Track Listing

1. Somebody Else Been Shaking Your Tree
2. Brown Sugar
3. Squank
4. Goin' Down To Mexico
5. Old Man
6. Neighbour Neighbour
7. Certified Blues
8. Bedroom Thang
9. Just Got Back From My Baby's
10. Backdoor Love Affair

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10468 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

CD Description
ZZ Top was formed by guitarist Billy Gibbons, who had won praise from no less than Jimi Hendrix for his guitar work with the Houston band, Moving Sidewalks. After the break-up of Moving Sidewalks, he recruited fellow Texans Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. Inspired by Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones and Texas blues legend John Lee Hooker, they played a solid brand of blues-rock that won them a devoted local following.
While not their best-selling or most renowned album, ZZ Top's 1970 debut, ZZ TOP'S FIRST ALBUM, showed that the Texas trio had already nearly perfected their signature down n' dirty, blues-boogie-rock style. Like ZZ Top's other classic '70s albums, this one's an ass-kicker from beginning to end, especially on such standouts as the album-opening twang of "Shaking Your Tree", the vicious "Brown Sugar", the big rock of "Goin' Down to Mexico", and the fat blues groover "BedroomThang". Also of note is guitarist Billy Gibbons' supreme guitar tone and tasty playing; few other rock guitarists have sounded as confident on their debut as Gibbons does on ZZ TOP'S FIRST ALBUM.

Customer Reviews

Getting off to a great start
ZZ Top's 1970 debut remains one of their roughest and certainly bluesiest albums.
It's a gritty little blues-rock record with lots of fuzzy guitar, rollicking barrelhouse rhythms and a raw, gutsy sound, and "ZZ Top's First Album" offers a handful of really excellent songs, like the tough "Brown Sugar" (not the Stones song), the swaggering, riff-driven "Goin' Down To Mexico", and the slow grind of "Just Got Back From Baby's".

Some may find that a number of these songs glide by on their tough, gut-bucket grooves without offering anything truly memorable, and while it is true that not every one of these ten songs is an instant all-time classic, the overall level is actually very high with several peaks and virtually no real let-downs.
This is 34 minutes of tight, well-played blues-rock, as muscular as anything ZZ Top has ever put out. Less MTV-friendly than their 80s pop concessions, of course, but all the more gritty and authentic.
Definitely recommended.

Brilliant! ....a classic album
This is by far the best album ZZ Top have released! If you like raw, driving, Texas blues (with a touch of wry humour.."Bedroom Thang', "The Squank") then this album is for you! ....really roots stuff!

ZZ Top sound came before songwriting chops
The sound that ZZ Top make has survived intact through numerous changes of production style for over 35 years now; it seemed to arrive fully formed on this debut album even though they'd only been together a matter of months.

Unfortunately, while the album sounds just like a blues-rock record should, the young (they were all about 21 on this) ZZ Top hadn't really become the distinctive songwriters they became later in their career - quite soon after in fact as their next album, "Rio Grande Mud", is a corker. Anyhow, the songs are all pretty forgettable - nothing desperately wrong with them, just not very interesting. I would only recommend this album to obsessives who have to have everything they did - you're really not missing much, particularly until they get round to releasing a remastered version.