Little Feat to play classic live album 'Waiting for Columbus' in Jacksonville

Little Feat returns to one of its greatest triumphs when the band plays the classic 1978 live album "Waiting for Columbus" in its entirety Monday at the Florida Theatre.

The album features many of the band's best-known songs — "Fat Man in the Bathtub," "Willin'," "Dixie Chicken" — but it nearly spelled the end of Little Feat when it was released. A little more than a year after its release, band leader Lowell George was dead and the rest of the band members went their separate ways for nearly a decade.

"Waiting for Columbus" remains a Feat fan favorite, containing most of the band's best-known songs, stretched out to leave room for improvisational jams and a horn section.

Bill Payne, the band's founding keyboard player and one of three originals still in the lineup, said they'll play the whole album on Monday at the Florida Theatre, but not necessarily the way fans remember it.

"We’re taking the order of the original album and we’re playing that," Payne said in a phone interview earlier this month. "We’re not sticking to the arrangements necessarily."

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There's room during the encores for a few non-"Columbus" songs, Payne added.

The band has been doing the album nightly for this tour, including a stop at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, where two nights were recorded for a PBS special scheduled to air later this year. For those shows, the band was joined onstage by Eric Church, Billy Strings, Rosanne Cash and Bettye Lavette.

Little Feat won't bring all those stars along for the Jacksonville show, but Payne said fans shouldn't be surprised if opening act Amy Helm shares the stage with them.

"She’s a dear friend of everybody in the band," Payne said. "I’ve been sitting in with her band as well."

Little Feat is also bringing along the Midnight Ramble Horns and a couple of new band members.

Drummer Tony Leone joined the band in 2020 and singer/guitarist Scott Sharrard came aboard a year earlier. Sharrard was guitarist and musical director of Gregg Allman's band for nearly a decade.

Payne said fans have welcomed the new guys with open arms.

"I’d say its freaking people out in a good way. You see them just melt and reform and dance and just go crazy," he said. "It’s great to see they feel the same way we do about things. It’s a pretty good indication that we’re doing something right."

Payne had been playing with the Doobie Brothers (who come to Daily's Place on June 5), but dropped off that tour to take Little Feat on the road. He said he expects the band to be around for a while. "We’re here to stay and play," he said.

He's been busy writing songs for a new Little Feat record. working with poet Paul Muldoon, Blackberry Smoke singer Charlie Starr and late Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. He said he's got about 20 songs ready, but the band has only worked up about four of them. He said it's important to him to create new music, not just play the old favorites.

"If that’s all we were doing," he said, "I think I would have just stayed with the Doobie Brothers."

Little Feat

with Amy Helm

8 p.m. Monday at the Florida Theatre

$34.50-$89.50

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Little Feat to play 'Waiting for Columbus' Monday in Jacksonville