"ZZ Top's First Album" by ZZ TOP - January 1971 US Debut Album on London Records (no UK release at the time) featuring Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard – Disc 1 Inside "The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990" (June 2013 UK Warner Brothers 10CD Clamshell Box Set of Remasters in Mini LP Card Repro Sleeves) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

 

ZZ Top's First Album from 1971 - CD Remaster 

Inside "The Complete Studio Albums" BOX SET "...Certified Blues... "

A bit of ZZ History is needed on this one...

 

Back in the mists of early CD reissues and especially remasters - 1987's "Six Pack" by ZZ TOP was considered to be the height of desirability. It contained Discs 1 to 5 and 7 in this 10-disc set from 2013 - the debut "ZZ Top's First Album" (1971) along with "Rio Grande Mud" (1972), "Tres Hombres" (1973), "Fandango!" (1975) and the "El Loco" album from 1977. So it naturally looked like a great remaster deal. That is until you listened to it.

 

In order to cash in on the huge success of 1983's "Eliminator" and its 1985 follow up "Afterburner" - 1980's type percussion was 'remixed' into the first five LPs in the set (excluding "El Loco") and the results were awful. By way of finally placating fans, 2006 saw proper CD remasters of "Tres Hombres" and "Fandango!" that even contained bonus tracks (not included in these reissues unfortunately). "Eliminator" also saw a Deluxe Edition 2CD proper remaster in September 2008, but the other albums including the debut have only seen sporadic tracks crop up in remastered form on Anthologies and the 2003 "Chrome, Smoke & BBQ" 4CD Retro.

 

Which brings us to this fab little box set - "The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990" on Warner Brothers 8122796519 released June 2013. It features 10 albums, 100 tracks, and all using the original mixes - and for the first time in the case of "ZZ Top's First Album", "Rio Grande Mud" and "Tejas" - proper remasters. And they're in lovely 5" card repro sleeves with "Tres Hombres" and "Tejas" sporting their original gatefolds (a tri for "Tejas"). The debut album is Disc 1 and plays out as follows...

 

Disc 1 (35:37 minutes):

1. (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree [Side 1]

2. Brown Sugar

3. Squank

4. Goin Down To Mexico

5. Old Man

6. Neighbor, Neighbor [Side 2]

7. Certified Blues

8. Bedroom Thang

9. Just Got Back From Baby's

10. Backdoor Love Affair

Tracks 1 to 10 are their debut LP "ZZ Top's First Album" – released January 1971 in the USA on London PS 584 (no UK release at the time)

 

ZZ TOP was:

BILLY GIBBONS – Lead Guitar, Vocals

DUSTY HILL – Bass, Vocals

FRANK BEARD – Drums

 

Bitty bad news first - as it appears to be with all these Warners mini boxes (see reviews for Ry Cooder, Little Feat and Joni Mitchell) - there's no booklet - when such a thing would have been just oh so sweet. That aside what you do get is blindingly great Blues Boogie and ZZ's brand of Swamp Rock that doesn't let up for the duration (even if the later Eighties LP are patchy in places). And the sound is fantastic - clear, warm and full of ballsy clarity - and best of all - untampered. Musically how good is it to finally hear the "First Album" and "Rio Grande Mud" sound this kicking - a few seconds into slinky "Bedroom Thang", the harmonica boogie of "Mushmouth Shoutin'" and the rip of "Ko Ko Blue" and I'm in Rocking Nirvana.

 

The debut offered up ten honestly recorded originals opening with the cool chug of "(Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree" – a soft-shoe-shuffle of a boogie chune. We get speaker-to-speaker Bluesy with the fantastic "Brown Sugar" – five and half minutes of friends telling Billy that has to have some, pals saying how its going to change his life – make him feel so right (or not). On to "Squank" where Billy and Dusty share lead vocals – a down and dirty tale of unsavoury types that could have done with a more ballsy rendition truth be told. 

 

Mean and tight riffage sails out through your speakers with "Goin Down To Mexico" – a song about idiotic race bias and border types with itchy fingers (great guitar solo). Side 1 comes to a close with one of the LP's better moments – the very Lynyrd Skynyrd "Old Man" – great slide guitar work working both speaker channels while Dusty bemoans hard times for US elderly.

 

Side 2 opens with a rocker from Billy Gibbons about a "Neighbor, Neighbor" talking to his wife just too friendly-like. Woke up this morning with the "Certified Blues" – about to drive poor Billy into the clay – nice panning of the guitars – very clean and muscular. I mentioned earlier the nasty groove of "Bedroom Thang" – a cool guitar boogie slice of salacious suggestiveness (sounding as hot as its subject matter too). Douse that light for "Just Got Back From Baby's" – another ZZ Top song where a gal may not be fully committed to a monogamous relationship with our hirsute Texas loverboy (fabulous Remastered audio). Dusty is prepared to go to any lengths for his crush in "Backdoor Love Affair" – even if it means dicing with the law or relatives (whichever comes for him first).

 

Even the most diehard ZZ-fan would admit that the debut is good rather than great – bolstered up with those three or four songs where the promise of the same is so evident.

 

The first ZZ Top LP is a getting-there record for our Texas Blues Rock Heroes in big hats and nudie suits. But listening even now in early 2022 to that cool guitar battle as "Backdoor Love Affair" fades out (51 years after the event), greatness is indeed what I hear, even if it isn't as amped-up to the nines as the later Warners/RCA stuff. Clean and honest – yum yum!

 

Buy it and start boogieing across the ceiling whilst you grow that beard long mamakins. 

 

YAR!