Interview: Scott Sharrard

Scott Sharrard: Thanks for having me, man.

Doug Gertner: We are so glad to have you here. I know you and Little Feat have been on a blistering schedule as you’ve always been. In the past, I’ve actually had the pleasure to interview the late Little Feat guitarist, Paul Barerre, and also founder and keyboardist Bill Payne and long time member, multi instrumentalist, Fred Tackett, and now, Scott Sharrard, the new guy, but this is not your first rodeo. I’m wondering if by way of introduction, you might run down your resume a little bit, including the time you spent with another legendary luminary in rock. How about introducing yourself to our audience and let them know who the new guy is and where he’s been before he joined the band.

Scott Sharrard: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’d have to go back to childhood – my father was a guitarist, singer, songwriter. My Beatles and Rolling Stones in my house in Dearborn, Michigan as a child were Little Feat and The Allman Brothers. So you could probably say that my life has been defined by the destiny of the fact that I’ve been trying to put together my own version of Little Feat and The Allman Brothers my whole career, and I have joined the families, as it were, in two different types of iterations as a solution to that sound I’ve heard in my head. It’s a pretty unique and bizarre journey. There was a side trip in my childhood where I went to Milwaukee High School of the Arts, and also held down a house gig at the Up and Under, which is a historic blues club.

As a teenager, I was playing the blues with Hubert Sumlin and Pinetop Perkins and a bunch of cats you’ve never heard of who were equally as great, like Willie Higgins and, Harvey Scales and Luther Allison. I’ve been in New York City for 27 years which is what got me to Gregg Allman, which was my first chapter of playing with my heroes when I was 29 years old. I’d been through a bunch of dead ends in the music business as a solo artist and with a band called The Chesterfields. And I was about to go to NYU to study film scoring composition and arranging, and my buddy Jay Collins called me to sit in with The Allman brothers. And I walked off the stage with Gregg and he said, you’re in my band now.

That began a 10 year journey that ended up with me being his musical director. I wrote the song “My Only True Friend” with Gregg. There’s a song of mine called “Love Like Kerosene” that we recorded twice. We made two albums, Back to Macon, and of course, Southern Blood, which is where the two Grammy nominations come from in the Americana world.

And then finally, this’ll probably take care of a lot of your questions, so I’ll just front load you. In 2019, I got a call from Bill Payne, who I had met when I was on the road with Gregg Allman, because Bill had been playing with the Doobie Brothers. We did a whole summer together with the Gregg Allman band and the Doobies. He asked me if I could sub two shows for Paul Barerre, and the first show I played Paul passed away that afternoon. We did the gig anyway, and the band turned to me at the end of the gig, and they were like, you’re in the band now. I’ve been in my other favorite band – my Beatles, if you will. The Beatles and the Stones, yeah.

Doug Gertner: What a story, as you’re not only playing with your heroes, but your blues chops were established, but I’m gonna be blunt. I saw Little Feat in 1978, and after all those years, it still stands as one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen due in no small part to the founder, the frontman, the guru – Lowell George, whose shoes you fill.

I wonder if you can talk about stepping in to sing his parts and play his slide parts and how you’ve moved into the role, and how Lowell’s legacy informs what you do on stage these days.

Scott Sharrard: There’s a lot of guys who could have done this gig, in terms of the guitar playing and the singing. What’s unique about my life and what led me to this particular band and being a member of this band and fronting this band is my experience growing up.

I was born in 1976. The first time I saw The Allman brothers, it was with Warren Haynes on guitar, not Dwayne Allman. And the first time I saw Little Feat when I was 12 years old was with Craig Fuller on lead vocals, not Lowell George. So for me, I was raised in this aesthetic of interpretation. One of my many examples I use when I’m trying to describe what it’s like to be a rock musician right now, is it’s like Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello, right? You can play 400 year old music with a 400 year old instrument and somehow make it new again. And that’s what I learned from, just as an example, Warren Craig with the Feat when Derek came along in The Allman Brothers.

There were all these re-inventions while also honoring the past. And then I was able to road test that with one of my favorite singer songwriters of all time. My favorite singer songwriters when I was a kid were Gregg Allman and Will George. I road tested 10 years of writing songs, band leading, arranging, putting together Gregg’s music, taking it apart, putting it back together again.

And, one of our touchstones with the Gregg Allman Band, to make it stand out from The Allman Brothers, was the arranging of Little Feat, and how Little Feat played and interpreted their music. So there’s a lot of cross pollination. There’s a huge fan club between the two bands. Friendships, bonds. Kenny Gradney and Sam Clayton, who are out here with us now, they were in Delaney & Bonnie before they were in Little Feat. And they toured with the Allman Brothers and were really tight with Dwayne and Dickie and Gregg. There’s a lot of crossovers. We’re all from the same family in the end. And that’s what really hit me from day one.

