Right at the very opening, there it is – the heavy sound of a synthesizer. One of our favorite tracks was "Groovy Little Hippie Pad". Manufacturers were looking for ways to stimulate sales, and these instruments started appearing on the market. But we followed suit, and the synthesizers started to show up on record. had no fear and was eager to experiment in ways that would frighten most bands. He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing, starting in the studio and eventually to the live stage. He was a gifted songwriter and had production skills that were leading the pack at times. On June 3, 2013, Gibbons told Joe Bosso of that the album was "a really interesting turning point", explaining that the band had "befriended somebody who would become an influential associate, a guy named Linden Hudson. In 1987, most of the band's back catalog received a controversial "digitally enhanced" remix treatment for CD release however, El Loco did not receive this remix treatment and the original mix of the album has been available on CD since 1987. Hudson did not receive credit for engineering the tracks on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" which were used on the final album mix. The biographer David Blayney explains in his book Sharp Dressed Men that the recording engineer Linden Hudson was involved as a pre-producer on this album. It also foreshadowed ZZ Top's synthesizer-driven direction later in the decade, with early experimentations in synthesizer backing on certain tracks.Įl Loco was produced by Bill Ham and recorded and originally mixed by Terry Manning. The band's guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons has said that the recording of this album was the first time the three members of the band were isolated from one another in the studio, rather than recording simultaneously in the same room. The title means "The Crazy One" in Spanish. Top-notch Top.Įl Loco is the seventh studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in 1981. TL, DR - Yeah, I'm a big fan of Degüello and I consider it one of their best and more fun albums ever.
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Whether he plays clean or distorted, this guy sure knows how to hit me where I live. We hear Frank's trademark fun and skillful pocket patterns, Dusty's able rumblings and rock-and-roll voice, and Billy F*kin Gibbons putting on a total clinic in guitar tones. And what about those performances? It's not just that these tracks are engaging as hell, but they are so carefully arranged and performed also. I enjoy the hell out of every one of the songs, whether it is focusing on the guitar playing, on the drums, on the cool atmospheres, on the fun this album oozes. There's so much confident swagger in the feel of these songs, in the choice of those sounds and textures, in the shameless tongue-in-cheek all over the record that I can't help but be won over. My love for Degüello is comparable to my love for Fandango or Tres Hombres, and it's that combination of the familiar and the new that has me feeling, "wherever they're transitioning to, I'm all in!" but I'm simply nuts about Cheap Sunglasses, Manic Mechanic, I'm Bad I'm Nationwide. I love tracks like Hi Fi Mama, Fool For Your Stockings, She Loves My Automobile.
I say I hear this album as transitional because it features songs that fit in just fine with what we've heard from them so far, yet they're side by side with stuff the likes of which we hadn't heard on their albums before, often blending it all within the same song, and for me it works a treat. Degüello, however, is where I hear that transition begin and, funny enough, instead of being put off by hearing the band moving elsewhere, what this album does is make me love them even more.
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I mentioned earlier that, while some people see Tejas as a transitional album, to me it still feels firmly planted in 1970's ZZ Top.
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"I Believe My Time Ain't Long" (single):
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I think it's fair to say that ZZ are covering the Elmore James song, or maybe even more likely they are covering Fleetwood Mac covering Elmore James covering Robert Johnson.įleetwood Mac recorded it twice, as their first single and then again on their second album Mr Wonderful, the second attempt is the one that is closest to ZZ's take on it.
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Elmore James had a hit with his recording and made several subsequent re-recordings, and in his arrangement it became a blues standard, while the Robert Johnson recording was pretty obscure until it was reissued in 1970. Elmore got the song from Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom", but that in turn is based on earlier blues songs. Original LP pressings of Degüello credited authorship of "Dust My Broom" to Elmore James, but later changed this to Robert Johnson. The original version of "Dust My Broom" by Elmo James: