ZZ Top – Raw ('That Little Ol' Band From Texas' Original Soundtrack)

29-07-2022

ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. For 51 years the band comprised vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and vocalist-bassist Dusty Hill, until Hill's death in 2021. ZZ Top developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues guitar style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. They are popular for their live performances, sly and humorous lyrics, and the similar appearances of Gibbons and Hill, who were rarely seen without their long beards, sunglasses, and hats. ZZ Top formed after the demise of Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons' previous band. Within a year the members signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's "First Album" (1971). Subsequent releases, such as "Tres Hombres" (1973) and "Fandango !" (1975), and those albums' singles, "La Grange" and "Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. By the mid-1970s the band became renowned in North America for its live act, highlighted by its performances during the Worldwide Texas Tour from 1976 to 1977, which was a critical and commercial success. After a hiatus ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. With the album "El Loco" (1981), the group began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. They established a more mainstream sound and gained international favor with "Eliminator" (1983) and "Afterburner" (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. The popularity of these albums' music videos, including those for "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man", and "Legs", helped propel them onto the television channel MTV and made the band one of the more prominent artists in 1980s pop culture. The 'Afterburner Tour' set records for the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour of 1986. After gaining additional acclaim with the release of their tenth album "Recycler" (1990) and its accompanying tour, the group's experimentation continued with mixed success on the albums "Antenna" (1994), "Rhythmeen" (1996), "XXX" (1999), and "Mescalero" (2003). They most recently released "La Futura" (2012) and "Goin' 50" (2019), a compilation album commemorating the band's 50th anniversary. By the time of Hill's death in 2021, ZZ Top had become the longest-running band with an unchanged lineup in the history of popular music. Per Hill's wishes, he was replaced by their longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis on bass. "Raw" is the sixteenth album of the ZZ Top. It was recorded in connection with the band's wildly popular and critically lauded 2019 Netflix documentary "That Little Ol' Band From Texas", which includes an interlude that finds the group's classic line up, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard and the late Dusty Hill to whose memory the album is dedicated, gathering for a very intimate session at Gruene Hall, "the oldest continually run dance hall in Texas". That performance provided the basis for the album release. Billy and Frank say "..it was, in a very real way, a return to our roots. Just us and the music. We knew right then it was a very special circumstance, all of us in the same place at the same time and what a time it most certainly was! 'The Dust' may have left the building but he's still very much with us." The most valuable part of the ZZ Top documentary "That Little Ol' Band From Texas" (2019) is the recording session that the trio organized especially for the occasion. In Gruene Hall, Texas, Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard mostly dusted off pre-MTV-era material, and director Sam Dunn scattered snippets of the recording over his otherwise unimpressive film. The album with the eloquent title "Raw" still provides uninterrupted audio for viewers curious about the rest. Due to the absence of an audience, the recordings can be heard more like a studio record with re-recordings of deep cuts plus a few later hits than as a live registration. While shows in recent years sometimes gave a somewhat perfunctory impression, songs like 'Certified Blues' and 'Thunderbird' spark old-fashioned passion in the band, which also resounds in a crowd pleaser like 'La Grange'. "Raw" is not just a documentary soundtrack: this album also marks the end of an era. After all, Hill, who died in July last year, still excels here in, for example, 'I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide', which once again shows how irresistible his bass playing was in combination with Gibbons' massive guitar sound. "Raw" would seem to be part of ZZ Top's DNA, much less the title of one of its albums. But we've never heard the Texas trio quite this kind of raw before. There's a kind of brilliance that resulted in "Raw : That Little Ol' Band From Texas Original Soundtrack". It's a live album without an audience, brought about when Banger Films, makers of the 2019 Netflix documentary, gathered the group at historic Gruene Hall, billed as Texas' oldest continually run dance venue, ostensibly for some still shots. But the band's gear was set up on the stage, and suffice to say that when Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard are in a room together with instruments, music is bound to happen. That ad-hoc session was captured, gloriously, for the film and now for this belated companion. A decent argument can be made that this is the, or at least a, definitive ZZ Top document, capturing the band in its "native habitat," playing for each other, without overdubs or studio polish, just relaxed and having an audibly good time. It's a fly-on-the-wall-like glimpse into the rehearsal room, with some stage lighting or two attached, and while there have been a few ZZ Top live albums in front of audiences, from Side