On the cover of Little Feat's fifth studio album, Hollywood Boulevard has been turned into a desert. The famous sign sits in the distance like a wobbly jelly mold, and the long-closed Frederick's of Hollywood store stands to the left, opposite Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The Last Record Album arrived on October 17, 1975, and its cover, painted by Neon Park, borrowed its title and mood from the 1971 film The Last Picture Show.
A desert Hollywood cover
The image was a joke with teeth. Little Feat, the American band led by guitarist and singer Lowell George, had spent the early 1970s building a reputation for loose, swampy boogie and sharp songwriting. George produced this record himself at The Sound Factory in Los Angeles. The desert scene suggested that the glitzy promise of the movie capital had dried up, leaving only a sign made of dessert.
The band's lineup on the album included George on guitar and vocals, Paul Barrere on guitar and vocals, Bill Payne on keyboards and synthesizer, Sam Clayton on congas, Kenny Gradney on bass, and Richie Hayward on drums. The eight songs ranged across Southern rock, swamp rock, boogie rock, and blues rock. Barrere and Payne took lead vocals on 'Romance Dance' and 'Day or Night', while George sang 'All That You Dream', 'Long Distance Love', 'One Love Stand', 'Down Below the Borderline', and 'Mercenary Territory'. Bill Payne also took the lead vocal on 'Somebody's Leavin'', one of the eight tracks. The songwriting was spread unusually wide for the band, with credits going to Paul Barrere, Kenny Gradney, Bill Payne, Lowell George, Richie Hayward, and Elizabeth George.
Guest singers and layered sound
Guests added new colors. John Hall played guitar on 'All That You Dream', and Linda Ronstadt sang backing vocals on the same track. Valerie Carter and Fran Tate joined on 'Long Distance Love' and 'One Love Stand'. The album felt fuller and more layered than earlier Little Feat records, with Payne's synthesizer pushing the sound beyond barroom roots music.
One song never made the cut. 'High Roller' was printed on the back cover among the lyrics, then crossed out in black ink with the words 'Maybe Next Time'. The joke became a promise: the song reappeared on the 1977 album Time Loves a Hero under the name 'Hi Roller'. That scratched-out title captured the band's offhand humor and their habit of treating even their own track lists as fair game.
The record found an audience far beyond Los Angeles. It reached number 36 on the Billboard 200 in the United States and the same position on the Official Albums Chart in the United Kingdom. In the Netherlands it climbed to number 16. John Peel's listeners pushed 'Long Distance Love' to number 26 in the Festive Fifty for 1976, a sign that British fans had embraced the band's humid, unhurried groove. The album also reached number 29 in Finland and earned a silver certification in the United Kingdom for 60,000 copies sold. In 2025, a four-disc reissue arrived, opening with a remastered version of the original record.
Fifty-one years later, The Last Record Album still sounds like a group stretching without breaking. Lowell George's voice and slide guitar hold the center, but the songwriting credits spread across six members, and the guest singers soften the edges. The cover's desert Hollywood is a perfect visual for a band that never quite fit the Los Angeles rock scene, yet made some of its most enduring music there.
The cover's desert Hollywood is a perfect visual for a band that never quite fit the Los Angeles rock scene, yet made some of its most enduring music there.