ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in Houston, Texas, in 1969. For almost 56 years, it consisted of vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard (musician), Frank Beard, and bassist-vocalist Dusty Hill prior to his death in 2021. ZZ Top developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. They are known for their live performances, sly and humorous lyrics, and the matching appearances of Gibbons and Hill, who wore sunglasses, hats, and long beards. ZZ Top formed after Gibbons' 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 (song), La Grange" and "Tush (ZZ Top song), Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. 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 co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eliminator (album)
''Eliminator'' is the eighth studio album by American rock music, rock band ZZ Top. It was released on March 23, 1983, by Warner Bros. Records, and rose high on the charts in many countries. Four hit singles were released—"Gimme All Your Lovin'" which reached the American Top 40, "Sharp Dressed Man", "TV Dinners (song), TV Dinners" and their most successful single, "Legs (song), Legs". ''Eliminator'' is ZZ Top's most commercially successful release, with sales of 11 million and diamond certification in the US. Since ''El Loco'' in 1981, the bandleader, Billy Gibbons, had been moving ZZ Top's Boogie rock, boogie and blues rock style towards the popular new wave music, new wave style. For ''Eliminator'', he increased the tempo and used more synthesizers and drum machines, producing a "tighter" album with a steady, driving beat. The pre-production engineer Linden Hudson collaborated with Gibbons in Texas on the tempo and songs. The producer Bill Ham and the engineer Terry Manning j ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fandango!
''Fandango!'' is the fourth album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in 1975. The album's first side consists of selections from live shows, with the second side being new studio recordings. A remastered and expanded edition of this album was released on February 28, 2006. Album title Fandango, from which the album gets its name, is a type of dance similar to flamenco. Background Frontman Billy Gibbons said of the album: The live capture wound up being in the can first. We had enough live material to make up one side of the disc, so we decided to go with the unusual move of making the album half live, half studio. It turned out to be a winning combination for us. The album's opening song, "Thunderbird", despite having ZZ Top writing credit, was originally written and performed by The Nightcaps, a band formed in the 1950s when its members were teenagers.Dabou/sb v. Gibbons, 42 F.3d 285, 287 (5th Cir. 1995). The Nightcaps performed the song and distributed it on the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frank Beard (musician)
Frank Lee Beard (born June 11, 1949) is an American drummer best known as the long-time drummer of the rock band ZZ Top. Early life Beard was born in Frankston, Texas, and attended Irving High School in Irving, Texas. Career Before joining ZZ Top, Beard was a member of a fake version of the British band the Zombies, which toured in the US without authorization from the original band members, and also was part of the Outlaws with later ZZ Top member Dusty Hill. Other bands Beard and Hill played with early in their careers included the Cellar Dwellers, the Hustlers, the Warlocks, and American Blues. In May 1969, Beard joined The Moving Sidewalks, a band that would become ZZ Top in July 1969. Beard also introduced Gibbons to Hill. After honing their trademark "Texas boogie-blues-rock" style, they released '' ZZ Top's First Album'' on London Records in January 1971. Beard is credited under the nickname "Rube Beard" on the ''ZZ Top's First Album'' and on '' Tres Hombres'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ZZ Top's First Album
''ZZ Top's First Album'' is the debut studio album by American rock band ZZ Top, produced by Bill Ham and released in January 1971 by London Records. Establishing ZZ Top's attitude and humor, the album incorporates styles such as blues, boogie, hard rock, and Southern rock influences. "(Somebody Else Been) Shakin' Your Tree" was the only single released from the album. Background, recording and release The album was recorded at Robin Hood Studios in Tyler, Texas. ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons said: We called the record ''ZZ Top's First Album'' because we wanted everyone to know that there would be more. We weren't certain if we'd get another chance in the studio, but we had high hopes. The only single released from the album was "(Somebody Else Been) Shakin' Your Tree" (backed with "Neighbor, Neighbor") on London Records (release number 45-138). It failed to appear on the ''Billboard'' charts. In 1987, the album was remixed for CD release. In 2013, the original vinyl mix ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Punk Rock
Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles with stripped-down instrumentation. Punk rock lyrics often explore anti-establishment and Anti-authoritarianism, anti-authoritarian themes. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent record label, independent labels. The term "punk rock" was previously used by American Music criticism, rock critics in the early 1970s to describe the mid-1960s garage bands. Certain late 1960s and early 1970s Detroit acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges, and other bands from elsewhere created out-of-the-mainstream music that became highly influential on what was to come. Glam rock in the UK and the New York Dolls from New York ha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Wave Music
New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop music, pop-oriented styles from the 1970s through the 1980s. It is considered a lighter and more melodic "broadening of Punk subculture, punk culture". It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock. Later, critical consensus favored "new wave" as an umbrella term involving many contemporary popular music styles, including synth-pop, alternative dance and post-punk. The main new wave movement coincided with late 1970s punk and continued into the early 1980s. The common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, angular guitar riffs, jerky rhythms, the use of electronics, and a distinctive visual style in fashion. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop and rock act – and particularly those that employed synthesizers – were tagged as "new wave" in the United States. Although new wave shares punk's do-it-yourself philosophy, the musician ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Afterburner (ZZ Top Album)
''Afterburner'' is the ninth studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in 1985. Although critics' response to the album was lukewarm, ''Afterburner'' was a commercial success, eventually going platinum five times and launching one hit single: "Sleeping Bag" which peaked at number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and at number eight on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, equaling the peak of their previous single " Legs". The album yielded three other Top 40 singles in the United States: " Stages" (No. 21), " Rough Boy" (No. 22), and " Velcro Fly" (No. 35). "Can't Stop Rockin'" was used as the opening theme for the 1993 film ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III''. In the UK, it was the band's second album to be certified by the British Phonographic Industry, attaining Gold (100,000 units) in 1985. In 1990, it was certified Platinum (300,000 units). Recording The album contains songs with sequenced keyboard beds. It was the first ZZ Top record since '' Rio Grande Mud'' without ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Drum Machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A drum machine often has pre-programmed beats and patterns for popular genres and styles, such as pop music, rock music, and dance music. Most modern drum machines made in the 2010s and 2020s also allow users to program their own rhythms and beats. Drum machines may create sounds using Analog synthesizer, analog synthesis or play prerecorded Sampling (music), samples. While a distinction is generally made between drum machines (which can play back pre-programmed or user-programmed beats or patterns) and electronic drums (which have pads that can be struck and played like an acoustic drum kit), there are some drum machines that have buttons or pads that allow the performer to play drum sounds "live", either on top of a programmed drum beat or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthesizer
A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI. Synthesizer-like instruments emerged in the United States in the mid-20th century with instruments such as the RCA Mark II, which was controlled with punch cards and used hundreds of vacuum tubes. The Moog synthesizer, developed by Robert Moog and first so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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El Loco
''El Loco'' is the seventh studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in 1981. It foreshadowed the band's extensive usage of synthesizers on '' Eliminator, Afterburner,'' and to a lesser extent, '' Recycler,'' by way of employing a synthesizer on a couple tracks, played by an uncredited Linden Hudson. Background ''El Loco'' was produced by Bill Ham and recorded and originally mixed by Terry Manning. 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.Blayney, David (1994). ''Sharp Dressed Men''. New York: Hyperion. pp. 196–203. . Hudson did not receive credit for engineering the tracks on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" which were used on the final album mix. 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 al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Worldwide Texas Tour
The Worldwide Texas Tour was a concert tour by American rock band ZZ Top. Arranged in support of their 1975 album ''Fandango!'', the band visited arenas, stadiums, and auditoriums from 1976 to 1977. The elaborate stage production was designed to bring Texas to national audiences, with regional fauna and flora. Encompassing five legs and 97 shows, the tour began in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on May 29, 1976, and ended in Fort Worth, Texas on December 31, 1977. The band's 1976 album '' Tejas'', which elaborated on the tour's artistic theme, was recorded during a break in the tour, and its songs were played in 1977. In 2008, ''Guitar World''′s Alan di Perna called it "one of the most ambitious and bizarre tours in all of rock history". Background ZZ Top's 1973 album '' Tres Hombres'' and supporting single " La Grange" brought them commercial and critical success in the United States. They gained a reputation as one of the top rock acts in the country and earned them the nickna ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Airplay
Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in nightclubs and at discotheques between the 1940s and 1960s would also have airplay. Background For commercial broadcasting, airplay is usually the result of being placed into rotation, also called adding it to the station's playlist by the music director, possibly as the result of a Pay for Play sponsored by the record label. For student radio and other community radio or indie radio stations, it is often the selection by each disc jockey, usually at the suggestion of a music director. Geography Most countries have at least one radio airplay chart in existence, although larger countries such as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Brazil have several, to cover different genres and areas of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |