Solo Blues from ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons
The loudest, hairiest creature in Texas is back. He’s missing a couple of sets of legs for this outing, but he still puts out enough badass punch and searing heat to require sunglasses for performer and audience alike. Billy Gibbons fans who might have been somewhat confounded by his initial solo Afro-Cuban flavored release, 2015’s Perfectamundo, will find more familiar territory with his sophomore solo project, The Big Bad Blues. His second solo album is firmly in ZZ Top territory, and, as advertised, is a collection of gritty, raucous blooze classics.
Frank Beard and Dusty Hill are nowhere in sight, but their shoes are filled by producer Joe Hardy on bass, along with former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum (Kings of Chaos) sharing percussive duties with Nashville session drummer Greg Morrow (from Cyndi Lauper to Steve Earle to Hank Jr.). Gibbons has guitar help from lefty Austin Hanks, who Gibbons labels “an Alabama-come-California soulster.” B-3 burble master Mike Flannigan is on keys and James Harman has harp duty.
Hardy, Flannigan, and Morrow were also onboard for Perfectamundo, but this session has nothing in common with that one.
Gibbons kicks off with “Missin’ Yo’ Kissin’,” a gift from wife Gilligan Stillwater, who scribbled the lyrics while while watching the band record. An engineer saw the lyrics and encouraged the band to flesh it out, resulting in the sweaty grinder that sounds like Rio Grande Mud-era vintage Top.
Gibbons returns the favor on a gritty love sonnet to his beloved with his original “My Baby She Rocks,” Harman’s harp moaning and wailing as Gibbons strangled guitar screams stirs up the mud packed around it.
Despite the Big Easy reference,“Second Line” is more Chuck Berry glide than New Orleans strut, tube screamer chooglin’ fit for duck walkin’ in Berryville.
Muddy’s “Standing Around Crying”is covered like a blanket, Gibbons a little more phlegmatic and a tad muddier, guitar wise, but hewing strictly to the original template. Gibbons is in a bit more of a hurry than Muddy was on “Rollin’ and Tumblin,’” Muddy slow rollin’ it while Gibbons goes galumphing along like his hair and guitar was on fire.
Bo Diddley gets a double-barreled shout-out on “Bring It to Jerome” and “Crackin’ Up.” 1956’s “Bring It to Jerome” was written by Bo’s maracas player Jerome Green, who sang co-lead. Bo’s take was one of his more light-fingered sessions, quiet enough to hear Green’s maracas clicking like a bear’s toenails on a wooden dance floor. Gibbons and company put cement shoes on their bear and go stomping through the muck, laying down a bassline thick enough to swing a juke joint over a swamp.
Just like Bo’s original, Gibbons’ take on “Crackin’ Up” goes for a swim in reverb, the melody having a lot in common with Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love is Strange.” Once again, Gibbons’ version sinks a bit deeper in the swamp, but still manages to step along briskly without getting his boots sucked down by the muddy undertow.
ZZ Top fans who might have worried about subliminal messages being sent by Gibbons solo career needn’t fret about him leaving. Even though he’ll be out promoting The Big Bad Blues in October and November, ZZ Top will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year and Gibbons has said that Beard and Hill have given him material for stuff they’ve been cooking up in the studio.
Gibbons may be stirring up the Rio Grande mud, but thankfully too much of it stuck to him for him to ever get loose.