothly with Letter Roll, we had at the Helm
Peter Asher management. This time we have Ken Levitan Brian
Pennox at Vector. When things are going smoothly, as I said, Uh,
you can almost script what's going to happen. I'm pretty
(10:54):
good at that. And I just was not surprised at
the reaction we've been getting. I knew it would be good.
It's still that the old adage when you're playing, you
put your mask on first. So I'm there, I have
my mask on, I'm ready. I just think it's a
really the portraitures that are on that record are are
(11:17):
well framed. I enjoyed the writing process, not in wiscont
and Tony, but but with Charlie Starr from BlackBerry Smoke,
John levinthal is a good friend in New York, Vince Herman,
who I just worked with that Red Rocks, who's in
a band called Leftover Salmon. We did the last song
on the record, which was New Orleans Cries When She Sings,
(11:38):
which is an ode to UH to New Orleans, a
dangerous place, but a wonderful place. Nonetheless, life is pretty
good right.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Now, it's tremendous.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And thinking about really the uh, the added collaborators too,
I'm just so fascinated by that that group. Big fans
of all of them, for of all talk about your
opportunity to connect with and work with Larkin Poe.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
If I'm not mistaken, that was an idea that Scott
Gerard might have had. But it was also an idea
for sure that that Vance Powell brought to the table
because they live in town. They live in Nashville, so
he felt he could contact them and wheeld them in
and Scott I had a song and form as well,
(12:28):
but I deferred to Scott, and I'm glad I did
because I think they worked out beautifully on the title.
Trucks struck up the band.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
And then there's the phenomenal Molly Tuttele connecting with her.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
What was that?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I told Molly before we went to the studio, I said, listen,
the only thing this bluegrass about this song that you're
going to play and was called Bluegrass Pines by Robert
hundred myself, is the title. Other than that, it's a
long securitis song and if you need any help, let
me know, but I'm turning you loose on it. I'll
(13:07):
be there to help guide it. But I want to
play acoustic guitar and just to feel comfortable to try
things and let's see what fits. So she said exactly that,
And it's just an extraordinary, extraordinarily warm person, which I
would have expected nothing less, but sometimes you don't know
(13:29):
until you actually meet people. So that was a thrill
to to've had her on this record.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I mean, I think it's so brilliant, you know, once
again for fans of the band for a long time
to get what they you know, always will expect at
a Little Feet as as a band and the great playing,
but then adding these these these new voices which are
really emerging brilliantly out of places like Nashville, and and
(13:59):
they're just these phenomenal players that are just just a
whole different generation. And what's so cool about that generation
is that they have such great respect for certainly the
past as well.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, well well said of Uzz and Little Feet is
known and has been known for a long long time
as a musician's musicians group, which we still are and
we're not pop stars or rock stars. Some people try
and put that label on I've tried to put on
(14:36):
me a couple of times, and I said, look, if
you want to think of you a rock star, go ahead.
I think of myself as a rockhead mainly, but mainly
I am undoubtedly a musician. So that's what when those
doors are open, that's that's who we're inviting in our people.
We're in the same club. And the club, ironically is
(14:58):
for most of us as Breator Mark used to say,
I would never join a club that would accept me
as a member. They're pretty much of that mindset too.
But we are a rather exclusive club. As a musician,
and the trials and errors and tribulations that come with
taking your arts seriously but having trying to have fun
(15:20):
with it is those are the past we've chosen over
the years when we have very similar stories to tell
along those lines, which is which is great. So when
I meet people, and I've done this for a long time,
is it's not always a musician within little Feet who
already had the mantle of being a band's band and
(15:42):
that kind of thing. Or when Eric Clapton came to
see us, I said, man, you saw us week a
week or two ago. What's going on? He goes, I
brought my band here. I want to I want to
hear a proper band. I go, oh, okay, good, thank you.
So as a proper band, that's that's a pretty good
high compliment from Eric. But we we are, I mean,
(16:05):
that's that's what we do. And being part of a
proper band for me is what platform are you using
to tell the story? Are you writing your own songs?
That's not necessary. You don't have to. There are plenty
great writers. There's plenty of great songs out there. How
do you treat it with it within regard to not
(16:26):
only your instrument, but how you blend with others? How
do you play with others? There's so much that's involved,
and so much that like being an athlete where they
have great peripheral vision, whether it's on the basketball court
or the hockey or whatever they're doing. Within music, you
have great, or should have pretty wide and great peripheral
(16:49):
hearing as well. So it's what you hear and what
you react against.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
It's like our conversation, Yeah, natural flow, which is you.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You guys have always made it look so easy, but
there's nothing easy about what you're what you're doing. It's complicated,
it's intricate, it's it brings you to different places, and
it blends all different genres. Now it's it's very popular
for artists to go, well, yeah, I'm blending genres. I
(17:22):
find my own, you know, particular niche there between this
genre and that genre. But in my opinion, when I
first discovered little Feet a few years back, that's everything
little Feet was about. It wasn't really genre defined in
my opinion.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I'm with you, and I think that. Fortunately, for
most of the stuff we play, it sounds easy. In
other words, it sounds like falling off logs, so you're
you're not struggling to I mean, you might not struggle,
but you might have to hear a song a few
times to get a craft around your head. But the
(18:00):
water is pretty warm. It's a warm dive as a
musician when you try and play it, though, it's the
people come up to me, I mean, gosh, and they'll say,
well it was, and I go harder you thought, and
they go, yeah, I was thinking. Because I'm writing a
chapter now in this book Horrible Ghosts about songwriting, and
(18:22):
I want to take people through the process, and one
of the things I'm discovering about that process is is
that in trying, for my part, trying to keep the
music is interesting as the lyrics. Depending on what the
song is, the lyrics oftentimes will take precedent precedence only
(18:43):
in the cadence that I'm following. So if it's everything
four to four, like one two three four, but a
lot of my songs have like one two three four
and then boom, boom doom again, like two more extra
beats in a certain in section to accommodate lyrics or
to commodate a musical phrase. So I've never ever shied
(19:06):
away from that. It used to to confuse Richie Hayward
sometimes because he'd go, look, the one is here, and
it would but I said, no, Richie, when I'm going
one two three, and then I'm feeling the beats happening there,
and then it's one two three, one two three four,
so it's a seven beat phrase rather than four. But
(19:27):
he'd laugh and go, Okay. I said, as long as
you know what you're doing, you counted any way you want.
But what I'm feeling is when the accent hits hard.
