Author: Michael Witthaus

Legendary band returns to New England

Although it took a while for Little Feat to catch on with audiences in the early ’70s, other musicians quickly got their heady gumbo of rock, soul, funk and New Orleans boogie. Its members were frequently booked for session work, none more than keyboard player Bill Payne, whose resume of studio credits runs for multiple pages.

Beginning with Toulouse Street, Payne was a de facto Doobie Brother, and in recent years a part of their touring band, including a just-completed run of shows marking their 50th anniversary. That’s ending soon, however. The band he co-founded in 1969 with Lowell George and Richie Hayward is back on the road, beginning with several dates across the Northeast, including one at Lowell Memorial Auditorium on Nov. 19.

“I’m 100 percent Little Feat from here on,” Payne said by phone from his home in Montana recently, adding, “there’s just not enough hours in the day.”

Payne explained that Feat recently signed with Vector Management, a Nashville agency that also works with Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Alison Krauss and Lyle Lovett.

“I want to give them free rein to really promote our band … having a conflict with the Doobie Brothers about when they can tour, that’s not a great way to run a railroad.”

The audience-driven By Request Tour will include new additions Tony Leone on drums and guitar player Scott Sharrard, who joined after Paul Barrere, a member since 1972, lost his battle with cancer. Leone and Sharrard’s quick fit with the band helped convince Payne and his mates Kenny Gradney, Sam Clayton and Fred Tackett that Feat should carry on.

“It’s about music, it’s about legacy, and it’s about musicianship,” Payne said. “Do we harm our legacy by continuing, or do we add to it? If we’re strictly going out and playing ‘Dixie Chicken’ or ‘Oh Atlanta’ or ‘Time Loves a Hero’ — I can do that by going out and joining a Little Feat tribute band.”

Part of moving forward includes making new music.

Released in July, “When All Boats Rise” is a gospel-infused tune that confronts the hope and despair of a fractious nation. Payne came up with the nautical-themed title and handed it to frequent collaborator Tom Garnsey, a songwriter he’s long admired.

“I’ve written songs with [Grateful Dead lyricist] Robert Hunter, for example,” he said. “His lyrics hold up with that caliber of stuff; he’s just excellent.”

The song is a clarion call for harmony in divided times; Payne knows some will greet it cynically.

“There’s a lot of people out there that will go, all boats rise, well, I don’t even have a boat,” he said. “It’s aspirational — liberty and justice for all is what we aspire to, and that’s what we aspire to with ‘All Boats Rise.’”

Fans have submitted a lot of requests for the upcoming tour.

“The Little Feat fan base is obviously a very knowledgeable group,” Payne said. “We’re just going to have to see how many of them we can learn, to be honest with you.”

Some, he added, won’t make the cut, and not for musical reasons, Payne said.

“I think given the state of affairs of the world, ‘The Fan’ is an interesting request, but it’s not exactly a song with a good view of women.” It’s true, the Feats Don’t Fail Me Now track’s misogyny is glaring in hindsight. “Look, we’re not going to sing that, OK? Let’s play some of the music … we’d be in a world of trouble if we actually got up there and sang it.”

Payne is receptive to focusing on Little Feat’s most successful album, the 1978 double live Waiting For Columbus.

“[That’s] been brought up year after year, and I’m like, I don’t know,” he said.

New management, and new blood in the band, however, encourage him.

“The weight of it is you’re going after one of the best albums we ever put out and certainly one of our most well-known. … I think it’s a perfect way to say, ‘Put it right down: the gauntlet has been thrown.’”

Little Feat By Request

When: Friday, Nov. 19, 8 p.m.
Where: Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 E. Merrimack St., Lowell
Tickets: $39 to $289 at event.etix.com

Featured photo: Little Feat. Courtesy photo.

Comedian Carolyn Plummer headlines Rex show

Of all the words Carolyn Plummer might use to describe herself, “lucky” isn’t one. As a teenager Plummer won a pair of Grateful Dead passes, only to see the show canceled when Jerry Garcia died. In early 2020, she had the best spring of her comedy career lined up, and everyone knows how that turned out.

Quarantine led to a lot of soul-searching, Plummer said in a recent phone interview.

“I reassessed my whole life,” she said. “Like, why am I doing comedy? Should I have focused on a career? Should I have been a teacher?” Then, in February of this year, Denis Leary called with an invitation for Plummer to appear at the annual Comics Come Home benefit.

“That re-energized me to feel like I was on the right path,” she said. “Now I have a deeper appreciation for live shows and performing. I look at every performance now as an opportunity to meet more people and network and just enjoy it. … There’s a lot of sacrifice, but that kind of just brought everything full circle, that all the sacrifices made sense.”

Of course, the Nov. 13 Boston Garden show has been postponed for another year, but Plummer knows she’ll be on the next one. That’s a more tangible thing to hold on to than that Dead contest back when.

“They were will-call,” she said of the Boston Garden concert. “So I didn’t even have the tickets.”

A few comics mined the pandemic for new jokes, but not Plummer.

