By Scott McLennan

Little Feat is on the cusp of a rebirth – again.

With two new members energizing the ensemble, the legendary Little Feat is readying the release of Strike Up the Band, its first album of original material since 2012. And it packs a decisive punch, just like the Let It Roll record did back in 1988 when the group snapped a nine-year hiatus and came roaring back.

Strike Up the Band comes out May 9, and Little Feat is performing in the Boston area a few days before that, with a May 6 concert at the Chevalier Theater in Medford.

For guitarist Scott Sharrard, the album’s release represents “crossing the most important Rubicon.”

“When I first played with Little Feat, I was both incredibly proud and incredibly intimidated,” Sharrard recalled during a recent interview. He claims that Little Feat was a major influence on his own work. He has been an avowed fan since he was a kid and heard the band perform live during its Let It Roll era.

The esteemed guitarist was a longtime member and musical director of Gregg Allman’s band. Following Allman’s death in 2017, Sharrard began to lead his own outfits before he was tapped to play two shows with Little Feat in late 2019 as a fill-in for ailing guitarist Paul Barrere. Barrere, who had a hand in Little Feat’s classic ’70s and ’80s comeback albums, was hoping to return to the lineup by the time the band made its annual winter trek to Jamaica for its curated fest.

But Barrere died the night of Sharrard’s first gig with Little Feat. Then Little Feat bassist Kenny Gradney said he had decided to call it quits after Barrere died. “My heart was broken, I was done,” Gradney said when reached by phone at his home.

Gradney and Barrere entered Little Feat in 1972, a couple of years after guitarist, singer, and songwriter Lowell George started the group, with keyboard player Billy Payne and drummer Richie Hayward. The classic Little Feat lineup of George, Payne, Barrere, Hayward, Gradney, and percussionist Sam Clayton made a fantastic run from 1972 to 1979; they formulated colorful and emotionally resonant tunes whose funky, bluesy sound embraced humor, romance, heartache, and joy. In that period, Little Feat crafted a number of classic songs, including “Willin’,” “Dixie Chicken,” “All That You Dream,” “Spanish Moon,” “Easy to Slip,” and “Fat Man in the Bathtub.”

In 1979, tensions within Little Feat led George to pursue a solo album and tour. He died shortly after the release of his Thanks I’ll Eat Here album in June of that year. The remaining members of Little Feat completed the album the group had been working on, Down on the Farm, and then disbanded.

In 1987, Payne, Barrere, Gradney, Hayward, and Clayton recruited guitarist Fred Tackett and singer-songwriter-guitarist Craig Fuller to reform the band. Little Feat released its huge comeback album Let it Roll the following year.

While Little Feat remained on active duty from that point on, the band went through transformations. Fuller departed the band in 1993, replaced by singer Shaun Murphy, who stayed until 2009. Founding member Hayward died in 2010. Payne started touring regularly with The Doobie Brothers between 2015 and 2021.

Little Feat today. Photo: courtesy of the artist

The group issued mainly archival live recordings, with the 2012’s Rooster Rag containing the last batch of original material Little Feat released before putting together Strike Up the Band.

But before rolling out that album, Little Feat released 2024’s Sam’s Place, a collection of blues covers (and one original) featuring Clayton on lead vocals. The recording was nominated for a Grammy. The effort was a low-key way to introduce Sharrard and drummer Tony Leone as the new guys in the lineup, as well as showcase Clayton, whom Sharrard champions as an underrated blues talent.

When Leone, who played with Amy Helm, Chris Robinson, Phil Lesh, and others, came into the fold in 2021, the new lineup immediately began writing and swapping ideas, first as electronic missives during the pandemic quarantine and then on the road, as the touring industry revved back into business. At those initial shows, the reborn Little Feat recorded Sam’s Place during sound checks before concerts, prepping itself to make Strike Up the Band in Nashville with producer Vance Powell.

“We worked hard to bring the band back around,” Gradney said. “Billy kept up the fight for us.”

Payne’s fighting spirit was coupled with the burst of creative energy Sharrard and Leone infused into the group. Tackett, Payne, Sharrard, and Leone contributed songs to the new album. On top of that, Sharrard stepped up as lead guitarist for the project and was the lead vocalist on several numbers.

The record also pulls in guest performances by Larkin Poe, Molly Tuttle, Larry Campbell, and Teresa Williams. Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr and Leftover Salmon’s Vince Herman each co-wrote a song with Payne, and the Little Feat keyboard player dusted off a tune he had worked on with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter back when the pair wrote together on the Rooster Rag album. All of this is to say that all the members of Little Feat were determined to make Strike Up the Band a record worthy of its legacy, and a bunch of artists who respect that legacy had a hand in the record’s success.

Sharrard confidently steps up as a vocalist and guitarist, extending the tradition of what he calls Little Feat’s “gonzo funk,” though he also brings his own distinctive sensibility to the music. Throughout the recording, he swings with the sort of natural ease that propels vintage Little Feat records of the ’70s, ranging from the anthemic call-to-arms of the title track to the good-humored “Too High to Cut My Hair,” the plaintive “Shipwrecks,” and the horn-driven rocker “4 Days of Heaven 3 Days of Work.”

Payne likewise sounds inspired, digging into the freaky terrain of “Bluegrass Pines” or celebrating the Crescent City and its culture on “Bayou Mama” and “New Orleans Cries When She Sings.”

Tackett takes a lead vocal on the prayerful “Love and Life (Never Fear).” Even Leone gets in on the action, singing “Running Out of Time with the Blues,” a classic Feat-style screwball blues.

Gradney and Sharrard each told me that many of these songs started out as a simple spark of an idea — a phrase, a musical lick, a rhythm. Then the musicians built Little Feat songs from that raw material. “We made the record in Nashville, and we had so much fun. It wasn’t work, it was never work. The music just flowed, and we laughed the whole time,” Gradney recalled. “It was the best environment to be creative.”

From the perspectives of both a longtime fan and top-notch musician, Sharrard insisted that Strike Up the Band earned a rightful place in Little Feat’s 50-year-in-the-making catalog. “There’s always been a feeling of ‘anything goes’ with Little Feat,” he said, “but a Little Feat song has to feel good and tell a story.”

The album cover of Strike Up the Band incorporates Little Feat’s “sailing shoe” motif, the image poking through a marching band drum. The visual subtly mirrors the design of the band’s Let It Roll cover. It is a very intentional nod to the revival of the fittest.

“I know people will want to know if this can happen, if this can work. Well, it was done once before, when Craig Fuller came in, and you saw it again when Warren Haynes came into the Allman Brothers Band in the late ’80s,” Sharrard said. “I am confident it can be done again.”

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.