@AirplayBeats reacts to ZZ Top’s Cheap Sunglasses. Like comment and subscribe Join our Patreon for exclusive videos and to get your requests done faster: patreon.com/user?u=81569817
70's era ZZ Top inhabits the funky space between John Lee Hooker and Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Cheap Sunglasses" defined a street attitude towards fashion that still resonates today. It's like hangover medicine for the howl in "Tush", the slide guitar that drives "Just Got Paid", or the break in "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" when it catches you off guard. ZZ Top's cover of the Sam & Dave classic "I Thank You" is another classic, hard and gritty with one of the meanest guitar tones ever recorded. And "Heard It on the X" tells the story of listening to rock-n-roll, blues, and other "forbidden" music during the segregated 50's on border radio stations broadcast out of Mexico at 50,000+ watts so that their signals reached well over a hundred miles across the border.
Pure Texas royalty. Billy Gibbons on lead guitar, Dusty Hill on Bass, may he rest in perfect peace, and Frank Beard, the only one without a beard, on drums. They called themselves a little ol Boogie Band from Texas.
I saw ZZ Topp back in 1978 in Seattle, and they had live cattle, and other animals on stage while they were playing. Great live Band. They toured with "The Jimi Hendrix Experience," when Jimi was just getting his Band together, to tour in Europe in 1967. ZZ Topp was only known in small Bars in Texas at the time, but Jimi ran across them, and asked them to be the warm-up Band for them. Billy Gibbons (Lead, and only guitarist) is a great Blues player, and that's what caught Jimi's ear. Can you imagine this fairy tale story, right out of a Hollywood movie. Billy Gibbons: "Hey guys, you'll never guess what just happened. Jimi Hendrix asked us to go on tour with him and his new Band over in England!" " Get the Hell outta here." But it was true, and about 7 years later in the early 70s, ZZ Topp was one of the Biggest Bands in the world. Thanks guys
I discovered a story about a pink strat that Jimi gave Billy during that time. Someone actually stole it not knowing anything about it. About 10 yrs later a friend of Billy's saw some kid playing it in some dive in Texas. Billy went to the bar and just offered the kid a few hundred bucks for it!! It was back to it's rightful owner.
This is a fun ZZ tune, but from later in their discography, during a much more "commercial" phase of their careers. Y'all gotta hit Waitin' for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago or Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings to hear the real gritty and bluesy ZZ.
Nah man I'd disagree with ya there, Eliminator marked the biggest change in their sound, this album Deguello was the last album that really focused on their original sound, right up there with Tres Hombres and Rio Grande Mud in my opinion
ZZ Top is a power trio- Billy Gibbons (guitar/vocals), Dusty Hill (bass/vocals), Frank Beard (drums). Beard has no beard. Dusty died not long ago, and the new guy is Elwood Francis. Some other ZZ Top tracks: Heard it on the X, Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings, and their prob best known song, La Grange.
Hey guys, ZZ Top's more commercial albums in the 80's were a different animal than their 70's albums which were mostly blues based, but with a funky groove, and the playing on the earlier albums was more free and jamming with cooler extended guitar solos and no pressure from the record company and slick producer to produce "radio friendly" hits.
I got to see ZZ-Top a few years ago. So much style and so much class. What I really liked about them is many of their songs just don't have an ending. So in concert they just keep playing and grooving till they decide to stop.
This was there last class album before mtv and the corporation turned them into a middle of the road semi pop band.this sound was when they were a Texan dirty gritty blues and boogie band and that's the zz.top I fell in love with.great channel guys and greetings from UK just South of London.
The greatest gift of the era was catching ZZ in a dive bar. They would play smaller venues where it was up close and personal. They never promoted the stop ahead of schedule, so it was luck to catch one of the shows. These 3-4 minute songs would evolve into 20 minute jams on stage.
In the old days they had a organ/keyboard player there’s two era’s of ZZ Top like Aerosmith they hit it big then went away and came back, this is before the beards got long.
