Deep Album Cuts Vol. 238: ZZ Top
I've always admired how long ZZ Top kept going with the trio that started performing together in 1970, after guitarist Billy Gibbons founded the band in 1969 and tried out a few different rhythm section players before finding that magic combination. They kept the same lineup for over 50 years, Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, when the path to longevity in rock'n'roll usually involves a few changes in personnel. So it was particularly sad to see that run end this week with Dusty Hill's death. It's already been announced that it was Hill's wishes that the band could continue with the band's longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass, so the band isn't over, but it's definitely the end of an era.
2. Bedroom Thang
3. Just Got Paid
4. Down Brownie
5. Waitin' For The Bus
6. Jesus Just Left Chicago
7. Master Of Sparks
8. Blue Jean Blues
9. Balinese
10. Ten Dollar Man
11. Manic Mechanic
12. Party On The Patio
13. I Got The Six
14. Thug
15. Bad Girl
16. Woke Up With Wood
17. Burger Man
18. Deal Goin' Down
19. Black Fly
20. Trippin'
21. Stackin' Paper
22. Chartreuse
Tracks 1 and 2 from ZZ Top's First Album (1971)
Tracks 3 and 4 from Rio Grande Mud (1972)
Track 17 from Recycler (1990)Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from Tres Hombres (1973)
Tracks 8 and 9 from Fandango! (1975)
Track 10 from Tejas (1976)
Track 11 from Deguello (1979)
Track 12 from El Loco (1981)
Tracks 13, 14, and 15 from Eliminator (1983)
Track 16 from Afterburner (1985)
Track 18 from Antenna (1994)
Track 19 from Rhythmeen (1996)
Track 20 from XXX (1999)
Track 21 from Mescalero (2003)
Track 22 from La Futura (2012)
It's funny to think that the members of ZZ Top were all 33 years old when they released Eliminator. But the long beards that Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill grew during a long 2-year break after 1976's Tejas made them seem like grizzled old prospectors in their iconic Eliminator era videos that were ubiquitous when I was a kid. I don't think I ever would've guessed at the time that they were the same age as Bruce Springsteen, who became clean-shaven and donned tight jeans to adapt to MTV era superstardom. By contrast, ZZ Top became these whimsical, mysterious characters with furry, spinning guitars who'd appear in a classic car and help a young guy meet women.
But even before MTV and the drum machines, ZZ Top never took themselves too seriously. They were proud of their Texas roots and their musical influences, but they were always playful and irreverent about it, and traded in bawdy double entendres more than just about any band on the charts before AC/DC. I've always been amused that they could get away with songs like "Pearl Necklace" on the radio, and some of their album tracks like "Burger Man," "Woke Up With Wood," and "I Got The Six" are just hilariously sleazy. And even in the '70s they played around with technology and current sounds in interesting ways, like the early vocal pitch manipulation on "Manic Mechanic," but you always primarily heard those three guys playing together in a room. I adore some of the beats Frank Beard is laying down, especially on "Bedroom Thang."
Billy Gibbons sang lead on most ZZ Top songs, but Dusty Hill sang lead on the band's first top 40 hit, "Tush" and a handful of later singles, ("Can't Stop Rockin'," "Delirious" and "Piece") and at least a song or two on most of the studio albums. On this playlist Hill sings lead on "Balinese," "Ten Dollar Man," "Party On The Patio," "I Got The Six," "Bad Girl," and "Deal Goin' Down."
ZZ Top only had a few albums and a handful of hits when they released their first greatest hits record, The Best of ZZ Top, in 1977, and that compilation actually included a number of album tracks over singles. But the comp went double platinum and helped make some live staples that were never singles like "Waitin' For The Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "Blue Jean Blues," and "Just Got Paid" into some of their most popular songs.
I'm always curious to find albums by major acts that are missing from streaming services, and the absence of ZZ Top's albums Deguello and El Loco is one of the more puzzling ones I've seen. They were the band's first two albums for Warner Bros., which also released Eliminator, and they sold well and spun off several rock radio staples ("Cheap Sunglasses," "I Thank You," "Pearl Necklace," and "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide"). Most of the songs from those albums are on Spotify via compilations, although some of them are only available in the form of the 1987 box set The Six Pack, which controversially remixed the band's earlier albums to sound more like Eliminator and Afterburner.
ZZ Top stayed with their lucrative '80s aesthetic for a while beyond the '80s, but eventually they got back to letting the band's killer rhythm section hold it down without any drum machines or sequencers. The last album ZZ Top made with Dusty Hill, La Futura, was one of my favorite albums of 2012, really a great-sounding record. I'm skeptical of aging acts making critically praised 'back to basics' albums with Rick Rubin, but that's one that I really dug. Apparently ZZ Top did record some new material during the pandemic lockdown, so hopefully we'll hear a little more from Dusty Hill at some point, but in the meantime, La Futura was a great record to go out on.
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