WILLFEST VIII: Barrere & Tackett / Will McFarlane Band at The Blue Note Grill

The 8th Annual WillFest is the best way we know to CELEBRATE multiple important dates:  Our good friend Will McFarlane's birthday and BNG's 8th anniversary.. So how do we make that bigger and better?
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By making it a special evening with Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett and the Will McFarlane Band!  
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<b>7:00-8:00pm:  Barrere & Tackett
8:15-9:15pm:  Will McFarlane Band
9:30-Close:  Barrere & Tackett join Will</b>
<p>
Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett are guitar players, in fact they are the guitar players with the legendary band Little Feat…………...

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The 8th Annual WillFest is the best way we know to CELEBRATE multiple important dates:  Our good friend Will McFarlane's birthday and BNG's 8th anniversary.. So how do we make that bigger and better?
<p>
By making it a special evening with Paul Barrere & Fred Tackett and the Will McFarlane Band!  
<p>
<b>7:00-8:00pm:  Barrere & Tackett
8:15-9:15pm:  Will McFarlane Band
9:30-Close:  Barrere & Tackett join Will</b>
<p>
Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett are guitar players, in fact they are the guitar players with the legendary band Little Feat…………
<p>
Now they have joined forces to form an acoustic duet that will quite frankly blow you away. Performing songs from their Little Feat catalogue and more with a decidedly different twist. They first played together on the album “Dixie Chicken” some twenty-five years ago and since then have played together or individually on numerous recording sessions for Little Feat and countless others including Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Dionne Farris, and the Wallflowers to name a few.
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<b>Will McFarlane Band</b>
Will McFarlane spent six years playing guitar with Bonnie Raitt, from 1974 to 1980. Born on a Navy base in California, McFarlane started voice lessons at age 6, adding piano a year later. Seeing the Beatles play the Ed Sullivan Show when he was 12 inspired McFarlane to take up guitar. He developed a taste for R&B in high school, focusing on Motown material while developing as a rhythm guitarist.
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McFarlane learned how to listen as well as play while in Raitt’s band. His musical education was a versatile one, encompassing straight blues, country blues, folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, as well as singer-songwriter material. Raitt was sharing stages with living blues legends, and McFarlane soaked up as much as he could from them before and after the gigs.

McFarlane left Raitt to move to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, playing on records for Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor as part of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

McFarlane has continued to work in secular and gospel music, both traditional and contemporary styles. He has moved back to Muscle Shoals, and plays there, as well as in Nashville, and other places around the country and world, doing sessions and live performances. He was just recently inducted into the Musician’s Hall of Fame in Nashville as a friend of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (The Swampers). McFarlane's current working band out of Muscle Shoals is Big Shoes. Originally formed to perform a tribute to the music of Little Feat (get it, Big Shoes, Little Feat), they enjoyed playing with one another so much and the music flowed so nicely that they decided to take it even further.

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