That's where I start to recount. That's where one starts
for me, much like in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff,
where the astronauts didn't they didn't want to evalue it
(19:48):
too heavily what they were doing back in the day
because they were basically, I don't they were human beings,
but they didn't feel they were much better than the
monkeys that were crawling in some of those capsules, this
popping them off into the air. In the beginning, for me,
I didn't really think about whether something was in a
(20:08):
certain time signature or didn't have three eight beats before
we talk took off on something I just I didn't
want to know. And then later I thought, well, why
am I I don't need to remain ignorant of this.
Let's uh if the proposition of learning, where it's learning scales,
or learning more chords, or listening to a broader context
(20:31):
of music, UH and or reading maybe literature or books
that are a little over your head and you have
to look at a dictionary every now and then, what
you're doing is expanding your vocabulary. I don't see how
that hurts anyone or anything, So I've I then began
to take that approach and go a little more consciously
(20:52):
into what I was doing and why, and without fear
of interrupting or hurting my creativity, which is the way
a lot of people think it does well.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
When I think about working with you know, Lark and
Poe and Molly Tuttle and of course you know Larry
Campbell on the new project, and then I sort of
reflect with with your work beyond Little Feet, which to
name a few, I mean, I think of certainly your
(21:22):
work with Bonnie Rait and James Taylor. But then I
go off to thinking about your work you know that
you did with Pink Floyd and and uh, and then
of course the longstanding work with the Doobie Brothers. It's
always covered, you know, different territory for for sure. Is
(21:44):
there any territory that you haven't covered that you would
still like to cover?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, that's an excellent question, and uh, I guess the
short answers is no. But there's a song I've I've
I've got that I help will up here on the
next record. We have done some jazz, but we haven't
I've embraced jazz in the last few years more than
I've ever done in my life. Become more cognizant of things,
(22:11):
listening to a lot more of Herbie Hancock, who might
have also been a person to take a walk with,
to be honest with you, he's one of those guys.
Wayne Shorter, so Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock with their
collective work. I've got a song called Train's Blues, which
(22:31):
I might change because I didn't come up with the title.
But Train's Blues is also an album that John Coltrane did.
There's a couple of books called that, so the title
might shift, but the music's pretty interesting and it takes
us to Paris, the book that starts to really open,
not only musically but lyrically. Neon Park helped shape some
(22:54):
of the songs Paul Breer did. It's it's not an
easy song to play, but I think it's going to
sound really, really good. I got a couple of people
for the horn section that I'm contemplating for that. But yeah,
I think what happens is when we listen to or
when I listen to music. I'm going to listen to
(23:15):
something in the next two weeks, two years, whatever, and
I'm going to go, well, I'd like to have that
perform some part of my writing. So I guess in
that sense it was difficult for me to answer your question,
what have I not tackled yet that i'd like to.
I think that door is always open, though, and it's
(23:38):
increasingly open, not only on the level of music, but
on the level of the expansion of ideas through lyrics.
In describing a section or a part of my writing yesterday,
I was suggesting that having the music be as important
as the lyrics. I caught myself and I went, you
(23:59):
know what, wait a second. When I used to set
myself in the room to play piano, the piano for
me was an instrument to exploit visualization, sometimes at the
beach and hearing the waves break, or the seagulls, the
wind heading the surf. I come home and play for
(24:21):
my mother or my parents. This is what I saw today,
that kind of thing, And I thought, well, so that
was already ingrained in my ethic as a musician from
the very get go. But now as a guy who's
seventy six years old and writing about it, I went, well, no,
don't discount that. Just admit that, you like the Chinese
(24:45):
where they keep burying their past, you forgot about it,
You forgot about the importance of it. But that importance
is being visual, is what created songs like Gringo, Red, Streamliner,
the Time Loves a Hero. I mean there's a lot
of them. I mean that meld the visual and it
(25:05):
puts the person right there, which is what great writing
does obviously, and I think songs obviously do that too.
I mean you've done it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yes, cinematic right, They're just they bring you to a place,
which is why as a non musician, I think about
this often. Talked to my wife who's a photographer, about
this as well. We think about where the heck would
we be in our life without music.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yes, well, I you know, I just signed somebody sent
me a letter, Drives twenty two years old, sins I
suffered from depression and anxiety. And what I do is
when I when I feel that coming on, I put
on your music, little feats music, and it helps, it
(25:58):
helps calm me down, helps draw me out of it.
And I wrote him back and I signed this stuff
for him as he requested. But I said, look, first
of all, thank you for sharing your story with me.
Music is obviously, it has power, not just ours, but
a lot of music out there has that kind of
(26:18):
power to shape our emotions, our feelings and whatnot. And
it's just important. I mean we try, Like I might
have told this on our first walk we did in
New Jersey. The people try and bury music about the
amount of times they try and marry God. And I'm
(26:40):
not a believer in much of anything, to be honest
with you, but I just think people go to great
links to deny things. They deny it based on a
very slim view of what's going on generally speaking, but
ana doubtly. I mean, I've run into far more people
that have told me that. Look, I was in a
(27:02):
common and somebody put some of your music on and
it brought me out of it. You know, we're not
here to cure cancer. I'm not saying suggesting that, but
this has been told me at least twice, if not
three times, where people were in dire straits. And I
mean the playt Mozart has the ability to to up
(27:26):
the ante with one's intellectual prowess, they say, And I
don't thought that.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
I think I might have told you in you know.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
One of our offline conversations about this other podcast that
I'm producing, Len Hoffman hosted it's called His Music Saved Me,
and it's exactly exploring that premise there of the healing
and therapeutic powers that music has for certainly the musician benefit,
(28:08):
but really from the fan benefit. Lynn interviewed a gentleman
by the name of Brian Harris, who is the CEO
and founder of this company called med Rhythms, and they're
the first FDA approved product that really is a music
(28:30):
based product that is a form of therapy for I
believe stroke victims. And so he's just at the beginning
of this powerful medical journey. That really highlights it from
that standpoint. But it's just the stories out there are
(28:51):
many of them in terms of what music really really
means and how it lifts us up and can bring
us together, and just the communal feeling of being together.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I feel like Strike Up the.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Band as an overall vibe really is celebratory.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
I think he is, even with a song like New
Orleans Prize when she sings it's contemplative in the beginning
that talks about you know, I've seen your dark side,
have seen your sunrise. I mean New Orleans is a
rough place, and we know that from the news and
from perhaps having traveled there. You go to watch yourself,
(29:31):
you know. But it's also a city full of life
and of an attachment to heritage that celebrates life and
a mixture of music from the Caribbean and what professor
long Hair, you know what he played here in the Calliope.
