ZZ TOP
Chris Prior dubbed himself the Rock Professor and I never knew whether it was meant to indicate a vast and molecular knowledge of all things rockular, or whether it simply meant that his tastes were slightly old-fashioned and fuddy duddy, but he sure knew something about a lot of good rock, the kind of rock nowadays called classis rock. He introduced me to a lot of acts and Z Z Top and Van Morrison are the two most important ones from the perspective of my record collection.
Back in the day, in my late high school and early Varsity years, between, 1975 and the end of 1981, SABC radio was divided into various services of which the English and Afrikaans services were the major, broad based channels, then there were the various regional services in either or both of the two official languages, a number of ethnic language stations, and Radio 5 which was the national music station.
I listened to some English service programmes, a little bit of Radio Good Hope (the Cape Town based regional station) , very little of Radio 5 – in fact, by about 1978 I stopped listening to it altogether because it had a disco format I grew to hate – and from 1978 on a great deal of Radio Xhosa. My favourite programme on the English service was the late afternoon magazine programme Audiomix, aimed at teens I guess, with an entertaining mixture of news, topical subjects, education and entertainment and sports. The style was jocular and semi-hip and it was not a bad hour to spend in front of the radio, but the highlight for a far too brief period was a brief 10 or 15 minute slot in which the relatively young Chris Prior sought to give us a rough guide to some or other band or individual musician he thought we should know more about.
This Prior educational slot was broadcast in the time of UK punk and New Wave, yet I do not recollect him ever introducing any of the newer British or American bands. He focussed essentially on the Sixties and early to mid-‘70s.
Apart from ZZ Top and Van Morrison, I have no idea who else Chris Prior introduced to the Audiomix listeners. I vaguely recall that the James Gang might have featured, but it could be a false memory.
Anyhow, in his brief slot Prior gave a potted biography of his subject and played selected tunes to illustrate the topic.
I had heard of ZZ Top, probably an article in Hit Parader the US monthly rock magazine that carried at least one feature on the band and its ‘Taking Texas to the People” tour, with live rattlesnakes and wild steers on stage. ZZ Top broke all kinds of attendance records in all parts of the United States.
However, I still knew nothing of what ZZ Top sounded like until Prior played “Brown Sugar” (not the Rolling Stones tune) with its ominous, slow stop time beat, growling vocals and space age freaky blues guitar. I hadn’t heard anything like this before and I was hooked. Who knows what else he played? Probably any combination of “La Grange,” “Tush,” “I just Got Paid,” “Waiting for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago,” “Blue Jeans Blues” and “Arrested for Driving While Blind.” What the tunes were, is not important. The important part is that I was an instant ZZ Top fan.
Not long after the revelation, I was in Sygma Records (the only record store in Stellenbosch at the time) and saw a copy of Tejas (1976) there. I didn’t have any money, or not enough, on me, returned home, got the dosh and went straight back to buy the album, fervently hoping all the time that some fool hadn’t bought the record while I was away.
There was a smidgen of disappointment when I realised that neither “Brown Sugar” or “La Grange” was on this record, and there was in fact nothing as down home as “Brown Sugar” on it.
The music was a tad strange. “Arrested for Driving While Blind” was a great stomping rocker, as was “Ten Dollar Man,” but opening rack “It's Only Love,” “Pan Am Highway” and “She's A Heartbreaker” sounded more like country to me and “Asleep in the Desert” was a weird, contemplative instrumental that did not jibe with the boisterous, rocking image of the boys from Texas. Then there was “Enjoy And Get It On” with its John Lee Hooker style boogie, and the hard charging “Avalon Hideaway,” apparently based on a true story, and the silly tale of “El Diablo” that seemed like too much of a contrivance without merit. It, and “Snappie Kakkie” sounded like filler to me. No matter, this was a great album and I loved it to death. It might be due to love at first sight, but this is still my all-time favourite ZZ Top album.
After Tejas, and its tour, the Top went on a lengthy hiatus and released no new studio album until 1979's Deguello, which I bought at a discounted price in 1980. In the meantime, the Top sound had changed considerably and no longer sounded like the slightly odd blues and country band of yore. Instead there was a harder, more produced sound and songs that sounded mostly like jokes, as if the struggle years were over and the band could afford to let go of blues credibility and just kick back and mess around. The music was still powerful (and Billy Gibbons had discovered effects pedals and New Wave production values) but the lyrics were funny and funny.
The album opened with the stomping soul of “I Thank You” and the second side started with heavy version of the venerable “Dust My Broom,” two cover versions that suggested a songwriting drought of sorts.
Then there were the peculiar blues of “Cheap Sunglasses,” “I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide,” “A Fool For Your Stockings” and “She Loves My Automobile.”
“Manic Mechanic” is just filler.
I suppose Top decided it was time to change, to adopt New Wave values and to move into the ‘80s and a more contemporary sound and outlook, with basic blues tropes on top of an updated musical backing. in a way it was so forward looking and non-traditional boogie blues that I did not appreciate Deguello as deeply as I did Tejas and certainly didn’t listen to it as much, but on re-investigation, Deguello ain’t half bad and has enough old-school Top to be mostly enjoyable., even if it will still never be part of my top 5 list of ZZ Top albums; basically the first five records from ZZ Top’s First Album to Tejas.
