To obtain the signature overdriven Eliminator guitar tone, Gibbons devised the “amp cabin”, a collection of guitar amplifiers surrounding a microphone. The album’s sound was distinctive in other ways. Beard also played most songs to a click track, maintaining a metronomic rhythm to synchronize with the electronic instruments. Eliminator featured a darkly innovative and distinctive synthesizer-laced sound which wove into and augmented the band’s guitar-bass-drums formula, a rarity in the blues-rock genre. Singles stayed in the previous ZZ good-time vein, however, such as “Tube Snake Boogie” and “Party on the Patio”.īy late 1983, with the telling release of Eliminator, ZZ Top had undertaken a complete artistic reinvention both in sound and image. The album featured the band’s first use of synthesizer and incorporated unusual electronic effects. ZZ Top started out the 1980s with an eclectic mix of songs on El Loco, released in 1981. Along with Gibbons’ clean guitar and the sparse Hill-Beard rhythm section, Deguello sported saxophone harmonies courtesy of Gibbons, Hill, and Beard-touted as the “The Lone Wolf Horns”-and yielded famous hits such as “Cheap Sunglasses” along with a cover version of Isaac Hayes’ “I Thank You”. (The only beardless band member remained the mustachioed Frank Beard.) The album displayed a strikingly minimalist approach to the ZZ Top sound. Unbeknownst to each other, Hill and Gibbons had both grown out their now-famous beards. ZZ Top reunited in 1979 for live shows and a new album, Degüello, under their new Warner Brothers contract. Manager-producer and overall image-meister Bill Ham used the time to negotiate a recording deal which allowed the band to retain rights to their catalogue on London Records, which would then be distributed by their new label, Warner Bros. The band continued touring heavily in 1976, releasing Tejas and the single “Arrested for Driving While Blind”.īy 1977, after hefty touring and recording schedules, ZZ Top drifted into an extended and unplanned hiatus. The album-half studio material and half live document-spawned the infamous hit “Tush” as well as “Heard It on the X”, a paean to Mexican border-blaster stations whose call sign began with X. Other album cuts like “Waitin’ for the Bus” and its immediate follower “Jesus Just Left Chicago” became fan favorites and rock-radio staples.īy September 1974, ZZ Top was drawing tens of thousands to shows such as the Labor Day stadium concert in Austin, dubbed “ZZ Top’s First Annual Texas-Size Rompin’ Stompin’ Barndance and Bar-B-Q.” Also on the bill were Santana, Joe Cocker, and Bad Company.Ī photo of the 1974 crowds was used on the record sleeve of Fandango!, released in 1975. Hombres featured ZZ’s classic hit “La Grange,” written about the Chicken Ranch, a famous La Grange, Texas bordello (that was also the subject of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas). The resultant third album, Tres Hombres (1973), was the first for which the band gained a million-seller and wide acclaim. They also began recording with engineer Terry Manning at Ardent Studios in Memphi. In January 1973, ZZ Top opened for The Rolling Stones three shows in Hawaii. Upon signing a contract with London Records, the first two albums, ZZ Top’s First Album and Rio Grande Mud, were made at Robin Hood Studios in Tyler, Texas. ZZ Top played their first show in February, 1970, and toured Texas almost continuously for the next several years. They thus figured that “King” was also at the “top”, and so settled on ZZ Top. King, but thought it seemed too similar to their hero. The band originally wanted to call themselves Z.Z. The current version of the story-as told by Billy Gibbons and recorded in his book Rock + Roll Gearhead–is derived from the name of blues guitar master B. Hill and Billy Gibbons perhaps witnessing the two words running together on a dilapidated billboard. The origin of the band’s name was not officially known for many years, but rumors abounded: a hybrid of two popular brands of rolling paper, Zig-Zag and ‘Top’ a tribute to blues legend Z. Needing a new bassist after Everett Bradshaw left, Beard suggested his former band mate, Joe “Dusty” Hill, and the nascent band stayed a trio. At first, Billy invited Frank for his project, a blues-rock foursome. By 1969, these groups had disbanded, and the three musicians started ZZ Top. American Blues also featured Dusty’s brother, the late Rocky Hill on guitar and vocals. The players who would comprise ZZ Top had been in different Texas-based groups, most notably the Moving Sidewalks with Gibbons, and American Blues with Hill and Beard.