(29:52):
I was just there for Piano Night a few weeks ago,
playing with twenty six out of youd pianists at the
House of Blues. It's my second you're doing it?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I had a ball. I mean, I'm not used to
being on stage just by myself and playing and singing,
but I played that song for everybody, and the city's rising.
Nobody ain't nobody can keep us down. So yeah, it's celebratory.
And I love the song that John Levinthal I wrote
when Heart's Fall, same kind of thing. He had this
(30:24):
beautiful music that was had that had a good edge
to it, but it was also I enjoyed taking people
on a journey. I think what we're talking about earlier, guys,
was the way music affects us, the way it hits
the synopsis, the synopsis in our brain, you know those
things that click. It's almost like when you exercise and
(30:48):
the endorphins hit and that gives you a feeling of
uplift and whatnot. It's music is it's very similar. It's
it's not doing the same thing, but it's similar. And
what that says is our bodies are are these vessels
of They're open. They're open to so many suggestions from
(31:11):
things that that that freak us out, that that give
us comfort, that that cause us to retreat to ourselves
and allow things like we're experiencing today to overwhelm the
landscape and the dialogue. It doesn't happen to everybody, thankfully,
but for those that it does, it's almost like they're
(31:32):
they're as ambulic state. It's just easier for them to go, well,
I'm not responsible for all this nonsense. Well great, but
it's not a great attitude to have, and historically it
never has been. So music and art are. They're not benign.
They're there to help, they're there, they're there to guide.
(31:55):
I don't mean just the people that write it. I
mean we luck out on a lot of things that
we do. But you mentioned it before too abuzz, which
is it enables and enacts the spirit of community. I
think that's what great art does. And even if that
spirited community is it is not a wholesale large swath
(32:19):
of people. It's people in general that that are able
to think, that that are that are attuned to the
fact that there's things that when when they read, when
they when they listen, when they communicate with people. Who
do you surround yourself with, for example, who friends do
you have, Who's feeding that fire that you have in yourself?
(32:42):
Those things are all just critical to to what it
is to be a human being. And the more we
we understand and absorb absorb those lessons, I think in
the long run it's still going to be complicated, because
human beings are complicated, but I think we'll have more
more and more reason to to agree on things and
(33:04):
to disagree.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
So how far along are you on the book? I
know you're pretty far along.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm about a word wise, I'm about one hundred and
fifteen thousand words into it.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Okay, you're pretty far along.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Sorry far along. I have a great editor. The people
who don't have released this book are called Llo Rigalo Press,
Gratchen Young is a part of that system. She helped
write a book by interviewing Senator John Lewis some years back.
(33:38):
She's her help added a book with a fellow that
wrote a book on Tiger Woods. I mean, she's got
sports books, she's put She's a heavyweight, great, great person.
I absolutely adore her and her husband. John Baxter is
my editor, along with a guy named Gary Bays, who
(33:59):
I've had for the last twenty years. Look over my stuff.
I just just what I said, you know, who do
you surround yourself with for this book? I've surrounded myself
with some people that are Little Feet fans and that
know the English language, and they also have inspired and
(34:21):
got me to just relax into writing and and doing
what I do. They're not there as ghost writers. I'm
a pretty good writer on my own, but they helped
shape things like when I wrote something about Lowell. Lowell's
birthday was I think it was August excuse me, April thirteenth.
(34:41):
I'd said, oh, Lowell's going to be eighty. And John Baxter,
who's written several books on Walt Disney, by the way,
he said, now Lowell would be would have been eighty. Oh, yes, right,
you know that that kind of thing I didn't grow
up was a songwriter. I mean, I thought Lowell was
(35:02):
very accomplished, and I've taken care too in this book.
Also not to detegrate Lowell George. His demise and death
is not unlike Janis job and Jimmy Hendrix, Brian Jones,
Jim Morrison, I mean, greor Garcia a lot of them.
(35:23):
That doesn't define who he is. It defines how he passed.
So I want to write about the person that was complicated,
that could irritate the hell out of you, that was
two steps forward, one step back, but was also even
if he was only producing one or two songs, they
were brilliant. I also addressed the fact that when Paul
(35:44):
and I were Paul Breyn and I were accused of
taking over the band back in the day. I said, look,
if we took over his little feet by the way
of Lowell's muse, why are there a few Lowell George
songs on his solo record that took five years to make,
And people go, oh, I don't know. I go oh,
I don't either. He evidently wasn't writing, That's what I
(36:05):
would say, So he got his own way but it's
not a crime to be vulnerable, and he wasn't. I
think that's that's what made Hina, That's what added to
his humanness and his humanity was that vulnerability, because like
a lot of people in that shape, he was trying
(36:26):
to break through that and come out on the other
side and get back to some form where he could
feel comfortable in his own skin. Which is why I
wrote back to that kid today to say, hey, I'm
glad our music's helped you and just you know, keep
it going here.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
So I do want to I want to.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I want to close with asking about something I saw
the great Jerry Douglas.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Post something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
About the fact that the Great Little Feet Band deserves
to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And he wrote this eloquent from a musician's heart speech.
And I know your feelings on Jerry and how you've
collaborated with him and what you think of him, and
(37:17):
obviously I see what he thinks of you and the band,
but I guess I really wanted to get your take
on how that made you feel when you saw him
lay this out publicly saying, hey, come on, you know
this band deserves that recognition.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Let's just do it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I'll tell you it's truth. This is the first I've
heard of it, and I'm thrilled to you that he
weighed in. For years, I thought, well, I don't care
if we're in there or not. But then a few
years ago I kind of flipped my stance on it.
I thought, you know, I think we should be in it,
and for all the right reasons too, because of our legacy,
(37:56):
because of Lowell, because of Sean Murphy, because of Gregg Fuller,
Paul breverchie Hayward, because of the fact that we're influenced
by who we grew up listening to, which is this
great catalog of music starting with Little Richard. Do you
want to listen to chety fruity by Little Richard or
by Pat Boone? I mean, Little Richard won my heart,
(38:19):
That's all I can say. And I have nothing against
Pat bone I'm madam. He's a decent, decent man and
great just room for everybody. I'm not knocking to anybody
either that's already in the Hall of Fame. I mean,
that's that's an easy target for a lot of people
that to get riled up about. Look, rock and roll
(38:39):
is a very wide term. The terminology is wide. It
encompasses so much and it should. I mean, it's it's
R and B. It's it's the breakdown of things. And
so what do you want to attach to this huge
whale of swimming through the ocean with barnacle and planktonight
(39:01):
attached to it. That's that's rotten. It's moving. It may
move slow at times, but it never slows down. It doesn't.
It's not going to disappear overnight. It's it's an attitude.
