Three Friends Names ZZ

My father was a huge ZZ Top fan in the 1980's and I remember him playing all their hits of the 80's all the time on our record player. The ZZ Top album Eliminator would be played so much those songs are stamped on my brain. Every time I hear one of those songs I cringe. It is what made ZZ Top. Well to me that is not what I think of when I hear ZZ Top. I go all the way to almost the beginning of their career. Their early years mixed Texas Boogie with Roots and Blues music. Add those and add a bit of music you hear on a Friday or Saturday night at a local bar and you have the best of ZZ Top. The first time I heard this stuff I knew I was going to enjoy what they had to offer from their early years.

ZZ Top started back in 1970 from the best part of Texas. They grew a great reputation with the bar scene and quicky got signed to of all record labels London. London is famous for Classical and for the American distribution of the Rolling Stones before 1971. The first three album on London must have sound foreign to our ears because very little of it was heard on radio. I am sure that they had a huge following in Texas, but around the rest of the United States they were not heard. Well not until Tres Hombres came out. That album made them the stars they are today.



I was tag sailing one day and that album came across my hands. I saw that it was the London records version and I quickly picked it up. The person selling the records told me that he had the other two London editions in his house and was willing to sell those as well. I was so unfamiliar with these records I had to listen to them. When I got home I showed these to my father. I had to tell him that these ZZ Top albums were from when I was born and before. He took off the one he was playing and put on Tres Hombres. The first two songs he heard he started laughing. I had no idea why, but he then explained that the Classic Rock stations play this song all the time and now we finally know where they got the song from.

He studied all three albums. He told me how much more he liked these albums compared to the ones he had. He told me he like the raw Blues and feel like they belonged playing at the local bar. He liked the vocals and the guitar playing was out of this world. He never thought that a band he liked in the 80's sounded so much better in the early 70's. They sounded more like a bar band then and even now. Tres Hombres had three Classic Rock hits on it. It is still considered one of their classics. The whole album may be short by today's standards but in 34 minutes it packs quite a punch.



Looking for a ZZ Top album to share with your friends. This is the one. The music is raw, Bluesy and addicting fun. When you hear a lot of the old songs on the radio remember it all came from the era that we don't expect ZZ Top to come from. When I heard the stuff my father was playing I really thought they just started out but with further investigation I really think the 70's treated them well. Enjoy a classic from 1973. Rock out and Enjoy!!