“Power”: Billy Gibbons on the band that set the stage for ZZ Top
Rock and roll and the blues are always bound to be kindred spirits. Though rock has come a long way from being the rough and tumble genre that Chuck Berry sang about back in the day, there are always going to be a handful of nostalgia acts willing to play that handful of blues licks and get the house rocking, with or without the traditional pompadour hairdo to go along with it. Although Billy Gibbons had blues running through his veins before the genre became the juggernaut it is today, he thought that ZZ Top didn’t have a direction until hearing Cream.
Then again, Gibbons is one of the few who got a first-hand perspective on the blues before the British Invasion started. Many fans tried to sell the blues back to America with a lot more energy, but whereas The Yardbirds had taken the genre to new levels with ‘For Your Love’, Gibbons was still listening to the likes of BB King and Muddy Waters to practice his signature licks.
But out of every British guitarist on the scene, Eric Clapton was a bit of a rare breed. He was the kind of musician who brushed up on every corner of the blues and understood it inside and out, and when listening to his era of The Yardbirds, he took everything that made those records work and put a lot more aggression into it.
As soon as Cream started, though, Clapton was looking for something different than straight traditional blues. Everything he did had to be pushing things forward, and with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce at his disposal, they created a unique blend of blues, psychedelia, and rock that seemed like the antithesis of mainstream and yet still managed to get on the radio with tunes like ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.
But it’s a tricky thing working in a power trio. Everyone has to carry equal weight playing live so everything doesn’t fall apart, but given Bruce’s ferocious bass tone and Baker’s knowledge of jazz drumming, each song sounded like it was a living entity whenever they tackled it, whether it was their own hits like ‘White Room’ or working out versions of ‘Crossroads’ by Robert Johnson.
Gibbons had started working on his own chops in the psychedelic outfit Moving Sidewalks, but he figured that Cream nailed down what he wanted to do, telling the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “It was three guys that expressed power. [They] created a sound that everyone in this room could relate to. And it certainly set the stage for our own outfit.”
And do you realise how hard it is to get that kind of insane music to sound relatable? A tune like ‘Pressed Rat and Warthog’ could probably be laughed out of the room by any insider if they tried to record it today, but considering how well every band member plays off each other in the mix, it ends up sounding like a charming little piece of nonsense in the same way that John Lennon had done when writing The Beatles’ surreal pieces.
So, while ZZ Top was always more content with the blues, it’s not like they haven’t picked up a few lessons when standing next to Cream. Other artists wouldn’t need to change a thing if they wrote a track like ‘La Grange’, but in songs like ‘Strange Brew’, Gibbons discovered how to twist rock and roll and blues in a much different way than everyone was used to.
