Peter Frampton: “I have many ZZ Top favourites, but Jesus Just Left Chicago from Tres Hombres reminds me of when I first saw them play. It’s hard to imagine Billy Gibbons as anything other than a legend now, but you can really hear the fire in him as a young guitar player making their first record here, and you also can hear the echoes of everything else that’s going on at the time, from Free to Freddie King.' Jesus Just Left Chicago Paul Sayer (The Temperance Movement): “I love (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree, off ZZ Top’s First Album. As usual, the guitar tone is absolutely perfect, and is there anything cooler than that little stutter lick before the verses? I don’t think so.' (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree Today I’ll say it’s I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide. And I’m pretty sure the solo is slide guitar through a wah-wah.” I'm Bad, I'm NationwideĬharlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke): “It is nearly impossible to pick a favourite ZZ Top song. I love the trade-off vocals, the proto- Hot For Teacher rhythm guitar lick and twangy chromatic line. Paul Gilbert: “I played Heard It On The X in my cover band when I was fourteen and it was a highlight of our set. In fact Billy came out to one of the shows in Houston and we all traded together. “Fast-forward to the first of many G3 tours that Joe Satriani would invite me to be a part of, and there I was night after night playing La Grange as one of our end-of-show jam songs, trading solos with Joe and Steve Vai. And if you can somehow nail those insane artificial pick harmonics that Billy pulled off so expertly, it was a sort of rite of passage in our little home-town guitar circle. My friends and I used to jam on it all the time. The feel, and that tone! Just so unmistakable. 'Even more so, of course, was Billy’s finesse on the guitar. I remember loving it the first time I heard it – that slick shuffle feel, signature drum fill and the quirky vocal approach all caught my attention. It was one of those songs like Free Bird, where the DJ never apologised for the extended outro guitar solo. John Petrucci: “Growing up, I’d hear La Grange all the time played on the local rock radio station. Only they could do it like that.' La Grange Tyler Bryant: “ I Gotsta Get Paid, because it showcases how BFG and the boys take the best from the past and keep it so incredibly fresh.

Zz top greatest hits album cover