It's little feet. Is the reason we can call it
little feet in twenty twenty five is because of the
(39:25):
the attachment of the legacy is is still there. When
you hear that first track four days a half and
three days of work, if you know the band at all,
you're gonna go, my gosh, that sounds like little feet,
And how is that possible? If you know? Well, I
found that out when I went to hear well was
actually I wound up here in Jimmy page. I'll cut
(39:48):
to the chase, but I was there to hear those
of the yardbirds were playing Jeff Pack Chrismal Beach, Rose Gardens.
Jeff wasn't there, and we're Jeff come on, and then
we start hearing this other fellow play and it was
Jimmy Page. We go we didn't forget about Jeff back,
but we went, well, this guy's really good too. That
(40:12):
was the impetus I had, and to put Little Feet
back together in nineteen eighty eight was just that that
experience with the Artbirds. You're not gonna you're gonna miss Lowell.
Some people are gonna put up a wall and say
without Lulls, not Little Feet. That's their prerogative. I think
it's a narrow view. I think that we're inviting more
(40:34):
people to come in and find out who Lowell George
is because he's not always on the radar, especially with
new generations. So by keeping Little Feet alive, by keeping
a band alive that would take ten bands to play
and to play the music that we play, it's a
selfish reason. I do it because I love the band.
(40:56):
I love being able to write without thinking of what
I mean. I just want musicians that can play it,
sing it, and provide their own material to expand on
on the legacy. But that legacy is always going to
point to Lowell George, to Richie Hayward, to Paul Preyer,
to Sam Clayton, Kenny Fred Tacking myself and on and on.
(41:18):
It's it's bigger than any of us at this point.
I think it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
And I think the fact of still out playing.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
You're going to be hitting the road for another long
run as you always do, and creating. In terms of
the new project, I think, for whatever it means for me,
I believe that carries even a greater positive aspect of
why you guys should be in the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. You're you're still vibrant and kicking some ass,
(41:49):
so thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I think it'll happen, and for all the right reasons.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Well, you got Jerry Douglass on your side. It can't
hurt either, right.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Can't love it then on her side too, these h
We got a lot of people, and I think that's great,
and we're we're going to continue doing what we do
and expanding on on the notion of of of who
we bring into play with. I think that's part and
parcel for me over the next few years, or what
(42:19):
do we have left to do this of who we
extend the the the invite of joining us in this
this journey that we are collectively on, not just that
Little Feet is on, but as musicians what we do,
celebrate what we do. Let's let's take our art seriously,
as I've said earlier, but let's have fun in the process.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
You played any golf?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I played yesterday and they had arad the greens and
I by my wife and Polly were there. I'm my gosh,
maybe I shouldn't play for another three and a half weeks.
I'm really hitting the ball well, which I adore. Little Feet.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
I adore you, Bill Payne. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
I take it a walk and congrats on the new
release and enjoy the tour as night.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Thank you so much, man, You're a treasure. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So music and art are they're not benign. They're there
to help, They're they're there to guide. I don't mean
just the people that have to write it. I mean
we lock out on a lot of things that we do.
But you mentioned it before too, Buzz, which is it
enables an enacts the spirit of community.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi, I'm Buzznight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
This is the podcast where we love talking with musicians.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
We get the inside.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Scoop about what they're up to and how they got
there with their latest project and all other fun high
jinks along the way. I'm very pleased on this episode
to have a returning guest. We were able to take
a walk in person together pretty early on in the podcast,
(00:50):
and it was a delight in person. But if it
can't be in person, it's a delight to welcome back
the one and only Bill Payne from Little Feet to
the Taken Off Podcast. Bill, it's so great to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Save here and yeah, what an honor to be invited back.
I mean, I've been keeping track of the various people
you've had on. It's it's an amazing array of artists
and thinkers and just good people, so creators to all
you're doing mans, it's.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Great having a blast, and you know, for me, it's
so amazing because I get to talk to people that
I've followed and cross paths with or admired over the years,
and you are certainly one of those people. And the
band Little Feet also is very near and dear as
(01:43):
are you to my heart, so thank you for being on.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
It's really tremendous.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you so much, rn Bill.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Since the podcast is called taking a Walk, I do
want to ask you if if you had the opportunity
to take a walk or a saunter with somebody living
or dead, they could be certainly affiliated in and around music,
but doesn't have to be. There's no rules to what
(02:11):
we're doing here. Who would you take a walk with
and where would you take a walk with them?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh my gosh, that's well. I mean, I'm thinking this
book I'm writing, called Carnival Ghost, I've got a huge
section it on surfing for a number of reasons. I
mean not only the art and act of surfing, but
(02:38):
the music that surrounded it, the films that I went
to and watched people on stage narrate their movies. Well,
one of those guys was Bruce Brown, who also did
movies on motorcycles. Bruce had Barefoot Adventure. He went to
South Africa with a couple of different people in another film,
(03:02):
but he had a soundtrack to Barefoot Adventure, which featured
Bud Powell. Let's see I've got Thad Jones, I think
was on trumpet man. Are some great great jazz musicians.
Dennis Budenmeyer was on there. Who I got a chance
to tell me I was aware of this record. I'd
(03:24):
love to take a walk with Bruce Brown. He passed
away a few years ago, and I'd probably do it
up in the Santa Barbara area, on one of those
those beaches up there, maybe even along the cliffs of
a further north of Santa Barbara, between Santa Barbara and
the Gaviota Pass, some lovely territory up there. I spent
(03:45):
a lot of time surfing and just trying to think
out my next moves, and it is a good contemplative area.
I think it'd be wonderful to talk with him up there.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I love it, I love it. We have a lot
to catch up on. We want to talk about the book.
We'll come back to that. Certainly your photography as well.
I want to hear if you've been continuing to dabble
at that. But the exciting news too that we want
to talk about is Strike up the band, the brand
(04:17):
new Little Feet release which has got some amazing folks
on it. You've got Lark and Poe and Molly Tuttle
and Larry Campbell. I want to hear how that all
came together, how this new project came together for you
and the band.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, from the inception of putting the band back together
after Paul Brer passed away in twenty nineteen. Scott Gerard
was on the Very Show the very date in October
that Paul passed away. They joined us. Lynn, Larry Campbell
(04:56):
and Teresa Williams had been on the tour up until
they had a couple of other obligations they had to fill,
so we brought in Scott. I had met him during
the tour with the Dbie Brothers and he was the
musical director for Greg Alman. We had a gig coming
up also in Jamaica. Where are we going to do it?
