ZZ Top – Formerly Moving Sidewalks.
ZZ Top, this Thursday – recorded live at the Doningen Festival on August 20, 1983.
We’re all over the place this week – I don’t think I’ve ever posted any ZZ Top as long as Past Daily has been up.
Since our site is all over the place, post-wise, we might as well maintain our pledge to be eclectic with music as well. And ZZ Top fits the bill nicely.
Founder Billy Gibbons formed ZZ Top formed after his previous band, Moving Sidewalks, disbanded in 1969. Within a year, they signed with London Records and released ZZ Top’s First Album in 1971. Albums Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975), and singles “La Grange” and “Tush“, gained extensive radio airplay and have become staple tracks of classic rock radio. By the mid-1970s, ZZ Top had become renowned in North America for their live act, including the Worldwide Texas Tour (1976–77), which was a critical and commercial success. ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. With the album El Loco (1981), they began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. They established a more mainstream sound and rose to international stardom with Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. The popularity of the albums’ music videos, including for “Gimme All Your Lovin’“, “Sharp Dressed Man“, and “Legs“, gave them mass exposure on MTV and made them prominent in 1980s pop culture. The Afterburner tour set records for the highest-attended and highest-grossing of 1986.
To get an idea what they were up to in August of 1983, take a break and dive into a brief respite from the events of the day and crank this one up.
May not fix things, but it will help your mind cope – and that ain’t half-bad.
