After more than 45 years together, ZZ Top are finally set to release their first official live album, Greatest Hits Live, on August 12th on Suretone Records. Featuring 15 tracks recorded in cities throughout the world, the album features some of the band’s biggest hits captured with the phenomenal energy of their renowned live performances.
Greatest Hits Live covers everything from their breakthrough hit “La Grange” plus three snappy blues-rock classics from the 1973 album Tres Hombres, through to their huge crossover hits – “Gimme All Your Lovin'”, “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” – and then to the present day with their recent collaboration with Jeff Beck on the Tennessee Ernie Ford / Merle Travis standard “Sixteen Tons.”
“We spend the biggest stretch of every year out on the road, whippin’ wire, poundin’ skin, and rockin’ it way up,” says Billy Gibbons. “This is the true document of life de la ZZ. In an abstract surrealism style, this collection is a definitive chronicle of the band hangin’ together for four plus deluxe decades, getting down to do what we get to do. Enjoy and listen to loudness!”
The album will be on CD, double gatefold LP and digitally through all streaming and download stores.
Billy F. Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston late in 1969. Their third album, 1973’s Tres Hombres, catapulted them to national attention with the hit “La Grange,” which is still one of the band’s signature songs today. The band’s momentum and success built during its first decade, culminating in the legendary World Wide Texas Tour, a production that included a longhorn steer, a buffalo, buzzards, rattlesnakes and a Texas-shaped stage.
1983’s Eliminator album mixed their fiery blues roots with tech-age trappings that soon found a visual outlet with the nascent MTV. The trio became music video icons throughout the album’s three smash singles, “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs.” The melding of grungy guitar-based blues with synth-pop was seamless and continued with the follow-up album ‘Afterburner’ as they continued their chart juggernaut.
ZZ Top had accomplished the impossible; they had moved with the times while simultaneously bucking ephemeral trends that crossed their path. They had become more popular and more iconic without ever having to be flavor of the week. They had become a certified rock institution, contemporary in every way, yet still completely connected to the founding fathers of the genre.
Along the way, they performed in front millions of fans through North America on numerous landmarks tours as well as overseas where they’ve enthralled audiences from Slovenia to Argentina, from Australia to Sweden, from Russia to Japan and most places in-between. The band’s discography continued to grow throughout, most recently with 2012’s fifteenth studio album ‘La Futura’ which was co-produced by Rick Rubin and Billy F Gibbons. The Guardian’s review stated: “The band sound both timely and timeless… It’s an unexpectedly wonderful return from an undervalued band.”
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Track Listing:
- Got Me Under Pressure – New York City
- Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers – Las Vegas
- Cheap Sunglasses – Paris
- Waitin’ For The Bus – Nashville
- Jesus Just Left Chicago – Nashville
- Legs – Sao Paolo
- Sharp Dressed Man – Los Angeles
- Rough Boy – London
- Pincushion – Berlin
- La Grange – Dallas
- I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide – Vancouver
- Tube Snake Boogie – Rome
- Gimme All Your Lovin’ – Houston
- Tush – Chicago
- Sixteen Tons – London
ZZ Top will play a special start-up show at the O2 Academy Birmingham next week before playing Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage at 6.15pm on Friday June 24th. They’ll then spend much of July touring Europe before hitting the road throughout North America for dates which include shows with Gregg Allman and Gov’t Mule.
