Lowell George

Members included future Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward (who replaced Dallas Taylor in September 1966); Martin Kibbee (a.k.a.

Fred Martin), who would later co-write several Little Feat songs with George (including "Dixie Chicken" and "Rock and Roll Doctor"); and Warren Klein on guitar.

In November 1968, George joined Zappa's Mothers of Invention as rhythm guitarist and nominal lead vocalist; he can be heard on Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol.

He earned his first production credit (in conjunction with Zappa and Russ Titelman) on Permanent Damage, an album recorded by "groupie group" The GTOs.

"[5] On the other hand, biographer Mark Brend asserts that Zappa liked the song but thought there was no place for it in the Mothers' set; George himself alternatively claimed that "it was decided that I should leave and form a band" by mutual agreement.

[6] After leaving the Mothers of Invention, George invited a contingent of fellow musicians (including former Zappa bassist Roy Estrada, keyboardist Bill Payne, and drummer Richie Hayward) to form a new band, which they named Little Feat.

Mark Brend wrote that George's "use of compression defined his sound and gave him the means to play his extended melodic lines.

"[7] George began playing slide with the casing of a Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Craftsman 13/16" spark plug socket wrench that was given to him by a friend—Steve, whom he had met from New Hampshire—rather than the traditional glass or steel finger tube.

In addition, Little Feat expanded to a sextet by adding a second guitarist Paul Barrere and percussionist Sam Clayton, thus cementing the classic line-up, and they took on a New Orleans funk direction with their next album, Dixie Chicken, the first to be produced by George.

In an interview with Bill Flanagan, conducted 11 days before his death, George stated that he was keen to re-form Little Feat without Payne and Barrere, in order to reassert his full control over the group.

He contributed to Barbara Keith's 1972 self-titled debut,[15] John Cale's Paris 1919 (1973), Happy End's Happy End (1973), Bonnie Raitt's Takin' My Time (1973; "I Feel the Same" and "Guilty"), Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson (1973; "Take 54"), James Taylor's Gorilla (1975; "Angry Blues"), The Meters' Rejuvenation (1974; "Just Kissed My Baby"),[16] John Sebastian's Tarzana Kid (1974) and Jackson Browne's The Pretender (1976).

Along with The Meters, George's slide work features prominently on Robert Palmer's first solo studio album, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, recorded in New Orleans in 1974.

A year later, Palmer's second album, Pressure Drop, was effectively produced by George, and Little Feat served as the core band on the sessions.

On June 29, the morning after an appearance at Washington, D.C.'s Lisner Auditorium, where the bulk of Waiting for Columbus had been recorded in 1977, George collapsed and died of a heart attack in his Arlington, Virginia, hotel room at the Twin Bridges Marriott.