ZZ Top
Fandango!

THE REVIEW

Long beards.

Yet, the only one with a short beard is named Frankie Beard (exactly, beard)! These were my first thoughts the first time I heard about ZZ Top. Then one day, I was in Lyon on a school trip and in a used CD store, I stumbled upon “Fandango” the fourth album of the Texan trio, dated 1975. I don't even know why, but the cover and the album name attracted me terribly and I ended up buying the album blindly.

The album starts with the sound of an audience clamoring for the group’s entrance. We are at the Warehouse in New Orleans and a Texan trio is about to take the stage. A voice announces: “are you ready for ZZ top? Ladies and gentlemen, the fantastic ZZ top!” And it kicks off with an irresistible and tight boogie. It’s “Thunderbird,” a fast blues played with indescribable grit, truly an explosive start. Not even time to catch your breath, and the band plays the classic written by the famous Leiber/Stoller team for Elvis, “Jailhouse Rock,” with Billy Gibbons’ slide guitar at the forefront in the solo. Truly formidable, one of my favorite versions of this song. Not even a pause, and it’s immediately time for the nine-minute “Backdoor Medley”, a blues-rock collage consisting of “Backdoor love affair,” Wille Dixon’s “Mellow down easy,” the continuation of “Backdoor love affair,” and finally the “Long distance boogie.” ZZ Top are truly great musicians and excellent entertainers, engaging with their dirty and blazing blues rock.

Then, as is traditional for many rock-blues bands of the '60s and '70s, the second part of the album is a great side consisting of studio recordings. Certainly, the sounds are cleaner compared to the live part, but the tracks are in any case classics strictly composed by the group. “Nasty dogs and funky kings” with its sustained and syncopated rhythm starts this part, which continues with the tear-jerking blues “Blue Jean Blues,” a classic from their repertoire featuring the always excellent Gibbons’ soloing, very poignant in this track. “Balinese” is the usual excellent boogie, not too hard but well-paced and engaging, while “Mexican blackbird” is a carefree song with almost country tones, where the voice seems to mimic that of a heavy drinker sitting in a Texas saloon. Accentuating the feeling, there’s also a nice harmonica solo. The album closes beautifully with the two very fast and tight blues pieces “Head it on the X,” with the lively vocal alternation of Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, and especially with what I think is my favorite on the album, “Tush.” Memorable riff and the whole band truly shines with a rhythm that calling it driving is an understatement, almost a rock 'n' roll!

This “Fandango,” together with the previous “Tres Hombres,” is definitely one of the best episodes of the three bearded Texans, who unfortunately, over time, perhaps have leaned too much into popularity and abandoned the unique and personal Rock blues that characterized their initial sound to embrace a more banal rock but with better commercial “appeal,” while here we hear them as great performers both live and in the studio.