Dixie Chicken Spanish Moon Little Feat

Dixie Chicken Album: Dixie Chicken (1973)
Spanish Moon Album: Feats Don't Fail Me Now (1974) this is the live version from their 1978 album Waiting for Columbus
by Little Feat

Dixie Chicken is of the "I've been there" variety. The story is of a man who meets the woman he believes is the love of his life in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel, and immediately makes a lifelong commitment to her, promising her the storied house on the edge of town with the white picket fence, but in the end she leaves him crying in his beer. The narrator is telling his story to a bartender, about how much he loved her and how badly he misses her. Then, one at a time, other guys in the bar start adding to his story until he realizes they'd all been scammed by the same girl. In the end, they're all singing in harmony about the "Dixie Chicken" and having a wistful but hearty laugh about all being part of this well-populated men's club.

"Dixie Chicken" is the title track to Little Feat's third album, which sported a new lineup, with Kenny Gradney replacing Roy Estrada on bass, and conga player Sam Clayton and guitarist Paul Barrere added. Their new sound was less blues-rock and more New Orleans-style Dixieland, making the title apropos.

Little Feat frontman Lowell George wrote this song with Martin Kibbee, who is credited as "Fred Martin." The pair were in a band together before Little Feat formed. Kibbee wrote the lyric, which was sparked when he drove past a sign in Los Angeles that said "Dixie Chicken" (apparently advertising a restaurant). He says that by the time he drove home, he had the lyric written in his head.

Bonnie Bramlett of the duo Delaney & Bonnie sang lead on this with Lowell George. New Little Feat members Kenny Gradney and Sam Clayton had both been in Delaney & Bonnie's band.

To promote this song, the band delivered fried chicken to radio stations with Lowell George in a chicken suit. The boxes read: "Finger Pickin' Good" - a play on the Kentucky Fried Chicken "Finger Lickin' Good" slogan - and had the girl from the album cover in place of Colonel Sanders.

Like their first two albums, Dixie Chicken sold quite poorly at first, but the group was signed to Warner Bros., which tended to sign bands they believed in and give them time to find an audience. When Little Feat hit the road, they picked up momentum and found a following. Their next album, Feats Don't Fail Me Now, sold 500,000 copies, and their 1978 album, Waiting For Columbus, sold a million. The song "Dixie Chicken," little heard when it was first released, became a favorite on Album Oriented Rock radio, and later, on Classic Rock.

Despite their success, it was a rough ride for Little Feat. Lowell George produced Dixie Chicken himself and dominated the album. His bandmates took more control of subsequent releases, but there was always a lot of tension. In 1979, the group broke up, and two months later George died while touring as a solo artist. Little Feat re-formed in 1987.

The popular all-female country group The Dixie Chicks, which formed in 1989, took their name from Dixie Chicken. In 2020, they dropped the Dixie and became "The Chicks" in response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement (two weeks earlier, Lady Antebellum re-branded as Lady A). The word "Dixie" refers to the "Confederate-era" South.

Garth Brooks recorded Dixie Chicken for his hit 1992 album The Chase. Surprisingly, the country singer had never heard the tune until the early '90s when he was listening to music on his tour bus and it started playing. Trisha Yearwood sang harmony on Brooks' version.

"Spanish Moon" was written and sung by guitarist Lowell George, who was a creative powerhouse in the early years of Little Feat. The song is about a fictional place called the Spanish Moon - a seedy club with whiskey and bad cocaine, but a girl singer that made it worth it. There are many dangers at the Spanish Moon, but the ones likely to do you in are the women.

Lowell George was an excellent storyteller and created the Spanish Moon from his imagination, but he lived through the vices he describes in the song, especially cocaine. Around this time, his addictions were starting to overpower him, his health started failing, and he developed hepatitis. Feats Don't Fail Me Now was the last Little Feat album where he was clearly the leader; his contributions to the band slowly tailed off, and in 1979 he released a solo album. While on tour supporting it, he died of a heart attack at 34.

"Spanish Moon" is the only Little Feat song produced by Van Dyke Parks, famous for his work with The Beach Boys. Parks was friends with Lowell George, who wanted him to produce the Feats Don't Fail Me Now album. The band, though, was struggling financially and held on a tight leash by their record company, Warner Bros., which wasn't thrilled with Parks, known for blowing budgets quickly with his elaborate productions. They recorded "Spanish Moon" with Parks in the Sound Factory studios in Los Angeles, but after that recording, the band members dispersed to work as sidemen so they could earn a living: George went to New Orleans to work on Robert Palmer's album; keyboard player Bill Payne hooked on with The Doobie Brothers; and other members recorded for the reggae star Johnny Nash.

The band pulled back together when one of their managers got them cheap studio time at a studio in Maryland that had just opened up. They completed the album there and got some money in their pockets when it did well. "Spanish Moon" was released as a single and became one of their most popular songs.

Like John Fogerty, Lowell George was from Southern California but could make music that would make you think he was from Louisiana. "Spanish Moon" is a great example of his talent for swampy funk; Van Dyke Parks called it "vanilla grits."

The Tower of Power horn section played on this track. "They were on the same label as us and I'd heard of them but had no idea what they sounded like," their sax player Emilio Castillo told Songfacts. "We walked into the session and met the producer, Van Dyke Parks, who was an extremely esoteric cat. One of the first things he said to us was: 'I want the horns on this track to sound the way it does when the cow pie hits the side of the barn.' We just looked at him in amazement and said, 'No problem.'

He played us the track and I heard Lowell George singing for the first time along with that slow funk groove and it was mesmerizing. We were all immediately captivated by The Feats.

In my opinion, the horn arrangement really took the track to another level. The introductory riff is priceless in that it sets the vibe for the whole song before you even hear the first verse and from there it just gets better and better with all these sneaky-sounding horn riffs appearing throughout the track. We wound up sitting in at live gigs with them later on and 'Spanish Moon' always brought the house down. ToP Horns played on several Little Feat albums but 'Spanish Moon' was always my favorite track.

A live version appears on Little Feat's 1978 album Waiting for Columbus, recorded at four shows in London in 1977. It's one of the Little Feat songs Lowell George played on his ill-fated solo tour in 1979.

Little Feat short-timer Fred White, half brother of Maurice White from Earth, Wind & Fire, played drums on this track. The band had parted ways with drummer Richie Hayward and brought White in to replace him. After a few months, they had second thoughts and brought Hayward back.