ZZ Top History 2
Their subsequent couple of albums ("Rio Grande Mud", and the classic "Tres Hombres" ) produced a couple of hit singles, and the ZZ Top name and reputation began to spread. In fact, they became respected quickly enough for them to land a support slot opening for the Rolling Stones in 1972.
Rio Grande Mud (1972), featured their first hit single, "Francine" (#81). Other gems on the album included "Just Got Paid.", "Bar-B-Q," "Mushmouth Shoutin", and "Down Brownie". Rio Grande Mud got it's first placing in the Billboard Charts at 151 on May 6th.
Rio Grande Mud was again financed by the Daily Brothers. Although still quite a formulaic record, "Rio Grande Mud" tried to show the band as hard working rock 'n rollers rather than genuine bluesmen.
The most commercial song on the album was unquestionably "Francine". When it was released as a single, it had an English language version on one side, and Spanish on the other, The song, although credited to Billy Gibbons-Steve Perron and Kenny Cordray, had little to do with Billy at all. Its believed that apart from changing some structure, all Billy did was change the line "If I catch her with Billy G" to "If I catch her with Stevie P"
One could be forgiven for thinking the bands efforts were in vain, as Dusty was in a bar in Mexico one night, and the band (Spanish speakers) performed the English version of Francine (which they learned phonetically from the radio, snubbing the Spanish version.)
All ZZ albums are shrouded in legend, but one of the foremost was Rio Grande Mud. For instance, the band had to stop playing "Just Got Paid" live, because the audience would pelt them with loose change! "Apologies to Pearly" also had a story behind it. Billy's legendary '59 Les Paul (described as making the band sound like "four flat tyres on a muddy road" ) was named "Pearly Gates". He used her constantly - except on this cut, which is why he named it "Apologies to Pearly"
In 1972, ZZ Top appeared at the University of Houston's football stadium, and drew 38,000 fans to hear the band share the stage with Blue Oyster Cult, the Doobie Brothers, and Savoy Brown.
1973 saw the album that finally made the band stars - Tres Hombres. This time they moved the recording of the album to Ardent Studio's in Memphis (with some work done at their old haunt, Robin Hood Brian's). They also enlisted the help of ace Led Zeppelin engineer (and future Molly Hatchet producer) Terry Manning.
Tres Hombres (1973), fast became the boys first gold album thanks to, not only great songs, but extensive touring and radio airplay. Tres Hombres proceeded to sell a million copies and the next two albums Fandango! and Tejas did the same. The album contained the sleazy number which was to become their anthem : "La Grange," ZZ's first to enter the "Cashbox" Top 30, and most recognized song -- it tells the tale of "that shack outside LaGrange," the now closed Gracie's Chicken Farm whorehouse, east of Austin, TX. This number was allegedly based John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen." (which would lead to problems later in the bands career. Click here for more). Legend has it that Billy would drive all over Texas looking for out-of-the-way brothels to write about!
Billy remembers the "real La Grange:
"...it was about the Waldorf Astoria of whore houses in Texas, so posh that you couldn't cuss or even be really drunk in front of the girls. When you reach a certain age in Texas you can go visiting down to Mexico or make a trip to La Grange. At least that's the way it was. Place got closed down soon after we wrote the song. The sheriff was so pissed that he smashed all the ribs of the reporter that broke the story in the papers."
The music of "La Grange" is actually just a re-working of a Slim Harpo number that was also done by The Stones as "Hip Shake" but it proved a breakthrough for ZZ Top. As the song rose up the charts, rumours circulated that "Canned Heat" were about to sue the band for allegedly plagiarising "Fried Hockey Boogie".
The song soon entered the Top 40 , followed by the twins "Waitin' For The Bus" and "Jesus Just Left Chicago." Rolling Stones review said:
"Waitin' on the Bus is a real favorite. So is Jesus. And ZZ's signature song, LaGrange (one of Billy's hottest, but played on a Strat, not Pearly. Listen to it.) That whole album is hot, blue, and righteous. The tone is so incredible it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. This album is the ZZ centerpiece. All the previous cuts led to this, and this led to everything else. This is the one that established ZZ Top. No question about it. Don't care which is your favorite, this is the one."
"Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers" is another classic from the album that is still universally loved to this day. Even Motorhead recorded a cover of it.
Every song was considered a classic. Dusty recalls the making of sleaze-athon "Precious and Grace":
There's a lot more Texan in the lyrics of Tres Hombres. "Precious And Grace" is about two women the band picked up on a drive from Dallas to Houston. Seems Dusty can't pass up the opportunity to make a little time. Only on this occasion, as he relates, "these two were as ugly as sin. Real ugly women. They'd just got out of prison. One of them had so many scars it looked like her face had caught fire and they'd stamped it out with a track shoe. But ahh . . . they were unique people," he chuckles. "And it's a story people can identify with 'cause it coulda happened anywhere but at the same time folks think its different 'cause it happened down in Texas, but, hell, everyone everywhere goes to whores, drinks beer and drives fast."