Doug Gertner: There’s cross pollination, it’s in your bones, it’s in your DNA. You, on the one hand, say many people could have stepped into that role, but your history with the band made you the man. In both cases, you sit in with Gregg Allman, and he says to you, you’re in the band, and then you sit in with the Feat, and you join the band, as they would say.

We’re so excited, we’re talking to Scott Sharrard, who is the newest member of Little Feat. They bring the show that they’re currently touring to a concert this Friday with The Avett Brothers on Red Rocks and this is something of an annual residency for the Avetts on Red Rocks.

They have stellar guests each night you might have seen. Melissa Etheridge, I think, is the night after you all and it just goes on from there. But you guys kick off the first of three nights and we’re going to be giving away a pair of tickets for that show when you and I wrap up. I wonder if you could, before we have to say goodbye, give our listeners an idea of what to expect from the show. As you say, it’s vintage, it’s classic, it’s well known: the Little Feat repertoire, and yet, with this latest iteration, with Scott Sharrard, front and center, what can folks expect, including our ticket winner, who will see you for sure this Friday?

Scott Sharrard: It’s back to what we were talking about, the formula in the late 80s, in ‘88, ‘89, for The Allman Brothers and Little Feat, was to have -you know, with The Allman Brothers, the record that was pivotal was Seven Turns. With Little Feat, it was Let It Roll. I think this is a similar chapter for this band because we will be playing new songs off our new blues album, Sam’s Place, which features Sam Clayton. But, going into next year, we have a brand new album of originals that’s finished and is being mixed right now that’s coming out next year.

I think the spirit of fresh invention has infused our reinterpretation of the classic songbook. And what we’re going to do at Red Rocks is all the hits for 60 minutes from the 70s. And the show is going to be very reminiscent of one of their set lists from like ‘74, ‘75, which I think was, in my estimation from what I’ve been able to hear on YouTube, their live peak in a lot of ways. And we’re just going to try to demonstrate our own version of that show for this crowd because I think this is going to be a different crowd. I’ve collaborated with The Avett Brothers once. We played a show in New York together and I played and sang a couple of Dylan tunes with them. They’re lovely people and they’re great songwriters and performers. And so we’ll just highlight what Little Feat really represents. The best rock and roll is this kind of salon where there’s no definition of genre, like the greatest rock is just a complete gumbo of all kinds of different genres, but at the heart of it is a combination of blues feeling and expert song craft.

This band has a catalog that is just, we’ve got about 80 songs at this point in our repertoire memorized from the back catalog and making a 20 song setlist is painful enough, making a 6 or 7 song setlist is even worse. But we’ll do our best.

Doug Gertner: Oh yeah, so we can expect the mighty rad gumbo when the band Little Feat shares the stage with The Avett Brothers at Red Rocks on Friday.

All right, I’m gonna have that ticket giveaway in just a second. Scott Sharrard, thank you for being a part of this today. And we’re so looking forward to the new record of originals. But as you mentioned, Sam’s Place is the latest Little Feat album. Came out this year, Sam Clayton singin’ the blues and say a little bit about the tune we’ll go out on. I’ve got queued up a live version of “Got My Mojo Working” from the new Little Feat release Sam’s Place. What can you tell us?

Scott Sharrard: “Got My Mojo Working” is a standard blues song. I’ve been playing it since I was a small child. The particular recording you’re gonna play is from one of our live shows, I think it was in Boulder, wasn’t it?

Doug Gertner: I’m gonna have to do the research, but I trust you very much.

Scott Sharrard: I think it was from our show that we did in Boulder a couple years back. And you’ll hear on the track, there’s just a lot of excitement in the room. And, man, Sam is like a real deal blues vocalist. He’s in a class with Taj Mahal and Buddy Guy and all the cats. He’s from Louisiana. His sister’s Mary Clayton, who’s one of the best soul singers of all time. He’s from deep roots musically, and everyone knows him as the baritone voice, and obviously the incredible metronomic percussion of Little Feat, but Sam is a true blues man, and I think it always comes across whenever he sings.

It’s such a cool thing to realize because these guys have been talking for 20, 30 years about making a record like Sam’s Place and we went to Memphis and we did it at Sam Phillips Recording and we really just drench the thing in feeling.But this particular track is from your state. 

Doug Gertner: That’s perfect. Scott Sharrard and Sam Clayton and the whole band as mentioned, Fred Tackett, Bill Payne. Everybody’s coming to Red Rocks. This has been a great conversation, and I wish I had more time to chat with Scott Sharrard. Scott, once again, thanks for taking the time to talk. Safe travels over to Red Rocks and we’ll see you on Friday. Thanks so much.

Scott Sharrard: Thanks for having me, buddy. Thanks for all your support. It means a lot. We’ll see you soon.