Forty-five years after Little Feat released its landmark live album “Waiting for Columbus,” the influential jam band is bringing an anniversary tour built around that record to downtown Mobile. The band is scheduled to play the Saenger Theatre on Wednesday, March 23, at 8 p.m., with tickets ranging from $34.50 to $79.50 through Ticketmaster.
“Waiting for Columbus” was recorded over seven shows and helped set the template for how a live jam band album could sound, influencing generations of touring acts that followed. Little Feat’s stop at the Saenger will give Mobile audiences a chance to hear those songs reworked with the improvisational energy the band has built its reputation on.
Founding member and pianist Bill Payne discussed the tour, the band’s songwriting process and what audiences can expect from the Mobile show in a recent interview.
Not a note-for-note tribute
Payne said the band began preparing for the anniversary tour somewhat organically, since many of the “Waiting for Columbus” songs were already staples of Little Feat’s live sets. A run of shows last November billed as “Little Feat by Request” actually pushed the band to explore material outside that core catalog, which Payne said made the return to the “Waiting for Columbus” songs feel fresh rather than repetitive.
“We’re not here to replicate it,” Payne said of the original album. “Some do these live albums note for note. We’re not doing that. It wouldn’t be Little Feat if we did.”
Instead, Payne said the band plans to build a different set of jams into the songs each night, sometimes bringing in guest musicians or featuring the group’s horn section in different ways from show to show. He said the band may even try acoustic arrangements of some songs later in the tour, and plans to leave room in the encore to pull from the extended version of “Waiting for Columbus” or reach for other fan favorites like “Let It Roll” or “Long Distance Love.”
“I want to keep it fresh,” Payne said. “We’re all going to keep open the encore section… We’ll have a free zone there to see what we want to do.”
Songs built to last
Payne credited the staying power of the “Waiting for Columbus” catalog to songwriting that doesn’t feel tied to a specific era. He pointed to the track “Dixie Chicken” as an example of a song that could have been written recently rather than decades ago.
“I think the songs themselves are timeless in that they don’t necessarily represent a period of time,” Payne said. “It’s not like a hit song that somebody recorded where someone would say, ‘It’s cool, but it sounds dated.’ I think it holds true on most of these songs.”
Asked about his favorite night among the seven shows that became the original album, Payne said 45 years had made that impossible to pin down, though he recalled strong performances at Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C., where much of the material was recorded. He also described the band’s reception in London during that era, including a memorable encounter with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who told him the two bands were “all from the same cloth.”
Payne described Little Feat’s overall approach to its catalog as similar to a jazz band’s mentality: record a song, then feel free to revisit and rearrange it months or years later rather than treating the original recording as the only correct version.
New music and reissues in the works
Beyond the anniversary tour, Payne said Little Feat’s catalog is getting fresh attention from Warner Brothers, which is reissuing several of the band’s albums, including “Waiting for Columbus” itself.
Payne also discussed an active stretch of songwriting collaborations. He has written 20 songs with lyricist Robert Hunter, four of which appeared on Little Feat’s 2012 album “Rooster Rag,” with 16 more still unreleased. He has also been writing with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, who recently edited a collection of Paul McCartney’s lyrics, as well as producer and musician John Leventhal, who is married to singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash. Payne said he has also written two songs with Charlie Starr of the Southern rock band Blackberry Smoke, with Starr, Cash and Leventhal all set to appear alongside Little Feat in a PBS special.
Payne credited the band’s management team, Nashville-based Vector Management, led by Ken Levitan with day-to-day support from Brian Penix, for helping keep Little Feat’s career moving forward. “It’s being musicians and reaching an audience,” Payne said. “How do you do that on your own? You need people knocking on the doors, having them answered and then being able to walk into the next room.”
Little Feat’s “Waiting for Columbus” anniversary tour stops at the Saenger Theatre, 6 S. Joachim St. in downtown Mobile, on Wednesday, March 23, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.