Today, Little Feat – criminally underrated pioneering rock band – announced the release of their grooving new single “Midnight Flight” featuring on forthcoming new album, Strike Up The Band, set for release May 9 via Hot Tomato.
Listen to “Midnight Flight” HERE
Watch the “Midnight Flight” Music Video HERE
Little Feat also announced a three-day festival in Woodstock, New York for August 30 through September 1 with plans to record performances for a new live album. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 4 – visit littlefeat.net for more information.
Their latest single “Midnight Flight” has a trademark Little Feat syncopated groove, earworm horn melody, love-struck lyrics, and a Scott Sharrard blistering guitar solo, which in all, make it yet another remarkable addition to the Little Feat canon.
“I wrote this song in the winter of 2020, shortly after joining Little Feat.” stated, Sharrard, adding, “Looking back on it, I feel like this song blends the sonic palate of Freddie King’s albums with Leon Russell and the sound we all love so much, which we heard on Little Feat's “comeback” album, Let It Roll. It’s got that boogie feel that gets people up.”
On the forthcoming Feat Fest, Sharrard stated, “The town of Woodstock, NY, like most iconic spots on the American musical map, has become more than a place, it’s a feeling. The same could be said for the sound of Little Feat. The connection of the band to this location goes all the way back to the 1960s and 70s. It was the sound of The Bands “Music from Big Pink” and their work with Bob Dylan that helped spur on the founding of Little Feat by Lowell George and Bill Payne in 1969. Since the early 2000’s, Levon Helms Midnight Ramble became a jam hang out and incubator for members of our band. Now it’s Little Feats turn to decamp, hang out a while and infuse the mountain air with some Feat Boogie.
The Bearsville Theater will be hosting us for a rock and roll revival and celebration of over 50 years of gonzo funk, rad gumbo, soul ballads, and interstellar improvisations. We will have a few local friends along for the ride to honor the Little Feat tradition and take part in the sound of the local Woodstock community of extraordinary friends, artists, and musicians.
Our 3-night residency will also be recorded for a future live album, so we are inviting you all to come and be part of this next chapter in the band’s history. From its origin as the land of the Lenape Indians to its reign as Rock and Roll’s true musical mountain sanctuary, we are thrilled to present Woodstock and the Bearsville Theater as the location for the first Feat Fest, 2025.”
This week, American Songwriter spoke exclusively to the band and described the new single as “expertly straddling the line of pop and rock with a sprinkle of jazz for good measure.”
Sharrard told American Songwriter, “I was inspired by Little Feat’s specific use of their New Orleans funk groove. There are guitar open tunings are all over this record. I learned a lot about open tunings from the way Lowell George played slide guitar and the way Paul Barrere played. This song kind of combines those elements.”
The feature also covers the album to come, which Bill Payne describing the album to American Songwriter as “portraits of songs, none of which are like the other, a classic cornerstone of Little Feat over the band’s five-plus decades” and the amalgamation of genres and styles and the band’s “wide variety of material” is the reason it has stood strong for since the ’70s.
“You’d have to play in 10 different bands to play the breadth of music that we play,” Bill Payne said to American Songwriter. “So selfishly, I’ve always wanted to maintain that vehicle. It would be darn near impossible to work with anybody else, given that there’s very few bands that are allowed, much less have the acumen, to play as varied songs as we do.”
Read the American Songwriter feature HERE.
More about Little Feat:
At this point in its illustrious, nearly 60-year career, rock legends Little Feat could be excused if they wanted to take its proverbial foot off the gas. However, that wouldn’t be in Little Feat’s DNA. From the very first note of Strike Up The Band, you will hear Little Feat–who have been rocking and rolling since 1969– mean business.
Little Feat built a cult following in the late 60s and 70s for their pioneering gumbo of New Orleans rhythm-and-blues, country, hard-rock, funk, and jazz. Celebrated as a key influence by icons from Bonnie Raitt to The Rolling Stones (and more recently current stars like 1975’s Matt Healy), yet, commercial success remained at arms length. Songs like “Dixie Chicken,” “Spanish Moon,” “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” and “Rock and Roll Doctor” are legends in the rock and roll songbook. They have released a total of 16 studio albums and 10 live albums to date. Through the ups and downs, love and loss, the lineup shifts, and endless touring they have remained together and the closest of friends.
Their wilderness years, when the band was on periods of hiatus, individual members collaborated with a laundry list of legends including Bob Dylan, Boz Scaggs, J. J. Cale, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Buffett, Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Bryan Adams, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Toto, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Stevie Nicks, Robert Palmer, Bob Weir, Mick Fleetwood, Phil Lesh - you name a musician from the classic rock era, they have likely played with them!
Their elastic lineup has included the late great Lowell George, founding drummer, Richie Hayward, and guitarist Paul Barrere, and to this day features founding member Bill Payne on keys, alongside the classic lineup of Fred Tackett on guitars/vocals, Kenny Gradney on bass, and Sam Clayton on percussion/vocals. They recently enlisted younger members Scott Sharrard on lead/vocal and Tony Leone on drums/vox which reinvigorated their creative spirits and live show.
Following the 2024 release of the Grammy-nominated blues album Sam’s Place, the band got back to work on a body of originals. The album began back in 2012 after marathon writing sessions, keyboardist/founding member Bill Payne wrote 20 songs with famed Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, four of which appeared on Rooster Rag, the band’s 15th album that was released that same year.
The seeds for Strike Up the Band may have been initially planted in 2019, but the current iteration of the band coalesced it in 2021. Following a year of zapping files back and forth due to the pandemic, that November was when the band first started jamming with guitarist/vocalist Scott Sharrard, who joined in 2019, and drummer Tony Leone, who joined in 2020.
