During their heyday in the mid-1970s, Little Feat had the reputation of being your favorite band's favorite band. Other groups sold more records and tickets, but Little Feat cultivated a deep, passionate cult through their funky concoctions of New Orleans soul, California country-rock, and urban blues, a blend that was plenty appealing on record but found its natural home onstage. Little Feat were aware of the chasm between their studio sets and concerts, so they aimed to channel that kinetic energy onto Waiting for Columbus, the 1978 double live album that’s now been expanded into an eight-CD box set with three complete concerts that provided the source for the original LP. Like many double-live sets of the era, this was the album that crystallized the band’s appeal, capturing the elastic, elusive charms of a group that wandered on the fringes of rock counterculture since the late ’60s.
Lowell George, a shaggy hippie with prodigious appetites, formed the band after leaving the Mothers of Invention. Legend has it that Frank Zappa kicked out George after hearing the guitarist’s original composition “Willin’,” a country-rock ballad for dopers. George called up Bill Payne, a keyboardist who didn’t pass an audition for Zappa, then roped in his old Factory bandmate drummer Richie Hayward, and invited ex-Mother bassist Roy Estrada into his new band, who alternated heavy, surrealistic blues with stoned country-rock. After delivering two superb albums in this vein, Little Feat regrouped, swapping Kenny Gradney for Roy Estrada while bringing in percussionist Sam Clayton and guitarist Paul Barrere, players that helped lead the band in a funkier direction on 1973’s Dixie Chicken and beyond.
Little Feat found their footing on 1974’s Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, a record made after the group relocated from Los Angeles to the Washington D.C. area. They started playing college towns up and down the east coast, developing into a ferocious rock’n’roll band with the dexterity of jazz musicians. They were kindred spirits with the Grateful Dead—George wound up producing the Dead’s 1978 LP Shakedown Street—but their rhythms hit harder and the band was tighter, qualities that helped Little Feat become a simmering cult sensation. They reached a boiling point on January 19, 1975, when they played a Warner Bros. package tour at London's Rainbow Theatre, blowing headliners the Doobie Brothers off the stage with an unusually fiery set. Soon, the UK embraced Little Feat—and that includes British rock royalty: Jimmy Page sang their praises, while Clayton remembers, "One time, the Stones picked us up at the airport on the runway. We didn't even have to go through customs."