BFG and Perfectamundo

Consider it an album review? Sure. Maybe on Amazon, maybe Apple, perhaps on the web someplace, I stumbled across a reference to the album before it dropped. The piece included a slightly historical note that the young Billy Gibbons was shipped off to study under Tito Puente, back in the day, so to say.

ZZ Top. Iconic music. Fuzzy guitars and wa-wa pedals, dark sunglasses and long beards. Ironic: of the the band members, Frank Beard (drummer) never sported a beard.

Weird trivial fact, it’s still the original three guys, playing music together. I haven’t seen them – live – since, think it was the fuzzy guitar tour. Early 90’s? Yeah, think so.

Being from Texas, I grew up on Tres Hombres, and the subsequent line of albums.

I’m not sure I’m so much of a fan, as just another listener, and ZZ Top’s music is part of the very fabric of my countryside. Just is. Like the sky, it’s just always there. The music is just part of the backdrop. It just is.

The more I listened to new album over and over? I kept thinking it was like, I think, XXX, which stood for 30 years. Get it?

XXX – ZZ Top

Or an later album, Rhythmeen.

Rhythmeen – ZZ Top

There’s a slightly softer sound to BFG’s Perfectamundo, a lot of border Spanish. Perhaps it’s a jazz sound? Still, it sounds like an expensive project that has BFG’s signature licks in it.

Some tracks, to my highly untrained ear, sound like vintage ZZ Top. Could be me.

The myth about Billy Gibbons and guitars? Heard this from a musician, two of them, who’ve shared the stage with Gibbons, and the myth? Most guitarists are looking for the right guitar to produce that “tone,” and for Gibbons? He can pick up any guitar and tease out that “tone.”

Legend has it, he’s that good. Any guitar. Possibly, just a stick and some string.

Perfectamundo CD case.

Perfectamundo – Billy Gibbons and The BFG’s

Can’t mention ZZ Top without pointing to one of the best deals. I have no idea how many cassettes – 8-track was before my time, but no idea how many cassettes of two or three albums I burned through, and here, the complete collection, immortalized on CD. This is truly American Roots Music.

The Complete Studio Albums 1970–1990 – ZZ Top

Dec. 16, happy birthday Billy G.

#ZZTop