{"id":25285,"date":"2023-05-23T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25285"},"modified":"2023-05-23T08:27:48","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T12:27:48","slug":"take-5-pre-zz-top-songs-you-should-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/23\/take-5-pre-zz-top-songs-you-should-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Take 5: Pre-ZZ Top Songs You Should Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ZZ Top\u2019s blockbuster <em>Eliminator<\/em> was released more than 40 years ago on March 23, 1983. But the drum machines and synthesizers that characterize that album weren\u2019t part of the trio\u2019s original recipe: In their early days, they were a hard-charging rock band.<\/p>\n<p>Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill formed ZZ Top in Texas in 1969 (drummer Frank Beard joined soon thereafter). All three were already well-known and accomplished musicians on the Texas scene. Coming up in a musical community that included fabled psych-rock pioneer Roky Erickson (of the 13th Floor Elevators), the three musicians who would gain worldwide fame as ZZ Top drew from hard rock, r&amp;b, blues and psychedelia with their own music.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the roots of the original ZZ Top sound can be found in recordings made before that trio came together. Here are five track you should know, all recorded before ZZ Top made its debut as \u201cthat little ol\u2019 band from Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Moving Sidewalks \u2013 \u201c99th Floor\u201d (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nMoving Sidewalks were a Texas-based band featuring guitarist Billy F. Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard. Greatly influenced by local heroes the 13th Floor Elevators, the band gave itself a name that nodded toward Erickson\u2019s group. And this song was a pointed ode to the Elevators. All that said, the sound of the tune owes at least as much to the tight-synchronization garage rock of Paul Revere and the Raiders, especially their hit \u201cJust Like Me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ctt16zqgDpU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Moving Sidewalks \u2013 \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d (1968)<\/strong><br \/>\nIts all but impossible to find a band of the mid- or late sixties (or beyond) that doesn\u2019t draw influence or inspiration from The Beatles. But Moving Sidewalks performed a radical reinvention of this early hit by the Fab Four, treating it in a manner not unlike what might have happened if Vanilla Fudge and Blue Cheer got together in the studio.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9M8-3p6Fw2Y\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Moving Sidewalks \u2013 \u201cFlashback\u201d (1969)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Moving Sidewalks never found substantial chart success outside their native Texas, but the band left behind a number of worthy tracks. This late-period number may be the group at its best, fusing a snappy arrangement, expert playing and just the right amount of heaviness. (Note: a 2012 boxed set, <em>The Complete Collection<\/em> brings together all known recordings from the band, along with additional demos that predate them.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iL7cuw35pYU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>American Blues \u2013 \u201cIf I Were a Carpenter\u201d (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nDrummer Frank Beard was in another late sixties band, American Blues. That group&#8217;s lineup also included Dusty Hill. Their blues-rock approach to material successful recast songs by others into the idiom. And perhaps the best example of this is the group\u2019s reading of Tim Hardin\u2019s folk classic, reimagined here as a jamming and hypnotic rocker with two leads guitars crisscrossing.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dfdtBSQpkB0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>American Blues \u2013 \u201cFugue for Lady Cheriff\u201d (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nWith its wordless chant that opens the arrangement, this track is clearly inspired by the Yardbirds\u2019 \u201cStill I\u2019m Sad.\u201d The psychedelic character of the song \u2013 and others like it on the band\u2019s <em>American Blues Is Here<\/em> LP \u2013 led guitarist Rocky Hill (Dusty\u2019s brother) to leave the band, preferring blues. One at a time, the other two members hooked up with Gibbons, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DorhcOYoBCM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ZZ Top\u2019s blockbuster Eliminator was released more than 40 years ago on March 23, 1983. But the drum machines and synthesizers that characterize that album weren\u2019t part of the trio\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5145,1534,2434],"class_list":["post-25285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-american-blues","tag-moving-sidewalks","tag-zz-top","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25287,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285\/revisions\/25287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}