ZZ Top Album: “Best of Zz Top”

What can you say about a band that hit the big time rhyming "much" with "tush"? This is ZZ Top before Billy Gibbons discovered synthesizers, before MTV was invented, before the long beards and fur-encrusted drum sets. This is Nudie-suit wearing, stages shaped like Texas accompanied by buffalo and vulture, era Top. The national hit "LaGrange," mumbled vocals about a house of ill-repute over that John Lee Hooker riff and scalding guitar, the regional hit "Francine," which caused the Stones to reconsider the advisability of booking Top as their opening act, and eight more cuts off their first four records. A lot more fun than a boxed set. Almost as fun on CD as eight-track. Give it to someone you love.

Though a 'best of' album, this is my favorite ZZ Top album, and the only one I still own on cd. I sold the two re-mixed albums I bought ("Tres Hombres" and "ZZ Top's First Album") without knowing they were the re-mixed versions of the original albums. This cd, however, conains the original classics taken from their first four albums ("ZZ Top's First Album", "Rio Grande Mud", "Tres Hombres", "Fandango") when the band was at it's best....

1.) Tush from the album "Fandango" (1975) 2:14

2.) Waitin' For The Bus from the album "Tres Hombres" (1973) 2:59

3.) Jesus Just Left Chicago from the album "Tres Hombres" (1973) 3:29

4.) Francine from the album "Rio Grande Mud" (1972) 3:33

5.) Just Got Paid from the album "Rio Grande Mud" (1972) 4:27

6.) La Grange from the album "Tres Hombres" (1973) 3:51

7.) Blue Jean Blues from the album "Fandango" (1975) 4:42

8.) Backdoor Love Affair from the album "ZZ Top's First Album" (1970) 3:20

9.) Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers from the album "Tres Hombres" (1973) 3:23

10.) Heard It On The X from the album "Fandango" (1975) 2:23

My favorite track is #2 "Waitin' For The Bus" - Have mercy!

If you want later ZZ Top ("Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man", "Legs", "Pearl Necklace", "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide", "Doubleback", "Viva Las Vegas") then I recommend going for "Rancho Texicano: The Very Best Of ZZ Top" - a two-disc / 37 track collection, which does contain the original album versions of the early hits plus tracks from the albums following the first four represented here ("Tejas", "Deguello", "El Loco", "Eliminator", "Afterburner", "Recycler"). However, I do not recommend "ZZ Top's Greatest Hits" unless you prefer the re-mixed versions. But if you want a very compact, low-priced collection of early ZZ Top's best tracks, this is definitely the one to get!

I bought this CD because I wanted to hear ZZ Top's 70's pre-MTV music, which is a lot more raw and blues-based than what they did in the 80's. Of the songs on this CD, I was really only familiar with Tush, but I was really pleased to see that the rest of the songs are just as good! The Best of ZZ Top features 10 [great] blues rockers, bound to get your foot tapping and your body moving. Every song is a gem. Not only is there the short but sweet Tush, there's the pure blues Jesus Just Left Chicago, the riff-o-rama boogie La Grange, and the rowdy party rocker Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. It's amazing what a thick rich sound Billy, Dusty and Frank managed with just guitar, bass and drums (and absolutely NO synthesizers). Each musician stands out. Billy Gibbons' guitar stands out from the first track to the last. Just check out that killer tone on La Grange!

If you like your rock with a heavy dose of blues, and your blues with a heavy dose of rock, then ZZ Top is the band for you. Until the record label rereleases ZZ's 70's albums with the original sound mixes, this CD is the only place you can get the original LP sounds without the added drum tracks. This CD will stay in your car player permanently. It's great for cruising with the windows down, grooving. It's pretty cheap too.

This Best Of collection of songs and I go WAY back! Back in the early-to-mid '80s, when I was a little kid living in South Texas, I somehow found my dad's 8-track (!!) copy of this album. We had one of those big turntable/8-track player stereos that doubled as a piece of furniture in the living room back then, and I remember listening to that 8-track all the time. There was something about the sound of that music, maybe it was the raw, funky sound of the tracks or the jammin' guitar riffs. Whatever it was, those ten tracks stuck in my mind at an early age and have been there ever since.

Fast forward about 15 years, to when I decided to see if they had this album on CD. Imagine my delight to find that they did. I went out and bought a CD copy, and the rest is history. All the songs that I loved on that old 8-track tape are on the CD, just as I remember them: Raw, funky, and just plain awesome! I can't really give you any choice cuts, but that's only because they're all great songs in my opinion. Simply put, if you like good, rockin' music that you can groove to, get this CD!

The thing I like best about this compilation is that it's been so good to me all these years. It hasn't changed in any way since it came over to the cd format. What I mean by that is that when ZZ Top's back-catalog (previous released) albums were put out on CD they thought they had to do something "special" to get people to re-buy these albums on cd. So they "futurized" them adding in lots of reverb and new drum tracks to make them sound more like their 80's output. Well, not on this compilation!

These are the original songs from the original album and you can get this on cd. If this is the perfect amount of ZZ Top for you, then you're all set. 9 of the 10 songs can also be found on Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top, minus Backdoor Love Affair. I preferred this Best of ZZ Top from 1977 for a long time after even Greatest Hits and One Foot In The Blues came out because it had original mixes of the songs. The futurized versions sound ok but they're not holding a candle to the originals for me. This is my personal preference ofcourse. Yours might be a different one.

This is still a great disc after all these years if you're looking for 1 disc of classic 70's ZZ Top material.