The popularity of these albums' music videos, including those for " Gimme All Your Lovin'", " Sharp Dressed Man", and " Legs", helped propel them onto the television channel MTV and made the band one of the more prominent artists in 1980s pop culture. They established a more mainstream sound and gained international favor with Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. Beginning with the albums Degüello (1979) and El Loco (1981), they experimented with instruments including clavinets, saxophones, and synthesizers. By the mid-1970s the band became renowned in North America for its live act, highlighted by its performances during the Worldwide Texas Tour from 1976 to 1977, which was a critical and commercial success.įollowing a two-year break in response to creative stagnation and exhaustion, ZZ Top reinvented itself in the late 1970s with a new musical direction and now-famous public image. Subsequent releases, such as Rio Grande Mud (1972), Tres Hombres (1973), and Fandango! (1975), and those albums' singles " La Grange" and " Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. Within a year, the members signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's First Album (1971). ZZ Top formed after the demise of Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons' previous band. Popular for its live performances, sly and humorous lyrics, and the similar appearances of Gibbons and Hill-who were rarely seen without their long beards, sunglasses, and hats-the group has staged several elaborate tours. Rooted in blues, ZZ Top developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues guitar style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. For 51 years, the band comprised Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and bassist Dusty Hill, until Hill's death in 2021. Nevertheless, the undeniable highlights are the two tracks featuring cameos from Jeff Beck: he contributes lyrical solos to "Rough Boy" and helps with the heavy-footed boogie of "Sixteen Tons," pushing the trio just far enough out of its comfort zone to provide some crackle.ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas, by vocalist and guitarist Billy Gibbons. Older, the Lil' Ol' Band from Texas sounds thicker and heavier - and Billy Gibbons' growl is so gruff it seems tattered - but that helps distinguish these versions from the spit and polish of the studio versions not better, per se, but certainly the work of a band whose members happily settle into their advanced years, not wishing to change a thing about how they do things. During the 2000s and 2010s, ZZ Top released an excellent studio album called La Futura, but that's ignored here in favor for all the songs that are classic rock staples. There is no visual component to Live: Greatest Hits from Around the World, which may be how it skates around the first live album distinction - if there's no video, this is a pure album - but the record mines a similar musical vein, collecting highlights from latter-day ZZ Top tours. Assembled from various shows from various tours from around the world, 2016's Live: Greatest Hits from Around the World is billed as ZZ Top's first "full-length live album" - a matter of dispute considering how Eagle Rock released three CD/DVD/Blu-ray combo sets between 20.