(frankman) in the bathtub

_{^{The great, the late …}}

When I was just newly a teenager, my older sister Michele’s next-door neighbor friend Lori kindly loaned me a bunch of albums, stuff she thought maybe I’d be into. Much of it I didn’t go for, and still don’t, like REO Speedwagon, which was way too treacly sweet for my tastes, even then.

I was moderately into the Southern rock selections (Blackfoot, Molly Hatchet, even regional boys Nantucket) for a short bit, but my tastes changed hard away from them pretty soon after.

One of those loaned albums kinda blew my young mind, in the best way, Blue Oyster Cult’s Secret Treaties, particularly the spectacularly sublime gibberish of “Astronomy,” which I adore to this very day.

Call me Desdinova, eternal light
These gravely digs of mine will surely prove a sight
And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent …”

Walk around singing that, even if you can sing, which I can, a bit, and people gonna stare, regardless.

But I just couldn’t get into either of the Little Feat albums, Sailin’ Shoes and Dixie Chicken, that she loaned me, so sure I’d like them.

I bring this up because I am, after all these years, kinda obsessed right now with early Little Feat, those very same two albums, plus their self-titled debut. Because that freakin’ Lowell George. How the hell did I not get this then?

It started with “Willin’,” mainly because I listen to a lot of Tom Petty, and I happened one day to hear him do a live version of it on his radio channel …

I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’ to be movin’ …

Wait, that’s amazing! Those can’t be real places, right? (Yes, they are.) So … what the … what the hell is that?

From there, well …

“Easy to Slip,” “Brides of Jesus,” “Roll Um Easy,” “Trouble,” more “Willin'” (as in both versions; thanks amigo Rick Morris, for directing me to the band’s first album), “Truckstop Girl,” “Two Trains,” “Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie,” “Sailin’ Shoes,” “Long Distance Love” (OK, that one’s from album four, just before Payne and Barrère took over completely, screw you guys, ya noodling Weather Report wannabes), et al.

Lowell George’s voice, when given a little room to breathe, is remarkable, so affecting, as warm and intoxicating as his early rambling song-stories. Again, how the fuck did I miss this years ago?

“Eloquent profanity, it rolls right off my tongue … “

And “Fat Man in the Bathtub”? Oh, yes, please! Lowell George’s supposedly autobiographical song, I mean. Otherwise, that’s maybe a little too close for comfort …