If you like that you need to check out these 2 ZZ Top songs together. You can find videos with them together. The songs are "Waiting On The Bus" & "Jesus Just Left Chicago". The reason they're commonly together is because if you had the album Tres Hombres they seamlessly move from one to the other without pause. I promise you'll love them. Oh & ZZTop's style of music was referred to as Texas Jam when I was a kid in the 70s & teen in the 80s
ZZ Top - Waitin For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago (REACTION) #zztop #reaction #trending ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GmBwcU1RdMc.html
@@AirplayBeats thanks. There's so much more great ZZ Top. "Tube Snake Boogie", "Pearl Necklace", "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" & many more. That last one is ba.......d
When they play this live, during the break between portions of the breakdown in the middle of the tune, they employ some kind of funky noise that sounds like a musical jet is taking off. When I saw them in 1981, they had a killer laser show in tow, and the lasers did some cool shit during that "jet" taking off. Ha ha haaaa Also, at the breakdown at the end of the song, where it slows down, they get closer and closer together, kinda bending over towards each other, Dusty's bass just shakin' the joint. These dudes will pull some gospel-sounding shit out on you, too. Dig way back to their first 3 albums to hear where these boys came from. From there, they got experimental, and you really hear that in the studio albums beginning with this album, "Degüello." There are some tracks on this one where they are experimenting with different sounding vocals, most notably in the track "Manic Mechanic." These dudes always lay it down live. Always top-notch performances back in the day. The 1975 "Worldwide Texas Tour" is legendary in its scope (practically a zoo on wheels). They also frequently had choreographed routines for each song. I saw them in the late 90s and they had an entire ensemble of about 20-25 women dancing around on stage with them during different tunes throughout the show. RIP, Dusty. That dude not only held down the bottom end, he provided half of the vocals. I grew up on these dudes in Texas. Badass funky bluesy gospelly stuff on their first three albums ("ZZ Top's First Album," "Rio Grande Mud," and "Tres Hombres").
Hung out with Dusty back in the day when they took a break so Frank could get clean and turned into 2 years! He wanted to be a regular dude and work at the Airport for awhile. He was a super good guy. R.I.P Dusty 🔥✌🤘
Now y'all need to check out Stevie Ray Vaughn! Another Texas boy that I used to see at a place called Fitzgerald's in Houston back in the late 70s and very early 80s!🔥✌🤘
Saw them as a teenager... EXPECT NO QUARTER TOUR... I'M almost 60 now,and still jam to em SHE HAD A WEST COAST STRUT,THAT WAS SWEET AS MOLASSES...HELL YEAH ❤
Billy Gibbons keeps Gibson strings light and loose. It enables him to achieve Lead, Rhythm, Slide all at one time. Dusty kept his string loose as well. Big sounds from just 3 dudes.
I've been fortunate to have seen "That Little Ol' Band From Texas" Live 4 times. Always an awesome show.... "Same three guys, same three cords, for five decades"- Billy Gibbons at last time 6 months before Dusty died, This song is always a favorite, everybody puts on their "Cheap Sunglasses"
I think they started growing out the beards around the late '70s, maybe a bit earlier, but there are pics out there of them before they adopted the look we know them for.
Th' 3 beards... #1-Billy Gibbons,Lead(th' Rev.) #2-Dusty Hill,Bass(th' Dust Man) #3-Frank Beard,Drums(th' one with no beard. But last name is Beard.) In conclusion...That lil' o'le Band from Texas....yea buddy!!
Mini girl is absolutely right. First time I heard this at a record store (Yup, vinyl), and my best friend and I hunted down and bought copies for ourselves!
The whole album Deguello is a funky, jazzy, rockin' show! You gotta check out Lowdown In The Street and Fool For Your Stockings... They also do a great cover of Sam and Dave's I Thank You...
Really enjoying you guys while you're enjoying the classics! Like you said, they're not making music like this anymore, letting the musicians get into a groove and riding it out. Cheap Sunglasses has such a smooth vibe to it. One minor criticism, which is it would be so much better if you could raise the level of your dialog to the same volume level of the music. I keep having to turn up or down my volume when you're switching.
You need to hit up another 3 piece band called Rush. If you love great musicianship, you will love them. The drummer and bass player are considered the best in rock. Check out the song Tom Sawyer to start and you will sure to want to go down the rabbit hole.
Fellas, Daryl Hall (Hall and Oates) would invite many different artists up to his place to play. All out on RU-vid( Daryl's House). Billy Gibbons (lead guitar and vocals for ZZ) made the trip. Check him out doing "LaGrange". But check out some of the other artists there too....like O'Jays, Joe Walsh, Cee Lo, Train....a bunch of others. Do it for yourselves, if not for the reactions. Quality is outstanding!
Texas Blues Rock. Blues is divided into Delta blues, Memphis blues, Texas blues, New Orleans Blues, Chicago blues. Then the British blues invasion. Blues rock, country blues. Since all modern music from hip hop, Jazz, country and rock to electronica is blues based, it is all the blues.
Heya, the sample you mentioned from EPMD - You´re A Customer, that was Steve Miller Band not ZZ Top. But, now you got me going thru EPMD's discography haha, so that's a win.
More funk from ZZ Top: you've gotta hear "Waitin' for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago". But don't separate the two. One merges into the other and it's meant to be heard that way. (must be heard that way I'd say).
When ZZ Top started, they we competing with the popular heavy sounds of that time period. Cream, Mountain, Jimi, Zep. The power trio had to really have a lot of power.