In due course, I acquired Fandango! and Tres Hombres, probably in that order too though the latter was the third album and Fandango! fourth.
Fandango! has a studio side and a live side. I guess the intention was to show us how the band worked a room or maybe they just didn’t have enough new songs to fill two sides of a record. I had mixed feelings about the live side. “Thunderbird” was great, “Jailhouse Rock” redundant and the “Backdoor” medley is just the band fucking around on stage for shits and giggles, with a version of “Boogie Chillen” they called “Long Distance Boogie” just to have the copyright. Frankly, these tracks did make the Top sound like just another bar band and not in a good way.
The studio tracks on Fandango! are the nuggets on the album. “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings,” “Blue Jeans Blues,” “Balinese,” “Mexican Blackbird,” “Heard It On the X” and “Tush” form possibly the best sequence of brilliant blues rock songs ever, all killer and no filler, to the max. They rock, there is plenty slide guitar, the tales are funky and tall, and the album ends with the truly magnificent “Tush,” one of the most excitable odes to nookie I have ever heard.
The second side of the album is a well-nigh perfect example of how rockin' blues boogie should be played. For a touring band, they sure sounded a lot better in studio surroundings than on a stage.
Where Fandango! Was the tough, rocking version of ZZ Top, and Tejas quite a bit country, it seemed to me that Tres Hombres showcased the gospel influences of the band. Not that hard rocking blues were absent. “Waiting for the Bus / Jesus Just Left Chicago,” the opening one-two combination proved that the boys sure knew how to play a powerful shuffle but the gospel thing started creeping in there. Chris Prior was particularly fond of these two songs. Then there is “La Grange,” one of the great blues riffs of all time and a song that became a staple in the repertoire of a number of neo-blues bands in the great blues revival in Cape Town in the late Eighties and early Nineties; it mixed up Slim Harpo and John Lee Hooker and rocked like a demon.
“Hot, Blue and Righteous” and “Have You Heard?” were the two main gospelized tunes, and “Master of Sparks,” allegedly based on a true story, was a weird little ditty with a cosmic and theological subtext. Of course blues and gospel were intertwined in the American South and it is just right that 3 good ole boys should mix up that kind of medicine as well.
For a long while my ZZ Top collection consisted of only these 4 records. I just didn’t find the first two albums anywhere and starting with El Loco (1981), I really didn’t care for the cartoonish ZZ Top with the long beards on Gibbons and Hill, and the synth heavy mega successful albums “Eliminator” and “Afterburner.” I can’t think of a single ‘70s artist that updated their sound to fit in with ‘80s production styles and sounds, whose ‘80s albums I like. I far preferred the clean, overdriven, ‘70s production of, say Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and, of course ZZ Top.
When switched to the CD format for my music collection, I duplicated many of my LP records, and did that with Fandango! and Tres Hombres, as single albums, and had the good fortune to find the ZZ Top Sixpack of the first five albums and El Loco, at a flea market stall.
El Loco sounded a lot more like Deguello than it sounded like the earlier albums with very little pure blues. I knew “Tube Snake Boogie” from the radio, but the rest of the tunes were unfamiliar and though none are bad, it is not an album that I could bond with. On relistening, the record seems heavy on ballad type material, and there is far more synth and other instrumentation on. it to beef up the basic trio, and to position ZZ Top for its standard world conquering ‘80s sound
Call me a Luddite but I preferred the more straight ahead bluesier version of the band. Updating the sound for a younger, more contemporary pop audience worked out well for ZZ Top but it never worked for me.
El Loco is typical of the type of record I’ll listen to once, for the record, and never again because there is nothing to it to engage or captivate me on any level.
ZZ Top's First Album (1971) and Rio Grande Mud (1972) were the real deal, and for the first time since Chris Prior’s introduction on Audiomix, probably almost twenty years before, I heard “Brown Sugar” (from the debut) in all its glory. it’s probably the best thing on that first record, which sounds tentative and subdued otherwise, as if the band hadn’t found its feet in the studio or in its songwriting. A promising start, with all the elements of classic Top already in evidence, but not yet matured.
Rio Grande Mud is far better, starting with the stonking boogie of “Francene” and then giving us “Just Got Paid,” “Mushmouth Shouting,” “Chevrolet,” “Apologies to Pearly” and “Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell,” as gold grade Top, with 4 other tracks that are worthy but also seems a tad like filler.
I realised that the Top was not as purist a blues band as I had thought, and was nothing like the early Fleetwood Mac or even John Mayall, and was closer to the blues based boogie bands like Foghat, but Billy Gibbons still played a mean blues guitar that was the mitigating subtle factor midst the good time boogie.
One can make one helluva solid playlist from the first 5 ZZ Top albums.
