This is the first of the albums from the Seventies that I feel were an important omission from Robert Dimery's book - based partly on personal taste (as all things musical are) but also in how it links to other albums or exemplifies a particular artist or style.
I’m surprised that there were no Little Feat albums in the list, especially given how often Lowell George seems to be cited as an inspiration to other musicians. I must admit that my knowledge of their discography isn’t complete enough to say if this is their definitive album, but it gets a 5/5 stars from Allmusic, a B+ from Robert Christgau, and features in Colin Larkin’s “All Time Top 1000 Albums”, so it can’t be far off. This is also where their music moves from swamp rock to a more funk/R&B inflected style, the title track being something of a funk/rock fusion, about a femme fatale who cons the narrator out of his money and at the end he discovers that she’s done the same to everyone else in the bar where he is.
Some tracks are slow and funky, heavy with the humidity and sleaze of a New Orleans night, like the philosophical On Your Way Down (“All those people that you step on on your way up, you will meet up, on your way down”) and the love song Juliette. Others are more upbeat and often vaudevillian – Fat Man In The Bathtub, for example.
There’s an unspecified Americana feel to them, like a Southern version of The Band. I’d willingly trade in a Byrds or CSNY, or a Creedance Clearwater Revival for this album, since the blend of musical styles is unusual but really works, and there’s not a wasted song on here.
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