(05:16):
Are we? We decided, with the way Scott was playing,
the way we all felt about it, that we should
definitely do that a cemented relationship with Scott, which we did,
and a few months later we brought in Tony Leoni
on drums, so everything was set and in COVID hit
(05:38):
so we were communicating the well exactly what you and
I are doing now over the Internet and sitting tracks
back and forth and recording and whatnot, but no get togethers.
That didn't happen until tomorrow, November twenty twenty one. When
we did get together, we had this agenda which management
(06:00):
helped figure out, which was let's go and take song
requests from fans, which we did, which opened a whole
catalog that we hadn't played in a long time, songs
like Strawberry Flats for example, off the very first album.
But it's shortly to follow that. Bud was there the
(06:21):
notion of going out and playing Waiting for Columbus, which
I had always sort of balked at, to be honest
with you, but it made perfect sense now that we
had this band that could play anything. It was a
gutsy move to try and replicate a record, if not replicated,
at least play songs in order and then put our
(06:41):
spin on it. I thought it was a necessary thing
to do. But even so, the notion of putting in
a record together was deeply planned. I'd written twenty songs
with Robert Hunter, for example, four of which had been
recorded in twenty twelve on Richter ragg I just thowt like,
(07:03):
we don't have to prove we can play Dixie Chicken.
Somebody asked me how to keep that song so fresh?
And I said, well, what do you do when you
sing happy birthday to someone? You see it from the heart.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
I hope, yeah, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That kind of thing. That's what we do. So this
was a long, securitious answer to a project that was
the inception was in the beginning of the band coming
back Together, which was in twenty twenty. But we brought
Advance Powell, who works with Christa Ableton. He's engineer and
(07:38):
worked with Fish. He was one of those guys. Honestly,
we recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, which he helped
put together with George Massenberg was also involved in that,
who was also one of our engineers for many, many years.
Advance is one of those guys a buzz that can
just before you even think of what you're going to
(07:59):
say to him. He's already there, or when I contemplate saying, hey, listen,
when we oh, no, you've already got that. Okay, God,
he was ten steps ahead of me almost the entire way.
He brought in Christian Rodgers to sing backgrounds on some vocals.
She's out now with Post Malone, so I mean his
(08:20):
taste are great. He solidified that by choosing Littleviedt I
thought to work with. But he and I as a
production team also fell into line very well with any
kind of scene like that. It takes a while for
people to sort of acclimate to one another, which was
(08:40):
the case with the band and with Vance. But he
was so adapt at making people feel comfortable, and we
had a couple of all ramps we could take with
Scott Grard, who wanted to work with our engineer who
he also brought in, which is Charles A. Martinez turn
Els or Charlie as we call him. That work with
(09:03):
Steely Dan, with with Donald Fagan, those credittions alone the
doors wide open for him as far as I'm concerned.
So then it was a matter of songs. I started
writing songs with with I went back to New York
to write with Tony and with Scott. We came up
with a couple of things there. One of them was
the very first track on the record, which is a
(09:24):
title that I'd come up with and actually had to
start to some music with as well, and some lyrics.
Four days of having three days of work. And when
people hear that, I mean, I'll literally be in an
uber in Denver, in New York and Saint Louis, wherever
the heck I am, and I'll ask the drive where
are you from? And do you sally? They're from Africa,
(09:45):
sometimes Guatemala. Wherever I'll play them, I'll play first, I'll
play some where they're from. I'll play that music where
they're from. Oh you're from the Congo. Here's some Congolese
roombaut for you. And I say, well, now here's a
big I play with, and I'll play that track and
they're like, oh that's.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Good, Oh that's awesome. Those are like many focus groups,
you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
And honestly answer. I mean to throw it out in
people like that. It's you know what it's like, It's
you get honest reactions from people sometimes strike up. The
band reminds me greatly of of of Let It Roll.
For one main reason is that Letter Roll we were
we were reintroducing the band to people. We were in
(10:32):
a very similar position this time, and when things are
running smoothly with Letter Roll, we had at the Helm
Peter Asher management. This time we have Ken Levitan Brian
Pennox at Vector. When things are going smoothly, as I said, Uh,
you can almost script what's going to happen. I'm pretty
(10:54):
good at that. And I just was not surprised at
the reaction we've been getting. I knew it would be good.
It's still that the old adage when you're playing, you
put your mask on first. So I'm there, I have
my mask on, I'm ready. I just think it's a
really the portraitures that are on that record are are
(11:17):
well framed. I enjoyed the writing process, not in wiscont
and Tony, but but with Charlie Starr from BlackBerry Smoke,
John levinthal is a good friend in New York, Vince Herman,
who I just worked with that Red Rocks, who's in
a band called Leftover Salmon. We did the last song
on the record, which was New Orleans Cries When She Sings,
(11:38):
which is an ode to UH to New Orleans, a
dangerous place, but a wonderful place. Nonetheless, life is pretty
good right.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Now, it's tremendous.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And thinking about really the uh, the added collaborators too,
I'm just so fascinated by that that group. Big fans
of all of them, for of all talk about your
opportunity to connect with and work with Larkin Poe.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
If I'm not mistaken, that was an idea that Scott
Gerard might have had. But it was also an idea
for sure that that Vance Powell brought to the table
because they live in town. They live in Nashville, so
he felt he could contact them and wheeld them in
and Scott I had a song and form as well,
(12:28):
but I deferred to Scott, and I'm glad I did
because I think they worked out beautifully on the title.
Trucks struck up the band.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
And then there's the phenomenal Molly Tuttele connecting with her.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
What was that?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I told Molly before we went to the studio, I said, listen,
the only thing this bluegrass about this song that you're
going to play and was called Bluegrass Pines by Robert
hundred myself, is the title. Other than that, it's a
long securitis song and if you need any help, let
me know, but I'm turning you loose on it. I'll
(13:07):
be there to help guide it. But I want to
play acoustic guitar and just to feel comfortable to try
things and let's see what fits. So she said exactly that,
And it's just an extraordinary, extraordinarily warm person, which I
would have expected nothing less, but sometimes you don't know
(13:29):
until you actually meet people. So that was a thrill
to to've had her on this record.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I mean, I think it's so brilliant, you know, once
again for fans of the band for a long time
to get what they you know, always will expect at
a Little Feet as as a band and the great playing,
but then adding these these these new voices which are
really emerging brilliantly out of places like Nashville, and and
(13:59):
they're just these phenomenal players that are just just a
whole different generation. And what's so cool about that generation
is that they have such great respect for certainly the
past as well.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, well well said of Uzz and Little Feet is
known and has been known for a long long time
as a musician's musicians group, which we still are and
we're not pop stars or rock stars. Some people try
and put that label on I've tried to put on
(14:36):
me a couple of times, and I said, look, if
you want to think of you a rock star, go ahead.