The ‘80s were very good for ZZ Top, with the addition of electronics, up to date production, those really stupidly long beards, tender love songs, MTV videos on heavy rotation and the added bonus of at least one Back To The Future soundtrack hit tie-in, and the custom built Topmobile. ZZ Top was commercially even more successful than in the ‘70s. The hit songs (“Sharp Dressed Man,” “Gimme All Your Lovin” “Got Me Under Pressure,” “Legs,” “Sleeping Bag,” “Rough Boy” and “Doubleback”)_were all over local radio, affording the new look ZZ Top more airtime than they ever had in the ‘70s. Once again, the songs on Eliminator (1983), Afterburner (1985) and Recycler (1990) weren’t bad, but I never warmed to this new sound and the concept that the Top were no longer real beer drinkers and hell raisers and were simply putting on a big act for the kids who were now their audience. For me, ZZ Top going mainstream made them into one of those AOR rock acts of the ‘80s (Aerosmith is another example) that simply did not appeal.
Eliminator, Afterburner and Recycler are of a piece, sounding like typical ‘80s smoothed out hard rock, albeit with a more direct blues flavour and with synth flourishes, guitar effects, the standard excellent technique and songs that are more sophisticated versions of the themes they celebrated in the ‘70s.
After another 4-year hiatus, Top returned with Antenna in 1994, in the midst of the grunge phenomena and in “the year that punk broke.” The sound is tougher, beefier and crisper, although still in thrall to contemporary production values and technological enhancement.
Rhythmeen (1996) builds on the previous record’s style and sound. Billy Gibbons is a super gifted guitarist who works hard on developing unique riffs for each song but over the length of an album they start sounding laboured. The other thing is that, though the song craft and arrangements may improve technically as musicians age and mature, the lack of youthful exuberance and bravura ingenuity means that the record comes and goes and fails to settle in the head afterward, never mind giving the listener a satisfying classic. CD length albums, usually substantially longer than LP releases, often become a tedious slog with each track flowing into the other as if it were one long song.
I can’t see how anyone, except the most hard cord of diehard fans, would’ve been eagerly anticipating, after another long hiatus, Top’s last album of the 20th century, XXX (1999.) On this record there seems to be more synth enhancements and diddy bopping than before, sometimes almost with a post-rock, light industrial attitude and a nod to electro. The last four tracks are live recordings of new material. “(Let Me Be Your) Teddybear” is reinterpreted as a blues with the clean, old school sound of ZZ Top’s ‘70s heydays, and the other three tracks are contemporary sounding.
Four more years pass before the Top returns with Mescalero (2003), 66 minutes’ worth of hard rocking, blues flecked, nu metal guitar. The underlying riff to “Buck Nekkid” sounds like a nod to “La Grange” and 5 of the tracks have cryptic one word titles, as if ZZ Top is becoming an arty band.
The next Top studio album follows 9 years later, La Futura (2013) but this time it’s 12 songs in 46 minutes. “Chartreuse” has an opening riff that pays homage to “Tush” and there retooled quotes from, and knowing nods to, Top tunes from the ‘70s amid the now standard big rock sound.
ZZ Top fell foul of the same trap rock bands with longevity fall in. They become adept at the technical aspects of song writing, want to keep up with the times and embrace the best that contemporary technology has to offer and seek to progress and innovate the sound and sacrifice creative sparks of quirky invention for the purposeful professional approach required to sustain a career over the length of a life time. The first records, written and recorded with the brashness of youth set out the stall and present the canon by which the band will be known and measured ever after, and nothing that comes later, no matter how proficient or commercially successful will replace the early classics. One cannot fault the ZZ Top albums after El Loco, or even Deguello, on any technical level, but they are difficult to differentiate from each other and are appreciated rather than loved.
I see no need to own anything released after 1977 except that I should confess that I did buy the Live From Texas (2008) CD but only because I found it on sale at a Musica shop in the Langeberg Mall outside Mossel Bay.
This live set features some of the good stuff from the ‘70s, several tracks off Deguello and the biggest ‘80s hits. The boys sound like they're having fun on stage and they rock hard but somehow the performance is not very satisfying. The first side of Fandango! has more energy and sounds a lot better too, even if more primitive or maybe it’s because it sounds more skeletal.
ZZ Top continued with its recording career, releasing a new studio album every few years, and a slew of live recordings, none of which ever interested me enough to acquire them.
The modern day version of ZZ Top featured the same three guys who started the band forty years ago and Frank Beard, the drummer, still has no beard, yet the music has changed perceptibly over time. Once the Top was a blues band with a lot of boogie in its stew and now they are close to being a hard rock band playing some blues styled tunes and cracking some risqué jokes in-between while they glorify all things Texan. If this formula undoubtedly spells good fun on the night, it pales somewhat when one puts the platter on the stereo. Play it loud and some of the effect returns but it cannot quite convince me that ZZ Top are any better today than they were 35 years ago.
Once they billed themselves as a little old band from Texas. Nowadays it is more like just an old band from Texas whose members still have some moves and have to rely on craft and experience to excite where it used to be youth and energy.
Perhaps “Enjoy And Get It On” should be the motto, perhaps “Arrested for Driving While Blind” and “Tush” are still the best energy rush experience of the joys drinking and driving and of looking to pull. That is what ZZ Top is about: feeling good and getting high and rocking out and having a damn fine time doing it!
