Paul Barrere is laughing. It’s 9:30 in the morning, after a show in the Poconos, and the saucy, funky guitar player is basking in the afterglow of another night being a catalyst in one of America’s longest running musical hybrids. While Little Feat has never had the commercial success of Southern California contemporaries Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt or the Eagles, they have remained a secret handshake among a musictocracy that truly knows the good stuff.

“It was crazy,” he says of the precious night. “We had an 80-year-old woman up front, dancing her butt off. We had to get her backstage and give her the signed set list! Turns out, she’s been a fan since she was in her, um, late 40s.”

Enduring music isn’t just for the octogenarians, who feel young again in the presence of the churningest working band out there. It’s also the kids who are coming up as the second generation of the jam band nation.

“When Phish decided to do our Waiting for Columbus for their Halloween show,” Mr. Barrere notes, “it started this whole new ripple in our fans. Suddenly, all these 20-somethings started showing up, checking us out — and coming back with their friends.”

Born from the scraps of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention by freewheeling guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Lowell George, who died in 1979, Little Feat has spent 30 years out of the past 40 plying a mélange of blues, groove, swamp, country, boogie, funk and jazz as a vehicle for romance, abstraction and slices of the odd life. Covered by artists as diverse as Linda Ronstadt, Widespread Panic, Carly Simon and Bob Dylan, the band — known for Dixie Chicken, the truck driving lament Willin’, revel-rousing Oh, Atlanta, and the exultant Let It Roll — is all about making the music and letting people feel the arc of that kind of combustion.

“Look, I’m 63, and I’ve been on the road for 39 years, so if I don’t get that ‘fix’ from [the music], I’d probably get off the road.

“Because when it’s happening as it’s happening, there’s this certain spark that is the art of creating: if you can immerse people in that, you can almost suspend time and you’re in this pure experience. It’s nirvana. No kidding.”

For Mr. Barrere, who swears that sweet spot gets hit at least once a night if not more, it is a thrill worth experiencing firsthand. And it’s also the byproduct of the chemistry and camaraderie shared amongst vocalist/pianist Bill Payne, guitarist/mandolinist Fred Tackett, percussionist Sam Clayton, drummer Gabe Ford and bassist Kenny Gradney.

“The spirit might have a lot to do with it,” the vocalist/guitarist concedes. “It’s very much a spirit of good times [musically]; it’s all pretty happy. And, there’s also something about this music — cause it’s not chasing a style — it’s more timeless.”

The notion of suspending time, focusing on the music more than commerce, seems almost utopian. For Mr. Barrere and his compadres, though, it’s allowed them to survive a fickle, often cruel business with a modicum of sanity in the madness.

During the 70s, when they were the “players’ players,” guesting on records by Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt and beyond while waiting on their supernova, Mr. Barrere had a clarifying experience. “I went to see Mose Allison play up in San Francisco in this little club and there were only 10 people in the audience — 10 people.

“He put on the best show, having the best time and really playing amazing stuff. It didn’t matter to him who was there; he was, and he’d come to play. Didn’t matter if it was 10 people or 10,000, his focus was on the creativity, the music And as long as there’s food on the table, that should be what matters.”

Joking that “we’re too old for pop, maybe grand-pop?” Mr. Barrere recognizes that maintaining their integrity and creativity isn’t as simple as it sounds. Currently working on a new album, with noted producer John Porter sorting through the tracks, it’s about raising the funds to finish it up.

“It would’ve been nice to have had a bit more commercial success we’d’ve had a larger audience to spread the groove, but they wouldn’t have been any better than the audience we have now.

“Right now we’re searching for funding to finish the record up to have out early next year. That’s always the challenge, but it’s all part of it.”

Nothing to get in the way of the creativity. Since tracking the first eight songs in March, the collective has written 10 more songs — and that’s a cause for celebration, especially in the post-rock-star days of excess and more excess.

“When I stopped drinking in 1985, my biggest fear was I wouldn’t be able to write, because that was so ingrained into the process from the time I was 16, 17. It was just how we did it.

“And then once we started writing, starting creating, it was so much better! The natural buzz from [writing] is intense, and it just builds. There’s no other focus, and that’s awesome.”

The band who made an all-star album, Join The Band, coproduced by Jimmy Buffett for 429 Records, which featured a diverse lineup ranging from Béla Fleck and Black Crowes’ vocalist Chris Robinson to Bob Seger, Dave Matthews and Brooks and Dunn, is all about the collaborative possibilities. Whether it’s jamming with Louisiana’s slide guitar legend Sonny Landreth or guesting on a track for Gryphon Labs, Mr. Barrere believes the euphoria is in the music, not the marketing or the labels.

Closing the circle in an odd way, Gryphon Labs are three guys who play, ironically enough, with Dweezil Zappa. “They basically wanted me to play slide over their intricate little tracks.

“That’s the thing, every generation has their own groove, and they all find their way. I think gangsta rap is starting to fade, but the rest of it, you know, it sorts itself out.

“My daughter, I can hear her in her room, playing her guitar, listening to Joni Mitchell and Bonnie, Inari George.

“And then my son came to me, and he tells me he’s figured out what instrument he wants to play and it’s the turntables,” Mr. Barrere says.

“It wasn’t what I thought. Lately, he’s been rocking show tunes. Who’d’ve thought? But what he does with music, well, it is his own thing, and that’s just the point.”

Little Feat plays Nectar’s at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport on Thursday, August 11. Doors open at 9 p.m. for ages 21 and older. Tickets are $35 in advance at ticketsmv.com, $45 at the door.