I think of myself as a rockhead mainly, but mainly
I am undoubtedly a musician. So that's what when those
doors are open, that's that's who we're inviting in our people.
We're in the same club. And the club, ironically is
(14:58):
for most of us as Breator Mark used to say,
I would never join a club that would accept me
as a member. They're pretty much of that mindset too.
But we are a rather exclusive club. As a musician,
and the trials and errors and tribulations that come with
taking your arts seriously but having trying to have fun
(15:20):
with it is those are the past we've chosen over
the years when we have very similar stories to tell
along those lines, which is which is great. So when
I meet people, and I've done this for a long time,
is it's not always a musician within little Feet who
already had the mantle of being a band's band and
(15:42):
that kind of thing. Or when Eric Clapton came to
see us, I said, man, you saw us week a
week or two ago. What's going on? He goes, I
brought my band here. I want to I want to
hear a proper band. I go, oh, okay, good, thank you.
So as a proper band, that's that's a pretty good
high compliment from Eric. But we we are, I mean,
(16:05):
that's that's what we do. And being part of a
proper band for me is what platform are you using
to tell the story? Are you writing your own songs?
That's not necessary. You don't have to. There are plenty
great writers. There's plenty of great songs out there. How
do you treat it with it within regard to not
(16:26):
only your instrument, but how you blend with others? How
do you play with others? There's so much that's involved,
and so much that like being an athlete where they
have great peripheral vision, whether it's on the basketball court
or the hockey or whatever they're doing. Within music, you
have great, or should have pretty wide and great peripheral
(16:49):
hearing as well. So it's what you hear and what
you react against.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
It's like our conversation, Yeah, natural flow, which is you.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You guys have always made it look so easy, but
there's nothing easy about what you're what you're doing. It's complicated,
it's intricate, it's it brings you to different places, and
it blends all different genres. Now it's it's very popular
for artists to go, well, yeah, I'm blending genres. I
(17:22):
find my own, you know, particular niche there between this
genre and that genre. But in my opinion, when I
first discovered little Feet a few years back, that's everything
little Feet was about. It wasn't really genre defined in
my opinion.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I'm with you, and I think that. Fortunately, for
most of the stuff we play, it sounds easy. In
other words, it sounds like falling off logs, so you're
you're not struggling to I mean, you might not struggle,
but you might have to hear a song a few
times to get a craft around your head. But the
(18:00):
water is pretty warm. It's a warm dive as a
musician when you try and play it, though, it's the
people come up to me, I mean, gosh, and they'll say,
well it was, and I go harder you thought, and
they go, yeah, I was thinking. Because I'm writing a
chapter now in this book Horrible Ghosts about songwriting, and
(18:22):
I want to take people through the process, and one
of the things I'm discovering about that process is is
that in trying, for my part, trying to keep the
music is interesting as the lyrics. Depending on what the
song is, the lyrics oftentimes will take precedent precedence only
(18:43):
in the cadence that I'm following. So if it's everything
four to four, like one two three four, but a
lot of my songs have like one two three four
and then boom, boom doom again, like two more extra
beats in a certain in section to accommodate lyrics or
to commodate a musical phrase. So I've never ever shied
(19:06):
away from that. It used to to confuse Richie Hayward
sometimes because he'd go, look, the one is here, and
it would but I said, no, Richie, when I'm going
one two three, and then I'm feeling the beats happening there,
and then it's one two three, one two three four,
so it's a seven beat phrase rather than four. But
(19:27):
he'd laugh and go, Okay. I said, as long as
you know what you're doing, you counted any way you want.
But what I'm feeling is when the accent hits hard.
That's where I start to recount. That's where one starts
for me, much like in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff,
where the astronauts didn't they didn't want to evalue it
(19:48):
too heavily what they were doing back in the day
because they were basically, I don't they were human beings,
but they didn't feel they were much better than the
monkeys that were crawling in some of those capsules, this
popping them off into the air. In the beginning, for me,
I didn't really think about whether something was in a
(20:08):
certain time signature or didn't have three eight beats before
we talk took off on something I just I didn't
want to know. And then later I thought, well, why
am I I don't need to remain ignorant of this.
Let's uh if the proposition of learning, where it's learning scales,
or learning more chords, or listening to a broader context
(20:31):
of music, UH and or reading maybe literature or books
that are a little over your head and you have
to look at a dictionary every now and then, what
you're doing is expanding your vocabulary. I don't see how
that hurts anyone or anything, So I've I then began
to take that approach and go a little more consciously
(20:52):
into what I was doing and why, and without fear
of interrupting or hurting my creativity, which is the way
a lot of people think it does well.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
When I think about working with you know, Lark and
Poe and Molly Tuttle and of course you know Larry
Campbell on the new project, and then I sort of
reflect with with your work beyond Little Feet, which to
name a few, I mean, I think of certainly your
(21:22):
work with Bonnie Rait and James Taylor. But then I
go off to thinking about your work you know that
you did with Pink Floyd and and uh, and then
of course the longstanding work with the Doobie Brothers. It's
always covered, you know, different territory for for sure. Is
(21:44):
there any territory that you haven't covered that you would
still like to cover?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, that's an excellent question, and uh, I guess the
short answers is no. But there's a song I've I've
I've got that I help will up here on the
next record. We have done some jazz, but we haven't
I've embraced jazz in the last few years more than
I've ever done in my life. Become more cognizant of things,
(22:11):
listening to a lot more of Herbie Hancock, who might
have also been a person to take a walk with,
to be honest with you, he's one of those guys.
Wayne Shorter, so Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock with their
collective work. I've got a song called Train's Blues, which
(22:31):
I might change because I didn't come up with the title.
But Train's Blues is also an album that John Coltrane did.
There's a couple of books called that, so the title
might shift, but the music's pretty interesting and it takes
us to Paris, the book that starts to really open,
not only musically but lyrically. Neon Park helped shape some
(22:54):
of the songs Paul Breer did. It's it's not an
easy song to play, but I think it's going to
sound really, really good. I got a couple of people
for the horn section that I'm contemplating for that. But yeah,
I think what happens is when we listen to or
when I listen to music. I'm going to listen to
(23:15):
something in the next two weeks, two years, whatever, and
I'm going to go, well, I'd like to have that
perform some part of my writing. So I guess in
that sense it was difficult for me to answer your question,
what have I not tackled yet that i'd like to.
I think that door is always open, though, and it's
(23:38):
increasingly open, not only on the level of music, but
on the level of the expansion of ideas through lyrics.
