An Interview with Bill Payne of Little Feat

28 March, 2011 2 comments Leave a comment

Our friend Pat Hill had a chance to sit down with founding member and B3 organ master, Bill Payne of Little Feat. Bill now resides in the Paradise Valley and may be seen playing around town. Feel free to leave a comment below. Enjoy!

Bill Payne is well-known to modern music enthusiasts as a founding member of the band Little Feat, but these days you can find him rocking the region of southwest Montana more often than not.

The 62-year-old Payne is the last surviving member of the original Little Feat four-man ensemble. Regarded as one of the best on the Hammond B3 organ in the music world, keyboardist/songwriter Payne (Oh, Atlanta and Time Loves a Hero to name a few) joined Lowell George in forming the band in Los Angeles in 1969. Payne and Little Feat are still performing to this day.

Within ten years after Little Feat got rolling, Payne paid his first visit to Montana. He said that the band had never toured in the Treasure State, and while on a trip to Yellowstone Park, he decided to “cross the border” into Big Sky Country.

“That was in ‘78 or ‘79...probably even earlier,” Payne said. “I thought it would be nice…to say that at least I’d been there.” Payne said with a chuckle that he “made it into Gardiner, maybe a little bit farther, and then I turned around and went back into the Park.” But Payne said that a read through a National Geographic book featuring scenic places in the United States was what really got him back to that same upper Yellowstone River country. The section that caught his eye regarded the beautiful highway 89 corridor from Livingston to Gardiner.

“I said to myself, ‘Gosh, I was down in Gardiner once,’” Payne recalled. “So I really wanted to check that out.” Payne said that he arrived in Bozeman on March 17, 1980, only to have to delay his trip into the Paradise Valley another day, because the Bozeman Pass was closed due to heavy snow in the mountains. He said that was his first hint “that Montana was probably a pretty weather-oriented place.”

Livingston had also nudged at Payne in another way. He said that although he’d planned the highway 89 corridor trip mentally already, business got in the way. Payne said that he was called to do some performances with Jackson Browne “on some Indian reservations in North and South Dakota,” and somewhere on the Dakota tour he picked up a People magazine containing a story about the Livingston area. 

“I said ‘Wait a minute…this is the place I want to go,’” Payne said. As he delved into the story, Payne said he saw that other artists had also been drawn to the area: Warren Oates, Sam Peckinpah, Richard Brautigan, Jeff Bridges, Peter Fonda, and more. The list of names brought about some concerns for Payne initially.

“I see that they‘re all up in this area,” said Payne, “but I’m trying to get away from Hollywood…I don’t want to go to Hollywood…it was like Hollywood goes to Montana.” But when he was first driving down the highway 89 corridor, Payne said to himself, “I will never see these people…this is a big place.”

“It’s ironic, you know,” said Payne. “I just recently met Jeff Bridges for the first time. He’s been here over 30 years, and I’ve been here for 30, yet it‘s the first time I‘ve ever run across him.” And Payne has made lots of other friends in those 30 years.

“Everyone has that romantic notion of the West, and I had that going, too…but I gotta admit, in the beginning, I didn’t think I’d be spending that much time here, especially in the winter,” said Payne, who had grown up in balmy California. But he soon took up cross-country skiing and other winter activities, and Payne said his notion of the winter soon changed as well.

“I think the winters are what keeps it honest,” said Payne. “you’ve got to have a really good head on your shoulders and a pretty good heart to withstand that stuff. And I’ve got to say that the community up there, in that particular valley [Paradise Valley] is extraordinary.” He said his swath of friends and neighbors ranges from farmers and ranchers to restaurateurs, writers and other performers.

“It’s a very eclectic group of folks,” Payne said. “All highly intelligent…you could be in New York, London, anywhere…and meet a crowd like that. But you’re not in those places…you’re in Livingston, Montana.” 

“Big cities are interesting…they’re nice,” Payne said, “I enjoy going to them. But when I want to land someplace, and I mean that in a spiritual as well as a physical aspect, I want to be in a place that feels like home to me. I’ve always been a carpetbagger wherever I go…I was born in Waco, Texas, raised in California, I’ve lived up in Michigan, and I’ve had a place in Montana since 1980. I’ve been in a band since I was 15 years old…I’ve been in Little Feat since I was 20...I just turned 62. I’ve also floated around a great deal…working with Jimmy Buffett, Bob Seger, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks, to name a few. You want a place that has a feeling of permanence.”

Payne said after 30 years he thinks he’s starting to get a sense of his community in the Paradise Valley. And you never know when you might run across Payne performing some magic with his keyboards. Payne and Rodney Crowell sat in on a recent impromptu performance with the Hooligans at the Pine Creek Café, and Payne performs again with the Hooligans on April 1 at Bozeman’s Emerson Theatre. That show also includes locals Pinky and the Floyd and Landlocked, and is a fundraising event for KGLT radio in Bozeman.

“He’s very happy to do it for us,” said Tom Garnsey of Vootie Productions. Garnsey is also a member of the Hooligans band, and will be performing with Payne on April 1. 

“He will also be at Targhee Fest with Little Feat [in mid-July},” said Garnsey. “We’re proud to have him down there…both as a person and as a pro he’s highly regarded…Bill’s one of the top five rockers there are.” 

“Sitting in with Tom Garnsey’s band is always a treat,” said Payne, who counts Garnsey among his many Montana friends. “I feel good about where I live…in fact, I feel proud of it, after so many years of just running around…I feel like I’m actually starting to become part of something, which I never felt in LA. That’s a hard place to feel connected to, to be honest. I feel very connected in this [Paradise] Valley, and I thank my friends for it.”

Pat Hill is a Montana native, master of none, wordsmith, shiner of light in the corners, friend to all who dare to think free and live life full. Feel free to leave Pat a comment below.