ZZ Top In The Studio For 'Deguello' Anniversary

11-11-2024

The 55th anniversary of ZZ Top's 'Deguello' album is being celebrated by the syndicated radio show In The Studio With Redbeard: The Stories Behind History's Greatest Rock Bands.

Redbeard shared this synopsis for the episode: Released November 1979, ZZ Top Deguello ("dee GWAY oh", Spanish for "no quarter, no mercy" ) contained the timeless "Cheap Sunglasses", "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide", the sublime blues "A Fool for Your Stockings", the jump blues "She Loves My Automobile" featuring the mysterious Lone Wolf Horns (!), and a whole jar of ear candy in ZZ Top's cover of the Sam and Dave Memphis Stax standard "I Thank You".

It is ironic that one of the least popular albums in the ZZ Top catalog, Tejas, nevertheless came out during the legendary "Worldwide Texas Tour "1976-77 tour, which resembled not so much a rock concert tour as a Lone Star version of Noah's ark on wheels. "The buzzards were tethered to the backline amps on either side of me," drawls ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard, "so when Billy (Gibbons) and Dusty (Hill) fired up the amps on the first song each night, all the buzzards started pukin'." When the lengthy extravaganza concluded and the longhorn steers, buffalo, and rattlesnakes were rounded up for the last time, Billy, Dusty, and Frank holed up in Memphis' Ardent Studio for the better part of 1979 making Deguello, which permanently established tonemeister Billy Gibbons' legend among his guitar brethren everywhere.

In this classic rock interview, Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard discuss why Dusty thought that being a trio contributed to ZZ Top's longevity, all the while retaining the same personnel which continued until his passing, a record unsurpassed by any working band; what Billy saw as the challenges of superstardom after Eliminator; and why Frank Beard is the only member without one.

As to the ZZ Top fifty+ year legacy, Billy Gibbons says, "There's a lot of luck, to start with. Some of these things you would like to prophesy, to plan this going a certain way. And yet it it's always unpredictable, always probably exactly opposite what you think you're going to d. But the first few notes that you're rippin', the first few chops that you're stabbin' at, you just don't really know where you're going."

Stream the episode here