Paul Barrere
Guitarist and songwriter with Southern rockers Little Feat
PAUL BARRERE, who has died of cancer aged 71, was a guitarist and singer, and the backbone of the Southern rockers Little Feat; although their founding father and guiding spirit was Lowell George, Barrere wrote many of the band’s best-loved songs and was a crucial element in the potent fusion of rock’n’roll, blues, country, funk, soul and jazz that proved the perfect accompaniment to the rise of adult-oriented rock FM radio in 1970s America.
He was born in Burbank, California, on July 3 1948; both his parents were actors, who worked under the names of Paul and Claudia Bryar (Paul’s career was especially notable for his 200-plus roles between 1938 and 1983). Young Paul attended Hollywood High School, where he was a friend of Lowell George, who played flute in the school marching band.
Barrere was not one of Little Feat’s original members, having auditioned as a bassist when the band was forming in 1969, only to be passed over in favour of Roy Estrada. The band split briefly following poor album sales, but in 1972 Estrada left and Barrere was brought in on guitar and vocals, with Kenny Gradney taking over bass duties. “As a bassist I make an excellent guitarist,” Barrere later joked.
Little Feat had begun life as a country rock outfit, but the new line-up’s first outing, Dixie Chicken (1973), injected a heavy dose of New Orleans R’N’B and funk into the mix, and became one of the band’s best-loved albums. The following year’s Feats Don’t Fail Me Now consolidated that success – although the band’s record sales never matched the affection in which they were held by critics and diehard fans.
While George was, in effect, Little Feat’s musical director, he trusted Barrere to come up with the laidback lines the band required: “Lowell kind of left me alone to create my own space but made sure that I heeded the words of [songwriter and producer] Van Dyke Parks: ‘less is more, and it’s the space between the notes that is important to a song.’”
Among the tracks written by Barrere for Little Feat were Skin It Back, Time Loves a Hero, Old Folks Boogie, and All That You Dream, which gained fresh renown in 2007 after featuring in the nervejangling finale of The Sopranos.
In 1979 he quit the band, however, as a result of disagreements over musical direction and George’s leadership. Shortly after, the frontman’s lifestyle – binge eating, booze and speedballs (a heroin and cocaine concoction) – caught up with him, and he died of a heart attack in a hotel room at the age of 34, weighing 22 stone.
Barrere – aside from featuring in the reunited Little Feat, who got back together in 1987 and still tour and record – formed his own band, Bluesbusters, who released three LPS in 1981, 1984 and 1986.
He also collaborated with artists including Carly Simon, Robert Palmer, Taj Mahal and Jack Bruce. And there were three solo albums, On My Own Two Feet in 1983, Real Lies the following year and If the Phone Don’t Ring in 1995.
Into the 21st century he toured with his fellow Little Feat alumnus Fred Tackett; they released two live albums, in 2001 and 2009.
Paul Barrere is survived by his wife Pam and their two daughters and a son.