In describing a section or a part of my writing yesterday,
I was suggesting that having the music be as important
as the lyrics. I caught myself and I went, you
(23:59):
know what, wait a second. When I used to set
myself in the room to play piano, the piano for
me was an instrument to exploit visualization, sometimes at the
beach and hearing the waves break, or the seagulls, the
wind heading the surf. I come home and play for
(24:21):
my mother or my parents. This is what I saw today,
that kind of thing, And I thought, well, so that
was already ingrained in my ethic as a musician from
the very get go. But now as a guy who's
seventy six years old and writing about it, I went, well, no,
don't discount that. Just admit that, you like the Chinese
(24:45):
where they keep burying their past, you forgot about it,
You forgot about the importance of it. But that importance
is being visual, is what created songs like Gringo, Red, Streamliner,
the Time Loves a Hero. I mean there's a lot
of them. I mean that meld the visual and it
(25:05):
puts the person right there, which is what great writing
does obviously, and I think songs obviously do that too.
I mean you've done it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yes, cinematic right, They're just they bring you to a place,
which is why as a non musician, I think about
this often. Talked to my wife who's a photographer, about
this as well. We think about where the heck would
we be in our life without music.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yes, well, I you know, I just signed somebody sent
me a letter, Drives twenty two years old, sins I
suffered from depression and anxiety. And what I do is
when I when I feel that coming on, I put
on your music, little feats music, and it helps, it
(25:58):
helps calm me down, helps draw me out of it.
And I wrote him back and I signed this stuff
for him as he requested. But I said, look, first
of all, thank you for sharing your story with me.
Music is obviously, it has power, not just ours, but
a lot of music out there has that kind of
(26:18):
power to shape our emotions, our feelings and whatnot. And
it's just important. I mean we try, Like I might
have told this on our first walk we did in
New Jersey. The people try and bury music about the
amount of times they try and marry God. And I'm
(26:40):
not a believer in much of anything, to be honest
with you, but I just think people go to great
links to deny things. They deny it based on a
very slim view of what's going on generally speaking, but
ana doubtly. I mean, I've run into far more people
that have told me that. Look, I was in a
(27:02):
common and somebody put some of your music on and
it brought me out of it. You know, we're not
here to cure cancer. I'm not saying suggesting that, but
this has been told me at least twice, if not
three times, where people were in dire straits. And I
mean the playt Mozart has the ability to to up
(27:26):
the ante with one's intellectual prowess, they say, And I
don't thought that.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
I think I might have told you in you know.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
One of our offline conversations about this other podcast that
I'm producing, Len Hoffman hosted it's called His Music Saved Me,
and it's exactly exploring that premise there of the healing
and therapeutic powers that music has for certainly the musician benefit,
(28:08):
but really from the fan benefit. Lynn interviewed a gentleman
by the name of Brian Harris, who is the CEO
and founder of this company called med Rhythms, and they're
the first FDA approved product that really is a music
(28:30):
based product that is a form of therapy for I
believe stroke victims. And so he's just at the beginning
of this powerful medical journey. That really highlights it from
that standpoint. But it's just the stories out there are
(28:51):
many of them in terms of what music really really
means and how it lifts us up and can bring
us together, and just the communal feeling of being together.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I feel like Strike Up the.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Band as an overall vibe really is celebratory.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
I think he is, even with a song like New
Orleans Prize when she sings it's contemplative in the beginning
that talks about you know, I've seen your dark side,
have seen your sunrise. I mean New Orleans is a
rough place, and we know that from the news and
from perhaps having traveled there. You go to watch yourself,
(29:31):
you know. But it's also a city full of life
and of an attachment to heritage that celebrates life and
a mixture of music from the Caribbean and what professor
long Hair, you know what he played here in the Calliope.
(29:52):
I was just there for Piano Night a few weeks ago,
playing with twenty six out of youd pianists at the
House of Blues. It's my second you're doing it?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I had a ball. I mean, I'm not used to
being on stage just by myself and playing and singing,
but I played that song for everybody, and the city's rising.
Nobody ain't nobody can keep us down. So yeah, it's celebratory.
And I love the song that John Levinthal I wrote
when Heart's Fall, same kind of thing. He had this
(30:24):
beautiful music that was had that had a good edge
to it, but it was also I enjoyed taking people
on a journey. I think what we're talking about earlier, guys,
was the way music affects us, the way it hits
the synopsis, the synopsis in our brain, you know those
things that click. It's almost like when you exercise and
(30:48):
the endorphins hit and that gives you a feeling of
uplift and whatnot. It's music is it's very similar. It's
it's not doing the same thing, but it's similar. And
what that says is our bodies are are these vessels
of They're open. They're open to so many suggestions from
(31:11):
things that that that freak us out, that that give
us comfort, that that cause us to retreat to ourselves
and allow things like we're experiencing today to overwhelm the
landscape and the dialogue. It doesn't happen to everybody, thankfully,
but for those that it does, it's almost like they're
(31:32):
they're as ambulic state. It's just easier for them to go, well,
I'm not responsible for all this nonsense. Well great, but
it's not a great attitude to have, and historically it
never has been. So music and art are. They're not benign.
They're there to help, they're there, they're there to guide.
(31:55):
I don't mean just the people that write it. I
mean we luck out on a lot of things that
we do. But you mentioned it before too abuzz, which
is it enables and enacts the spirit of community. I
think that's what great art does. And even if that
spirited community is it is not a wholesale large swath
(32:19):
of people. It's people in general that that are able
to think, that that are that are attuned to the
fact that there's things that when when they read, when
they when they listen, when they communicate with people. Who
do you surround yourself with, for example, who friends do
you have, Who's feeding that fire that you have in yourself?
(32:42):
Those things are all just critical to to what it
is to be a human being. And the more we
we understand and absorb absorb those lessons, I think in
the long run it's still going to be complicated, because
human beings are complicated, but I think we'll have more
more and more reason to to agree on things and
(33:04):
to disagree.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
So how far along are you on the book? I
know you're pretty far along.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm about a word wise, I'm about one hundred and
fifteen thousand words into it.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Okay, you're pretty far along.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Sorry far along. I have a great editor. The people
who don't have released this book are called Llo Rigalo Press,
Gratchen Young is a part of that system. She helped
write a book by interviewing Senator John Lewis some years back.
(33:38):
She's her help added a book with a fellow that
wrote a book on Tiger Woods. I mean, she's got
sports books, she's put She's a heavyweight, great, great person.
I absolutely adore her and her husband. John Baxter is
my editor, along with a guy named Gary Bays, who
(33:59):
I've had for the last twenty years. Look over my stuff.
