Coming off of 1974’s popular breakthrough LP, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, Little Feat was faced, for the first time, with the challenge of following up mainstream success. The Los Angeles sextet had always been a crazily flexible, massively talented group led by the tender idiosyncrasy of its frontman–singer and guitarist, Lowell George. Devising a concoction of multiple genres laced with New Orleans sensibility, the six had become a blade-sharp, eagerly unfastened funkified machine. One capable of not just evoking praise from critics, and peers such as Dylan, Zeppelin, and the Stones, but now selling records, too.

As such, George and Warner Bros., the band’s record label, began discussing a potential George solo album, alongside another platter from Feat. George, debating where and how best to divide his new song ideas, empowered his bandmates–namely keyboardist Billy Payne and guitarist Paul Barrere–to fire up their pens for Feat’s fifth studio effort. And so, The Last Record Album landed in October of 1975 as something of a first record album; an eight-song revolver debuting Little Feat more as the collaborative ensemble it would remain for the next five decades.

This 50th anniversary, four-disc collection–thoughtfully assembled by Rhino’s Feat-keeper, Jason Jones- celebrates the album with a concise and complete package. The proper LP, remastered and presented on a standalone disc, is as warm and rich sonically as its original vinyl counterpart. The music, itself, is Feat maybe at its most mellow, opening on “Romance Dance,” a shifting groove piece authored by Barrere, Payne, and bassist Kenny Gradney. It’s a signpost for what’s to follow, with George more partner than focal point, and fusion joining the simmering gumbo of rock, funk, blues, and country.

Conversely, the second disc–of demos, outtakes, and rarities from the vault–shows off the edge of the record’s gestating repertoire. Ironically, that edge is best exemplified in the gritty “High Roller,” proposed for the album, but ultimately saved for the subsequent Time Loves a Hero. Taken together, the two discs portray the contrast of what was and what may have been. 

It isn’t that The Last Record Album is an album lacking. In fact, it’s responsible for several Feat classics, and perpetual entries on setlists still today. For many Feat fans, though, it didn’t hit quite as hard as its predecessors. 

Which is why the inclusion of a two-disc concert recording from Boston–a Halloween appearance, two weeks after the album’s release, no less- is integral to this deluxe edition. Not only is it a sonically polished-up version–the show circulated previously for years as a much-beloved boot from a WBCN radio broadcast–it is Little Feat playing as well as ever. The performance is stellar, and joyous, affirming the evolution of Feat into a powerhouse group.

Collectively, the four discs, along with liner notes from former Grateful Dead and Feat publicist Dennis McNally, depict candidly well the Little Feat of ’75; rock-and-rolling in the spaces between a Jello-molded, fruit salad mirage and a debauched and deserted Hollywood Boulevard. Or, as McNally surmises, “musical brilliance as only Little Feat could produce.” Indeed.