Yet another bizarre story came from the writing of "Master of Sparks" - Billy Gibbons remembers...
A good friend and I put our heads together one day and went out of town to his folks spread where we got the help of the black foreman there to weld a bunch of sucker gauge which is the kind of pipe they use to build windmills, into a steel cage, a ball of sorts. We put a door on it, a seatbelt on a bucket seat. It even had shock absorbers to cushion the points of impact. Then we'd get drunk and roll this thing out of the back of a pick-up truck at 'bout fifty miles an hour and when it would hit the ground it'd send up a roostertail of sparks a hundred feet in the air. Man it would tear you up to get in that thing. It was the most amazing spectacle I'd ever laid eyes on. 'Course we kept it a secret from everybody 'cause, if our folks had found out, we'd all been off to military school, but then my buddy went and printed up flyers and distributed them at school sayin' to come and see the 'master of sparks' that night on jack-rabbit road which was Highway Six, our launch pad." "Well, sure enough, come sundown we got out there to find both sides of the road lined with cars waitin' to see this. Some guy even had the back end of his pick-up truck loaded down with ice and cold beer, he was givin' away free beer. So, after realizing what was coming down, both of us loaded ourselves in for the last ride and I guess we must of been going sixty miles an hour, drunk, laughin' like hell and, when we rolled ourselves out, we hit the ground so hard it squashed the ball out like an egg. Needless to say, it didn't roll too well and we spun off the road and hit a fence, tore bout a hundred yards of barbed wire down. I was screamin', he was bleedin', but, needless to say we were awarded the coveted title of having done the wildest thing."
The band, although now known across the country, remained true to their Texas roots, where they remained based. They were now earning more money than they ever dreamed about (if not quite enough to let Billy realise is dream of buying an entire shopping mall !!) Amazingly, they carried on economising so that the money could be ploughed back into the band - they would think nothing of crashing on the floor at their friend's houses. To illustrate, Dusty recalls:
"We were in Lubbock, staying in this hotel opposite the venue. Our equipment didn't turn up and we had to cancel the gig - and we couldn't even afford our hotel room! We were all sharing one room; one had the mattress, one had the pillow and the blanket. We had to sneak out of the hotel. We were hanging out of the window on a rope!"
Top supported The Rolling Stones in Honolulu, 1973. Bill Ham arranged it with the promoters, Concerts West. Dusty recalls;
"We went onstage and people just looked at us, dropped their jaws and moaned: "They're a cowboy band" In the end, though, we'd just blow them away and they'd scream for us to come back. We'd feel kinda funny with the Stones watching us from behind, waiting for us to finish"
They also went out, supporting other big name acts like Alice Cooper and Deep Purple.
For a band considered blues-rock, the Top were kitted out like clones of Hank Williams. They had taken to wearing cowboy boots, stetson's and other western gear on stage. The suits come replete with rhinestone roses and sparkling maps of the Lone Star State on the back of the jackets and sell for about fifteen hundred dollars each. Just what all the cowboy fashion has to do with rock and blues music is an open ended query but the crowds seem to eat it up. "Nudie's suits have come to symbolize that flashy Texan image, all that bragging about 'my gun is bigger'n your gun', and we've kind of picked up on it," says Billy
By this time, they were really playing up to the Cowboy image, even branding themselves as "that li'l ol band from Texas"
In 1974 the band was the headline act at Willie Nelson's "Rompin' and Stompin' Barndance and Barbecue," which was the biggest concert in Austin, TX history. It was held on Labor Day, September 1. The rest of the bill ( in front of a mammoth crowd of 80,000) was Santana, Joe Cocker and Bad Company, who were making their American debut. Now that they were headlining such a prestigious event, they were more than just a locally popular Texas band. The overexcited fans ran riot at the gig though, demolishing large parts of it, which resulted in this being the last gig to be held at Memorial Stadium on the University of Texas Campus for two decades.
In the South, ZZ Top were now easily the most popular band around (attendance-wise at least). The Warehouse in New Orleans were regularly swamped with demand for tickets, to the extent that they estimated that they could sell each gig five times over. However, as soon as they crossed the Mason-Dixon line, things changed. Put in a 5,000 seat theatre in New York (the Felt Forum) half the seats remained unsold. This was now their biggest problem - how to break out from being huge...but locally.
Suspicions abounded that when playing up North, jealous rival acts were sabotaging their shows, for fear of being shown up in front of their own fans.