CLASSIC CORNER COVER : BACKTRACK STORY would go over and sit down and play . He was way off into Al Green stuff , so we would sit there and jam on some Al Green kind of feels –“ Let ’ s Stay Together ,” “ Love and Happiness ,” and all that kind of stuff . I was digging this groove . So I went home and started playing off that groove and that ’ s where I came up with “ All That You Dream .” At this point in my career I didn ’ t have the vocal chops to really cover the sound . But I had the idea of the song . It was about myself and a girl that I had just broken up with . I envisioned it as being a single . It ran the whole gamut of boy falls in love , boy gets girl , boy loses girl , sun shines , and film at 11:00 . There was a happy ending to it all even though it was a sad story to begin with . Musically it was one of the best things I ’ d ever written . I went to Billy ( Payne , on keyboards and vocals ) to get that whole center section of chord changes , because he ’ s just so good at that . It was the best of both worlds . I got Billy to throw in the sweet , jazzy chords . I made the demo , played it for Lowell ( George , on guitar and vocals ), and he hated it . Not only did he hate it , he would barely listen to it . It was George Massenburg who kept whistling the hook . There is a hook to that song which is undeniable . Finally Lowell said , “ What the hell is
that ?” George whipped out the demo tape for him . Lowell finally came and said , “ you know , that song ain ’ t so bad after all . But I ’ d like to do some arrangement stuff on it .” I said “ Great , let ’ s do it .” That ’ s where we came up with ( the ) beginning of just taking the tie going over the chord and running with that . It ’ s pretty cool .
How did John Hall ( Orleans ) come to record on it ?
On that particular version , from the Last Record Album , it was kind of like connect the dots and fill in the spaces really . The basic track was recorded with just myself playing guitar and the band . Then Lowell went in and did some of his slide parts . It was basically take a three-beat break and come in and do your thing there . That was all worked out in the arrangement from the get go . And then we figured there was space there for a guitarist like John Hall to come in and put his touch on it . At the same time we were doing that recording , Bonnie Raitt was doing a record and John was working on that . Lowell was working on that , too . Everybody was in and out of one studio and over to the other . Lowell said , “ John , you play this style so really cool . Why
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Little Feet Lowell George by Paul Natkin