“Once again, we're introducing something that we're going to call Little Feat to people who would be accepting and some who would not,” Payne says. “The ramp to believing in ourselves was in the songs we wrote. And the minute we had this new band, we wanted to be realistic and that was to make a record.”
To solidify the writing, Payne left his home in the West and headed to New York. In just four days, he wrote three songs with Sharrard and Leone. That window spawned one of the album’s finest tracks, “4 Days of Heaven, 3 Days of Work.”
“Bill brought this title to Tony and I, and I knew immediately that we were going to cook something up that would be special,” Sharrard says. “The lyrics and music embrace what I call ‘Gonzo Funk,’ Little Feat’s unique brand where you combine a slinky groove with some far-out lyrical imagery.”
Together with producer Vance Powell (Phish, Chris Stapleton, Jack White), and collaborators including Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, they created their new album in Nashville, and Strike Up The Band is destined to be considered their later year magnum opus. Songs like funk-fueled “Too High To Cut My Hair,” which tastemaker PASTE MAGAZINE described as sounding, “as good as ever, cutting a funk track with the fire of a wicked blues tempo,” as well as “Shipwrecks,” and “Bluegrass Pines (feat. Molly Tuttle, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams)” are as dexterous, considered, and creative as any song Little Feat has created to date.
Their lyrics are inventive, transportive, abstract, and emotive in their pursuit of celebrating the good times and holding you close in the bad. Guitars scream and slide, pianos rock and boogie, and drums shuffle you down the road in a way that only Little Feat can. This is the album Little Feat fans have been waiting for and is an undeniable statement from a band who in many ways are just getting started in their 56th year.With buzz of the back of their GRAMMY nomination for their recent album Sam’s Place, their own festival, a newly announced national tour, and much more in the works, Little Feat are not weathered statues in the hall of rock fame. They remain the collective and creative force they have always been. The beauty of Little Feat perhaps lies in the band’s ability to continuously evolve yet keep the spirit of what we all know and love about them, constant and alive. At this stage in a band’s career, few, if any would be willing to evolve at the level Little Feat does. That in itself, is quite the feat.
TRACKLIST:
4 Days of Heaven 3 Days of Work
Bayou Mama
Shipwrecks
Midnight Flight
Too High To Cut My Hair
When Hearts Fall
Strike Up The Band (feat. Larkin Poe)
Bluegrass Pines (feat. Molly Tuttle, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams)
Disappearing Ink
Love and Life (Never Fear)
Dance a Little
Running Out of Time with the Blues
New Orleans Cries When She Sings
TOUR DATES
May 5 Mon - Rutland, VT - Paramount Theatre *
May 6 Tue - Medford, MA - Chevalier Theatre *
May 8 Thu - Port Chester, NY - The Capitol Theatre *
May 9 Fri - Montclair, NJ - Wellmont Theater *
May 10 Sat - Ithaca, NY - State Theatre *
May 12 Mon - Akron, OH - Goodyear Theater *
May 13 Tue - Shipshewana, IN - Blue Gate Performing Arts Center *
May 15 Thu - Nashville, IN - Brown County Music Center *
May 16 Fri - Davenport, IA - Capitol Theatre *
May 17 Sat - Des Plaines, IL - Rivers Casino Des Plaines *
May 19 Mon - Peoria, IL - Prairie Home Alliance Theater *
May 23 Fri - Chandler, AZ - Gila River Resorts & Casinos Wild Horse Pass *
Jun 13 Fri - Santa Cruz, CA - Rio Theatre *
Jun 14 Sat - Napa, CA - Blue Note Napa Summer Sessions at Meritage Resort*
Jun 15 Sun - Reno, NV - Grand Theatre at Grand Sierra Resort *
Jun 18 Wed - Eugene, OR - McDonald Theatre *
Jun 19 Thu - Boise, ID - The Egyptian Theatre *
Jun 21 Sat - Airway Heights, WA - Spokane Live at the Spokane Tribe Resort & Casino #
Jun 22 Sun - Redmond, VA - Marymoor Live #
Jun 24 Tue - Bonner, MT - Kettlehouse Amphitheater #
Jun 25 Wed - Pocatello, ID - Portneuf Health Trust Amphitheatre #
Jun 26 Thu - Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden #
Jun 28 Sat - Winter Park, CO - Blues From The Top
Aug 29 - Charlestown, RI - Rhythm & Roots 2025
Aug 30 - Sep 1 - Woodstock, NY - Feat Fest at Bearsville Theater
Sep 15-21 - Ketchikan, AK - Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea - Alaska 2025
Oct 14 Tue - Birmingham, AL - Alabama Theatre *
Oct 15 Wed - Franklin, TN - Firstbank Amphitheater <
Oct 17 Fri - Raleigh, NC - Red Hat Amphitheater <
Oct 18 Sat - Charlotte, NC - PNC Music Pavilion <
Oct 19 Sun - Atlanta, GA - Atlanta Symphony Hall *
Oct 21 Tue - Richmond, VA - Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront <
Oct 22 Wed - Wilmington, NC - Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park <
Oct 24 Fri - Baltimore, MD - The Lyric Baltimore *
Oct 25 Sat - Huntington, NY - The Paramount *
Oct 26 Sun - Red Bank, NJ - Count Basie Center for the Arts *
2026
Jan 11-18 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Sandy Beaches Cruise 2026
Jan 18-25 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - The Big Easy Cruise 2026
* Strike Up The Band Tour
# Little Feat & Nitty Gritty Band: Dirty Feat Tour
< With Tedeschi Trucks Band (Live in 25 Tour)
