Classic Rock - Motor Head (2019-07)

T

he popular perception is that ZZ Top

morphed as they crossed the boundary

line into the 80s. Where once the Texans

had been a smooth-chinned, roadhouse-

ready little ol’ blues outfit, runs the narrative, now

they came with a thicket of facial hair, banks of

synthesisers and furry spinning guitars to

hypnotise the MTV generation.

The truth is a little more transitional, and best

encapsulated by Degüello, the thumping sixth

album that saluted the Top’s early-70s sound,

spiced it with fresh flavours and instruments and

began formulating the image that plunged them

into 80s pop culture. As Billy Gibbons reflected in

a 2013 interview: “Degüello was an interesting

bridge from this hard-blues trio.”

A change was overdue. The band had already

made a micro-step forward with 1976’s Te ja s. But

in the aftermath, the trio seemed rudderless,

scattering to different continents, attending rehab

and marking time while their record deal ran out.

Gibbons recalled that they were “virtual unknowns

to one another” when they finally reconvened for

rehearsals, but there was at least some common

ground. “We’d gotten really lazy,” he told the Caller-

Times. “Nobody had bothered to shave.”

Shaving’s loss was songcraft’s gain. Their first

record for Warners – and their sixth with producer

Bill Ham – Degüello fused musical ideas with

a fearlessness befitting an album named after an

old Mexican battle song that celebrated slitting an

opponent’s throat. This was a record that leaped

from the roughed-up soul of Lowdown In The Street

to the gonzoid Manic Mechanic, while songs like

A Fool For Your Stockings signposted leery moments

to come, most notoriously 1984’s Legs. “Degüello

still had the hallmarks of our humble beginnings,”

Gibbons told Uncut. “[But] it was a little more R&B

than just stone cold blues. We were starting to

GE

TTY

With some top tunes, a vintage clavinet and a battery

of effects plastered all over it, it successfully updated

ZZ’s old-school blues and pointed the way forward.

ZZ TOP

Words: Henry Yates

DEGÜELLO

42 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM