The Best of Little Feat (Remastered)

Album Review

There have been many Little Feat compilations released over the years, but Rhino's 2006 The Best of Little Feat is the first single-disc hits collection to appear in the U.S., so it shouldn't be surprising that it's tilted ever so slightly toward the American market, where Little Feat was still touring steadily and successfully at the time of this disc's release. That means that it has a healthy dose of recordings from the reunited Little Feat — four tracks, actually, which is a pretty high percentage for a 17-track collection. Since the reunited Little Feat has actually been together longer than the classic Lowell George-fronted lineup, this does make some sense, and the selections are good, even if it is strange that "Hate to Lose Your Lovin'," the first single from their 1988 comeback, Let It Roll, and a radio hit, is missing. Of course, there are some odd oversights from the George years — most notably Sailin' Shoes is somewhat underplayed, with that song, "Easy to Slip," and "Teenage Nervous Breakdown" all MIA, but other standards like "Feats Don't Fail Me Now" and "Two Trains" are nowhere to be found either. These omissions mean that this Best of Little Feat is not the definitive single-disc overview of the group, but as a sampler it's not bad: there's plenty of great music here and as such it does serve as a rather effective introduction to the band, even if it doesn't tell a neophyte everything they should know about the group.