![]() I still treasure the moments that he and I spent together. He was right there with us when some of the material was developed and brought forward some production techniques that were then valuable. Gibbons told Louder, ““Linden was quite an influential, inspirational figure. In the end, there was a settlement and Hudson was acknowledged as the writer of “Thug.” Any contributions he made to other tracks remains unacknowledged in terms of credit (and thus royalties). Given the legal resource gap between what was available to Hudson and to ZZ Top and its management, the lawsuit’s focus was kept narrow. Linden Hudson, who’d worked with Gibbons in early pre-production as the material was being put together, later sued, claiming he’d been shut out of receiving credit. Indeed, the only truly choppy waters came later. It was a sometimes laborious process, requiring breaking down guitar parts more than usual, for example. Indeed, some of the album was put together without Hill and Beard. The synthesizers were used to both augment sounds (such as their ability to play lower than a bass) and to enforce a certain rhythm, as a drum machine was used. Long-time engineer Terry Manning was back, with help provided by a lot of other Ardent studio regulars. Bill Ham, the band’s longtime manager and producer, was at the controls. The album came together in pre-recording sessions at Gibbons’ and Beard’s homes in Texas before the band set off to record it at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis. “We began following the work that both Depeche Mode and Ministry were creating, which started our own ‘lab project’ in the studio and began combining guitar-based blues rock with a modern day feel.” “All sorts of crazy sound making machines were coming on line,” Gibbons told the Houston Chronicle in 2018. The challenge being could they incorporate the rhythms of synth pop while keeping it recognizably the work of a little ol’ band from Texas. ZZ Top’s response was to embrace the synthesizer more, just in a less experimental way, instead utilizing it in songs that were more straightforward. Boston’s long-delayed “Third Stage” proudly boasted in its liner notes that it contained no synthesizers when it came out in 1986. But it did exist in the ’80s and some bands embraced it. This was a time where instruments like the Fairlight were seen as “inauthentic”, an ultimately mistaken and futile position much the same way as the hue and cry over Dylan going electric was. ![]() The album wound up selling around half of what its predecessor, 1979’s Deguello, did. Those sounds started to appear on 1981’s El Loco, particularly on the experimental “Groovy Little Hippie Pad” and “Heaven, Hell or Houston” back-to-back on the album’s second half.ĭespite the presence of album rock standards “Tube Snake Boogie” and “Pearl Necklace”, as well as the uptempo “Party on the Patio”, the new synth touches rankled the purists. Fairlight advertisement (Image: WordPress) I was just pushing buttons and found something that sounded kind of trashy,” he told Louder in 2013. Gibbons had to learn how to play with it on the fly which suited him fine.“The intrigue of these new-found contraptions was by then just starting to catch on, but we didn’t have a teacher or guide, we didn’t even have an instruction manual. ![]() Towards the end of the decade, Gibbons had picked up a new plaything - an early version of a Fairlight synthesizer/sampler. For over 50 years, until bassist Dusty Hill’s death in July, 2021, they had the same three members - guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and Hill.Īnd musically, they’d been similarly stable throughout the ’70s, churning out reliable blues-based boogie rock, full of material that caught on with audiences (“LaGrange”, “Tush”, “Cheap Sunglasses”, “I Thank You”, “Heard It on the X” and the classic pairing of “Waiting For The Bus” and “Jesus Just Left Chicago”). ZZ Top was always very model of stability. It wasn’t the first time they’d explored it, but with the release of Eliminator 40 years ago today, ZZ Top learned to stop worrying and love the synthesizer. ZZ Top Sharp Dressed Man poster (Image: Idmb) ![]()
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