I just just what I said, you know, who do
you surround yourself with for this book? I've surrounded myself
with some people that are Little Feet fans and that
know the English language, and they also have inspired and
(34:21):
got me to just relax into writing and and doing
what I do. They're not there as ghost writers. I'm
a pretty good writer on my own, but they helped
shape things like when I wrote something about Lowell. Lowell's
birthday was I think it was August excuse me, April thirteenth.
(34:41):
I'd said, oh, Lowell's going to be eighty. And John Baxter,
who's written several books on Walt Disney, by the way,
he said, now Lowell would be would have been eighty. Oh, yes, right,
you know that that kind of thing I didn't grow
up was a songwriter. I mean, I thought Lowell was
(35:02):
very accomplished, and I've taken care too in this book.
Also not to detegrate Lowell George. His demise and death
is not unlike Janis job and Jimmy Hendrix, Brian Jones,
Jim Morrison, I mean, greor Garcia a lot of them.
(35:23):
That doesn't define who he is. It defines how he passed.
So I want to write about the person that was complicated,
that could irritate the hell out of you, that was
two steps forward, one step back, but was also even
if he was only producing one or two songs, they
were brilliant. I also addressed the fact that when Paul
(35:44):
and I were Paul Breyn and I were accused of
taking over the band back in the day. I said, look,
if we took over his little feet by the way
of Lowell's muse, why are there a few Lowell George
songs on his solo record that took five years to make,
And people go, oh, I don't know. I go oh,
I don't either. He evidently wasn't writing, That's what I
(36:05):
would say, So he got his own way but it's
not a crime to be vulnerable, and he wasn't. I
think that's that's what made Hina, That's what added to
his humanness and his humanity was that vulnerability, because like
a lot of people in that shape, he was trying
(36:26):
to break through that and come out on the other
side and get back to some form where he could
feel comfortable in his own skin. Which is why I
wrote back to that kid today to say, hey, I'm
glad our music's helped you and just you know, keep
it going here.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
So I do want to I want to.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I want to close with asking about something I saw
the great Jerry Douglas.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Post something beautiful.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
About the fact that the Great Little Feet Band deserves
to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And he wrote this eloquent from a musician's heart speech.
And I know your feelings on Jerry and how you've
collaborated with him and what you think of him, and
(37:17):
obviously I see what he thinks of you and the band,
but I guess I really wanted to get your take
on how that made you feel when you saw him
lay this out publicly saying, hey, come on, you know
this band deserves that recognition.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Let's just do it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I'll tell you it's truth. This is the first I've
heard of it, and I'm thrilled to you that he
weighed in. For years, I thought, well, I don't care
if we're in there or not. But then a few
years ago I kind of flipped my stance on it.
I thought, you know, I think we should be in it,
and for all the right reasons too, because of our legacy,
(37:56):
because of Lowell, because of Sean Murphy, because of Gregg Fuller,
Paul breverchie Hayward, because of the fact that we're influenced
by who we grew up listening to, which is this
great catalog of music starting with Little Richard. Do you
want to listen to chety fruity by Little Richard or
by Pat Boone? I mean, Little Richard won my heart,
(38:19):
That's all I can say. And I have nothing against
Pat bone I'm madam. He's a decent, decent man and
great just room for everybody. I'm not knocking to anybody
either that's already in the Hall of Fame. I mean,
that's that's an easy target for a lot of people
that to get riled up about. Look, rock and roll
(38:39):
is a very wide term. The terminology is wide. It
encompasses so much and it should. I mean, it's it's
R and B. It's it's the breakdown of things. And
so what do you want to attach to this huge
whale of swimming through the ocean with barnacle and planktonight
(39:01):
attached to it. That's that's rotten. It's moving. It may
move slow at times, but it never slows down. It doesn't.
It's not going to disappear overnight. It's it's an attitude.
It's little feet. Is the reason we can call it
little feet in twenty twenty five is because of the
(39:25):
the attachment of the legacy is is still there. When
you hear that first track four days a half and
three days of work, if you know the band at all,
you're gonna go, my gosh, that sounds like little feet,
And how is that possible? If you know? Well, I
found that out when I went to hear well was
actually I wound up here in Jimmy page. I'll cut
(39:48):
to the chase, but I was there to hear those
of the yardbirds were playing Jeff Pack Chrismal Beach, Rose Gardens.
Jeff wasn't there, and we're Jeff come on, and then
we start hearing this other fellow play and it was
Jimmy Page. We go we didn't forget about Jeff back,
but we went, well, this guy's really good too. That
(40:12):
was the impetus I had, and to put Little Feet
back together in nineteen eighty eight was just that that
experience with the Artbirds. You're not gonna you're gonna miss Lowell.
Some people are gonna put up a wall and say
without Lulls, not Little Feet. That's their prerogative. I think
it's a narrow view. I think that we're inviting more
(40:34):
people to come in and find out who Lowell George
is because he's not always on the radar, especially with
new generations. So by keeping Little Feet alive, by keeping
a band alive that would take ten bands to play
and to play the music that we play, it's a
selfish reason. I do it because I love the band.
(40:56):
I love being able to write without thinking of what
I mean. I just want musicians that can play it,
sing it, and provide their own material to expand on
on the legacy. But that legacy is always going to
point to Lowell George, to Richie Hayward, to Paul Preyer,
to Sam Clayton, Kenny Fred Tacking myself and on and on.
(41:18):
It's it's bigger than any of us at this point.
I think it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
And I think the fact of still out playing.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
You're going to be hitting the road for another long
run as you always do, and creating. In terms of
the new project, I think, for whatever it means for me,
I believe that carries even a greater positive aspect of
why you guys should be in the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. You're you're still vibrant and kicking some ass,
(41:49):
so thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I think it'll happen, and for all the right reasons.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Well, you got Jerry Douglass on your side. It can't
hurt either, right.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Can't love it then on her side too, these h
We got a lot of people, and I think that's great,
and we're we're going to continue doing what we do
and expanding on on the notion of of of who
we bring into play with. I think that's part and
parcel for me over the next few years, or what
(42:19):
do we have left to do this of who we
extend the the the invite of joining us in this
this journey that we are collectively on, not just that
Little Feet is on, but as musicians what we do,
celebrate what we do. Let's let's take our art seriously,
as I've said earlier, but let's have fun in the process.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
You played any golf?
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I played yesterday and they had arad the greens and
I by my wife and Polly were there. I'm my gosh,
maybe I shouldn't play for another three and a half weeks.
I'm really hitting the ball well, which I adore. Little Feet.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
I adore you, Bill Payne. It's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
I take it a walk and congrats on the new
release and enjoy the tour as night.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Thank you so much, man, You're a treasure. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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