Talk:Sailin' Shoes

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The following portion of this article caught my attention, and I have some questions about its wording:

Highlighted by a reworked group version of "Willin'", the track that had led Frank Zappa to sack guitarist and vocalist Lowell George from The Mothers of Invention...

The way I have heard the story told, Zappa didn't "sack" Lowell George after hearing "Willin" -- in fact, Zappa was so impressed with Lowell George's songwriting that he urged Lowell to start his own band. And while Lowell was initially reluctant to take Zappa's advice and step out on his own, of course he did just that several months later. (He also took Mothers bassist Roy Estrada along with him; as the current version of the article states, Estrada appeared on the first two Little Feat studio albums before quitting the band -- if I recall correctly, Estrada eventually became a computer programmer!)

It may be that Zappa did "sack" Lowell, in order to encourage him to form his own band in spite of his initial reluctance to do so -- and this may actually be what the current version of the article is trying to imply. As it is currently written, however, a reader who does not have any background on the subject will get the impression that "Willin" displeased Zappa for some (mysteriously unstated) reason, and that he fired Lowell George from the Mothers as a result.

I know this is a lot of verbiage to discuss a single sentence, but I'm a huge fan of the first two Feat albums, and I want to be sure that I have my facts straight on the role "Willin" played in launching Lowell George as a songwriter and bandleader. I'll hang back and wait for any comments/opinions before making changes to the current article text. Mstuartm 00:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)