The basics were all of us playing together in one room, but we didn’t want to turn our backs on contemporary recording techniques. We took the studio on as an extension of the stage show. “We had been together for about six months and were knocking around the bar scene, playing all the usual funky joints. That sounds fine with us.’ And so it became ZZ Top's First Album. Narum saw the importance of titling ZZ Top’s first album, and he said, ‘Make it known that you’ve provided the world with an offering of what you guys do, and it’s just the first one.’ And we said, ‘Sure. The art director who had stepped into ZZ Top’s world was a gentleman named Bill Narum, an extremely talented guy who had a handiness with the paintbrush and an awareness of the big picture, especially when it came to the importance of music in people’s lives. “Well, we were sure hoping that there would be a second album. On the following pages, Gibbons reflects on the recording of all 10 records contained in ZZ Top: The Complete Studio Albums (1970-1990). Bill had a masterful sense of vision, and he brought us to the point of delivering everything that was available.” "The task of maintaining forward motion was certainly a challenge. "I have to hand it to a guy who was willing to take on three rowdy and reckless teenagers and try to navigate the musical waters with them," he notes. Gibbons says that the importance of Ham cannot be overstated. "This is the way the albums were intended to be heard."Īll 10 albums in the set were produced by Bill Ham, who, until 2006, also functioned as ZZ Top's manager and main image-maker. "Getting the unchanged experience of each release with the original mixes is such a cool deal," says Gibbons. "Taking two decades of expression and compressing them into one ready, at-your-fingertips experience is pretty remarkable."įor Gibbons, one of the high cards of the package is that each album's artwork has been faithfully reproduced, including the gatefold sleeve designs used for 1973's Tres Hombres and 1976's Tejas, along with the original mixes. “It’s as close as I’ve gotten to instant time travel," Gibbons says of the box set. will issue the 10-disc box set ZZ Top: The Complete Studio Albums (1970-1990), which traces the band's development from a raw and feisty blues club act to a groundbreaking, mainstream-rock, hit-making powerhouse. On 10 June, 43 years after the release of ZZ Top's First Album, Warner Bros. We weren't certain if we'd get another chance in the studio, but we had high hopes." "We called the record 'ZZ Top's First Album' because we wanted everyone to know that there would be more. "We were three guys, we had three chords, and the future was wide open," says Gibbons. In the early fall of 1970, three Houston-based, boogie-and-blues-loving musicians, guitarist-singer Billy Gibbons, bassist-singer Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, walked into Robin Hood Studios in the neighboring city of Tyler to see if their "little ol' band from Texas" had what it took to make an honest-to-goodness record album. You might like what I can do.An album-by-album breakdown, from ZZ Top's First Album through Recycler Billy Gibbons discusses the 10-disc ZZ Top box set Also in the case was a love note, which we also still have, from a girlfriend of the original owner. “Plus an extra set of Black Diamond flat wounds in the case. “It still had the original set of flatwound strings from the Gibson factory on it,” Billy marvels. Meanwhile, she called and said, ‘Should I send the car back or sell it?’ We said, ‘Sell it!’ She did, and my portion of the settlement arrived the very day I drove out to see the rancher.”Īnd so the name Pearly Gates, with all its attendant magic, was transferred to the guitar, which was in mint condition when Billy obtained it. We figured the car must have divine connections, so we named it Pearly Gates. “But it brought her all the way to Hollywood, and she got the part. “We didn’t think the car would make it past El Paso,” Billy says. He’d loaned an aspiring actress a 1939 Packard automobile that he collectively owned with some friends so that she could drive from Houston to Hollywood for a screen test. Billy had freshly obtained the cash as the return on a favor.
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