One of 1975's "Fandango !" on, none have captured the raw essence of ZZ Top like this. The most pronounced feature of "Raw" is its mix. It's lean and mean, each of the instruments perfectly balanced and distinct from each other. That works to Hill's benefit more than the others; his chunky bass lines can be appreciated more than ever before, laying down a thick bottom that grooves in and out of Beard's solid meters. That, in turn, illustrates how key that rhythm section telepathy is to Gibbons, whose biting guitar tone jumps out of nearly every song, whether he's helping to hold down the rhythm or searing any of the solos on the 12-song set. The circumstances allowed ZZ Top to do a couple of deep digs into its catalog, like the opening "Brown Sugar" (theirs, not the Rolling Stones') from ZZ Top's "First Album" in 1971, which Gibbons starts with some bluesy riffing and light drum touches from Beard before it builds into leaden, in-your-face rock. Gibbons and Hill engage in some unison vocals during the bouncy "Thunderbird," while "Blue Jean Blues" is a slow, almost pretty track that shows a tasteful restraint that's not often part of ZZ Top's makeup. The staples benefit from the setting too, particularly ferocious takes of "Heard It on the X" and "La Grange," a stretched-out "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" and a lusty romp through "Tube Snake Boogie." Shed of Elminator's technological sheen, "Legs" and "Gimme All Your Lovin'" stand on their own three-piece feet as killer rock anthems, the grooves even meatier than on the studio recordings. "Raw" is possibly the last ZZ Top recording we'll hear from Hill, who died in 2021 and to whom the set is dedicated. If so, it's a fond, and deservedly raucous, farewell, proof that 50 years in ZZ Top can still blow the roof off any joint, whether it's in front of a crowd or just each other. ZZ Top says goodbye in style to bassist Dusty Hill, who passed away last year. On a three-year-old recording, which belongs to a Netflix documentary, you can hear the group in its purest state. With 'Raw' 'that little ol' band from Texas' returns to basics. Hill thus receives a beautiful epitaph, the group itself takes a new start. The fifteenth album by the Texan band ZZ Top, with the revealing title "Raw", has come about in a special way. In 2019, a documentary by Banger Films about ZZ Top was released on streaming platform Netflix. Titled "ZZ Top : That Little Ol' Band From Texas", this hour and a half documentary tells the story of how the three members, Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, grew into a of the most beloved bands in the world. Banger Films invited ZZ Top to Gruene Hall in Texas for a photo shoot. But the cunning Banger Films had set up the band's musical equipment in this former dance location, expecting that if the members saw the instruments, they would be unable to resist the temptation to play music together. And so it happened. The recordings that were made at that time could already be seen in the aforementioned documentary. Twelve of the tracks played at Gruene Hall have now, three years later, been released as an album with the telling title "Raw". On "Raw" we hear ZZ Top playing like it's two generations in one. On the one hand the ZZ Top from 1969 who simply wants to make music and enjoy it audibly, with full dedication and youthful energy. On the other hand, the ZZ Top from 2019, which makes the peace and relaxation of decades of life experience and friendship tangible. Not by playing songs, but by playing memories together. With each other, for each other. "Raw" almost sounds voyeuristic. As a listener you are witnessing something that is not really intended for your ears at all. It's the sounds of friendship intimacy that aren't directed at you, but sound too appealing to walk away from. That feeling of voyeurism is reinforced by the presence of vocalist and bassist Dusty Hill. He doesn't know at the time what we know now; that it will be his last ZZ Top recording. He passed away in 2021. The twelve tracks on "Raw" form an anthology from the ZZ Top discography. The seasoned fan will instantly recognize the tracks with every first note, but there's a lot to enjoy for the non-fan too. For example the almost to perfection balanced sound. The heavy guitar gnaws and growls like never before, the bass guitar is heavy and full and the percussion hammers and pounds directly at your eardrums. The title of the album does justice to this. A track like 'Gimme All You Lovin' suddenly sounds much less slick in this setting. Rather vile and fiery, so that after almost forty years of turning gray it suddenly seems to unfold a new charge of energy. 'Blue Jean Blues' is played a little faster than the original, but because it has also been stripped, the purity of the blues comes into its own much more strongly than before. 'I done ran into my baby and fin'lly found my old blue jean.' That's how the whole album feels. As if it was worn especially for you. And there's nothing more comfortable to wear than your own old worn-out jeans, on which every stain tells a story. In the final chord 'Tube Snake Boogie', the three band members want to give their all one more time, like a cyclist approaching the top of Mont Ventoux and releasing all brakes in the final kilometre. Pure, raw Texan passion. What a pleasure! With "Raw" ZZ Top proves that even after fifty years you can be a meaningful part of the music industry. ZZ Top is a rightful member of the guild of grand masters of musical alchemy.

1 Brown Sugar 4:18

2 Just Got Paid 3:50

3 Heard It On The X 2:51

4 La Grange 4:42

5 Tush 2:30

6 Thunderbird 4:04

7 I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide 4:36

8 Legs 4:22

9 Gimme All Your Lovin' 4:02

10 Blue Jean Blues 3:54

11 Certified Blues 3:54

12 Tube Snake Boogie 3:06