10 Southern Rock Albums Every Music Fan Should Own
4. ZZ Top – Tres Hombres (1973)
In 1973, Texas trio ZZ Top released their chart-topping, career-defining third album, Tres Hombres. Greatly influenced by the Delta blues of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and BB King, vocalist and guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill, and drummer Frank Beard, set out to create an edgier, heavier sounding blues rock with a Texas twang.
Painting an often humorous portrait of southern life, rock and rebellion, Tres Hombres opens with a double dose of funk in “Waitin’ for the Bus” and “Jesus Just Left Chicago”, before unleashing the band’s crowd-pleasing southern rock anthem “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers”. In “Master of Sparks” Gibbons recalls teenage years spent riding down highways in steel cages, whereas final track “Have You Heard” shows the band’s softer side, while still highlighting Gibbons’ howling guitar.
ZZ Top’s early influences can clearly be heard on Tres Hombres’ Hooker-style pièce de résistance and stand alone single, “La Grange”, whose lyrics describe a real-life Texas brothel known as the Chicken Ranch. The radio friendly, amped up, “metalized”, boogie-woogie of the song, not only displayed Gibbons’ gravelly, blues-perfect pipes, but the band’s instinct for rhythm, and irresistibly charming sense of humour too.