To devote your life to a rock band whose most influential member is dead - there's your long, strange journey.

Like the Dead (no longer Grateful) touring without Jerry Garcia, like the Allman Brothers touring without Greg, Little Feat is touring without Lowell George - and have been these last 15 years.

No one seems to mind. Even the addition of a female lead singer 10 years ago, Shaun Murphy, caused only minor disconcertion. It helps that she can do Rock and Roll Doctor like Bonnie Raitt. As long as they play Dixie Chicken.

It can't be argued that Lowell George had very special gifts as a songwriter, singer and guitarist, but this band has depth beyond its founder. It was never billed as "Lowell George and Little Feat," though he did go solo shortly before dying of drug-induced heart failure in 1979.

After taking a good deal of the '80s off - we should all be so lucky - the remaining members of Little Feat reformed to discover "the magic was still there," says guitarist Paul Barrere.

"The core of the band had a very special talent as well, and we wouldn't have continued pursuing the thing if we felt in any way, shape or form we were prostituting the name Little Feat. It was all about the music. After 15 years performing, it's been a great growth spurt for the band and the audiences as well. The underlying attraction is the music itself."

And now, speaking of strange trips, they're going to play at a jazz festival in Edmonton.

Tonight's Jazz City show at the Winspear Centre, which officially kicks off the 24th annual festival, is Little Feat's first appearance in Edmonton.

Barrere laughs that the band has in the past been accused of being "a little too jazzy," but it was never considered an asset. Would Little Feat fit into Jazz City? Well, why not? We got rappers, too.

Anyway, it was only a couple of years ago, after touring with the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh, that the members of Little Feat decided to jump headlong into the loose, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, 12-minute-solos, jamming style of groups like Phish, whose fans rival those of the Dead for sheer loyalty.

"We do attract a lot of potheads," Barrere says, not going on to say whether this is a good sign or not. "It is illegal up there, isn't it?"

Yes, for now. All he knows for sure is that allowing fans to record concerts - something the Dead and Phish have always done - has only increased Little Feat's success. Way to thwart those scurvy downloading pirates. There's little point in taping concerts from a band that plays the songs the same way all the time. Do Dixie Chicken 100 different ways and the hard-core Little Feat fans are going to want to own 100 different recordings of it.

Says Barrere: "There's obviously a group of people in the world that love pop music and go to see bands play the same songs night after night, the same exact way, get into the same positions every night and the same flashpots go off, but with Little Feat and audiences, it seems to be more all about the music. They seem to enjoy listening to us stretch and play our instruments.

"It's amazing to us. Last night, we had people as young as 16 and probably as old as 70. And they're out there together, singing along, getting along. I like seeing the younger kids out there, but there's nothing better than seeing an old granny out there bopping. I pull out Old Folks Boogie in a flash."

That, by the way, is not a Lowell George song.

Tickets to Little Feat are $39.50 and on sale at the Winspear box office (428-1414).