great blues rock
zz top have their own sound and dont sound like anybody else. this is great collection of blues rock. billy gibbons impressed even hendrix with his guitar tone and listening to his work here it is no surprise. la grange laid over a john lee hooker riff with growls and mumbles is probably their most famous track from this period. but musically the rest are not far off. check out the way the lead solo develops out of the harmonica solo in 'waiting for the bus' - classique! 'blue jean blues' brings memories of peter green - looks like gibbons too is one among the legions of fans of the green god. 'jesus left chicago' and 'backdoor love affair' are fantastic as well. if you get this collection you can also get 'zz top greatest hits' which has only two tracks from this cd - the rest are the newer stuff.
what ya waiting for? get it!.
Early Top's Best!!!
Damn, ZZ Top was one of the best blues bands out there, and this has most of their best early stuff, though I don't know about Blue Jean Blues. . I also don't like how this stops just short of Deguello, which just may be their best album, and totally neglects Tejas, which had a few great songs (Arrested for Driving While Blind; It's Only Love). Still, this is how ya get ALL of the best songs from ZZ Top's 1st to Tres Hombres. La Grange, Backdoor Love Affair, Heard it On the X, Tush, Waitin' for the Bus, Jesus Just Left Chicago, Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers, Just Got Paid. . . classics. Each and every one of 'em brilliant pre-MTV slices of pure raunchy Stonesy BLUES. And even then, Blue Jean Blues isn't as bad as half the songs on their late '80s/early '90s albums. This is the BEST of the Top, make no mistake - Deguello and Tres Hombres are also musts, but here's where you start if you want all the blues and no MTV stuff (though a couple of the MTV songs are pretty good - Legs, Sharp Dressed Man, Planet of Women - but not nearly as good as the early raw blues stuff). If you have any interest in blues-rock at all you should buy this album right away. .
Good Overview of ZZ Top!
I chose to listen to this first because of everybody's reviews on how this was one of the only original ZZ Top CD's that wasn't remixed. This was the first ZZ Top CD I ever listened to. While the remixes aren't horrible (though they aren't great), the original mixes are A LOT BETTER! It has the essentials from every ZZ album between 1970 and 1975 (even though this was released after "Tejas", it has no material from that album) in their ORIGINAL FORM. My advice is to go pick up this CD up now if you want the original mixes, though I wish people would stop complaining about the remixes cause it's still ZZ Top and it's not horrible (not great, either, but not horrible). But anyways, this is a great album and i suggest you buy it now.
Have mercy!
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. Though a 'best of' album, this is my favorite ZZ Top album, and the only one I still own on cd. 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!.
Excellent 70's ZZ Top!
It hasn't changed in any way since it came over to the cd format. The thing I like best about this compilation is that it's been so good to me all these years. 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. .
You can see a complete list of all ZZ Top discography, or go back to the ZZ Top tabs
|
