Little Feat

Cocaine is a funny drug when it comes to music. It makes some artists actually create better music (Sly and the Family Stone), and it gives some artists the illusion that their music is better than it really is (Conor Oberst). Some artists, after kicking the habit, get bloated (John Mayer), and some die a cocaine death (Ike Turner). A lot of musicians have written songs about the pitfalls of cocaine (Phish, Bob Dylan). But it takes something special to write a song championing the love for such a notorious substance.

Enter: Little Feat (and possibly Van Dyke Parks). Little Feat were a Southern rock band in the 70's. The first time I had ever heard of them, it was on the recommendation of my dad.

One day a few years ago he mentioned this Little Feat to me. "Oh yeah, they were smokin'!" or something. "Ok cool, I'll have to...check them out...someday..." and then I didn't.

It wasn't until I saved a copy of Robert Palmer's Sneaking Sally Through the Alley from becoming dumpster food that I first got to know what Little Feat were all about. The backing band on this album are a couple dudes from Little Feat and a couple dudes from the Meters, and the first track is a cover of Little Feat's "Sailing Shoes". The cover is pretty funked out, with a heavy bass line and some sultry ladies complementing Palmer's soulful pipes. And then I still didn't seek out the original until I was at my parents' house last September. I was digging through some of my records, some of which got mixed in with my parents'. And there it was: 1972's Sailing Shoes, by Little Feat.

I was watching the Cubs trying to clinch the division with the sound off, and popped the old bird onto the platter. The original "Sailin' Shoes" is much more sparse than the Palmer cover. It's Southern, but not in that dumb rock Skynyrd kind of way. It doesn't try to rock at all. Laid-back slide guitar, plodding honky tonk piano, gospel chorus. In a word, this song owns.

I had my computer music on shuffle this week, and what should pop up but a Van Dyke Parks song entitled "Sailin' Shoes" from the same year as the Little Feat version. "What is this all about?" I asked myself.

Well it turns out, Parks probably had something to do with the writing of this song. He and Little Feat's frontman (and member of Zappa's Mothers of Invention) Lowell George were good friends. It seems a little odd, then, that Parks never got credit for the song.

So here are the three versions:

Robert Palmer - Sailing Shoes
Van Dyke Parks - Sailin' Shoes
Little Feat - Sailin' Shoes

Robert Palmer

I think it's unfortunate that Robert Palmer always gets lumped into the "Dad music" category. It's understandable considering the major hits that he had- "Simply Irresistable," "Doctor, Doctor," and "Addicted to Love." These are all powered, cheesy 80's pop songs that go hand in hand with REO and ZZ Top on classic rock radio. What you wouldn't know from these songs are both Palmer's smooth, smooth grooves as well as his more contemplative, insightful side. Palmer's also been known to throw in a decent cover here and there, including Little Feat's championing of cocaine, "Sailing Shoes," Toots' "Pressure Drop," Gary Numan's "I Dream of Wires," and Marvin Gaye's "Mercy, Mercy Me." These covers SCREAM smooth/insightful.

I'd like to share what I think is Palmer's best track, and is probably in my top 20 all time favorite songs. The third track and first single off the (excellent) 1980 album "Clues," Johnny & Mary is a poignant tale of a doomed couple set to a drum machine and (what I can only assume to be) a highly phased bass riff. Top notch.

In September of 2003, Palmer got "layed" for the last time as his body was put to rest after a heart attack.

Robert Palmer - Johnny & Mary

-Cole