“I wasn’t very creative at the beginning. … My whole life just changed; it took a while to work through. I did a few things about contactless delivery; I don’t know why we didn’t have that in the past. I don’t need to have a relationship with the guy bringing the pizza to my house.”

A New Hampshire native — she grew up in Wolfeboro, a minister’s daughter — Plummer got into comedy after responding to an ad.

“This guy was teaching a class out of his mom’s condo in Manchester,” she said, adding with a chuckle, “That seemed safe to me at the time.”

It turned out well, and after a summer of learning, she began hitting open mic nights, eventually spending a lot of time in Portland, Maine.

“I met all the Boston guys; they would come up and do comedy,” she said. “I would watch them and go, ‘Wow, these guys are awesome’ — you know what I mean? Like Don Gavin, and all the greats: Lenny Clarke, Tony V….”

A big early break was the result of misfortune for Plummer.

“True story: On my 30th birthday, I got laid off,” she said. “Kelly MacFarland is one of my best friends, and she’s also a comic. She said, ‘I just met these guys, and they need another roommate, why don’t you go talk to them, and if it works out, move in there?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t have a job.’ She said, ‘That’s the best time to go.’ I ended up moving back to Belmont, Mass., which I could never afford if I wasn’t in a roommate situation. … It kind of took off from there.”

While she’s performed in New York City, ventured to California for the Burbank Comedy Festival and even thought about moving west once or twice, Plummer is partial to living in and working in New England, particularly her home state.

“What I like about New Hampshire is it surprises you,” she said. “You might go to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere and have all these highly educated people that you’d think wouldn’t be living in the woods, fixing cars, being lumberjacks, and all this other stuff. You can’t make assumptions like that. … All the different towns are different.”

Carolyn Plummer & Friends

When: Friday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $25 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Comedian Carolyn Plummer. Courtesy photo.

Halloween themed comedy show in Manchester

Open mic nights are a lifeblood for comedians, a place to hone their craft and work on new material.

For much of the pandemic, Yankee Lanes in Keene was one of the few to remain open, and comics from all across New England flocked to it. Seacoast standup Michael Millett inherited the weekly event when its original host left, and as the nightlife scene began reopening, he moved it to Yankee’s sister location in Manchester.

Millett’s Grey Area Comedy has become a hub for a growing alt comedy scene that includes Gone Rogue Productions’ events at Manchester’s Backyard Brewery, Tragedy Plus Time’s shows in Londonderry, Exeter’s Word Barn and the venerable downtown Shaskeen showcase, now run by Ruby Room Comedy.

The Yankee conclave recalls the now-defunct Monday open mic at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord — in both venues, audiences don’t always arrive expecting comedy, Millett said in a recent phone interview.

“You have to basically fight for the audience’s attention. … The stage is in the same room as the bar,” he said. “We bank off the bowling league that gets out around 8:45; our open mic is at 9. Regular patrons bleed in, sit down, and watch the comedians.”

A dozen or so hopefuls show up every week to face the challenging milieu.

“Every mic has a different energy,” Millett said. “People that work on their comedy come to mine, and I like that.”

Millett also hosts a comedy showcase at Yankee Lanes on the last Friday of every month with a headliner, feature comic and opening act. The next one happens Oct. 29 and stars the comedy team of Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff. The two ran a popular weekly event in Beverly, Mass., until it became a casualty of lockdown. Anthony Massa features, and Troy Burditt opens.

Demeule and Pottorff were known for raucous sets done in costume, as teachers, politicians, camp counselors and other characters. Their upcoming appearance will most likely have a similar approach, but when reached for comment, Demeule demurred on the details — while hinting at a potential exorcism.

“Without giving too much away, Will and I will be doing a Halloween themed set that might have some guests from our time running The Studio of Madness,” she wrote via Facebook Messenger. “Audiences can expect laughs, a healthy dose of insanity, and if all goes well, for the bowling alley to be cleansed of all ghostly presence by the end of the evening.”

Next month, local comic Matt Barry is joined by Tom Spohn and Tristan Hoffler, and in December, Paul Keller headlines.

“He’s a kinetic comedian who does comedy and magic at the same time,” Millett said of Keller. “He’s very good at magic tricks, but he’s also good at being funny about it.”

Millett has hopes for expanding to a more formal setting in the future.

“Yankee Lanes has a rec room that they don’t use for anything [and] I could easily fit 120 people in there,” he said. “I’m working toward getting enough draw with Grey Area Comedy to do that … it’s now been just over a year, between Keene and Manchester.”

His efforts are about more than just promoting shows, Millett stressed.

“I’m trying to build a community with everything I do, trying to get as many comedians involved in it as possible,” he said. “What I want to do is — I don’t want to use the word safe haven — but I want it to be a cornerstone, contributing to the rest of the scene. A place for people to work on their craft.”

Grey Area Comedy Club

When: Friday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m.
Where: Yankee Lanes (formerly Spare Time), 216 Maple St., Manchester
More: Free show starring Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff, Anthony Massa, Troy Burditt, Michael Millett (host)

Featured photo: Will Pottorff and Jai Demeule. Courtesy photo. Courtesy photo.