Thinking About Lowell George

Neon Memes • Little Feat will visit the Pageant (6161 Delmar Boulevard, 314.726.6161) tomorrow, Saturday, October 25, and the mere mention of that band always calls to mind one of the finest live albums ever released, their Waiting for Columbus from 1978. Three decades later, almost inconceivably, the band's seven members still include five of the six principals from that album, and I don't for a moment doubt the septet performs with artistry and élan. Yet I still miss that sixth principal, the band's founder, whom a heart attack felled on June 29, 1979, at the age of 34: singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lowell George. My favorite track from Waiting for Columbus, "Willin'," opens with crowd cheers, a strummed guitar and George, sotto voce. Pianist Bill Payne then tickles the ivories, and the band harmonizes on the first half of the chorus before letting George soar solo: "And if you give me-e-e-e"―he stretches the pronoun to the breaking point―"weed, whites and wine / and you show me a sign / I'll be willin', to be movin'." Down the decades, perhaps reflecting the fact that tomorrow may, indeed, come, George's voice still thrums with equal measures of delight and dread. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor