ZZ Top Live CD Preview

In nearly four decades working the trenches, Texas blues-rock legends ZZ Top – guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill, and drummer Frank Beard – has delivered over a dozen albums, and enjoyed a level of commercial success that would make most other bands green with envy.

Over the years, the band evolved from a grungy, electrified power trio into a spit-polished, albeit ramshackle hit-making machine. Throughout it all, ZZ Top retained a passion for the blues that would always creep in around the edges of even the band's glossiest material.

On November 4, 2008 Eagle Records will release ZZ Top's Live From Texas, the CD soundtrack to the band's first-ever concert DVD (released earlier this year). The 15-song collection captures a powerful band playing in front of an enthusiastic home-state crowd. Live From Texas includes some of ZZ Top's biggest hits, songs like "Legs," "Sharp Dressed Man," and "Gimme All Your Lovin'," as well several songs from the band's early, blues-oriented catalog, including "Just Got Paid," "Blue Jean Blues," "Tush," and "La Grange."

Formed in late-1969 in the Houston, Texas area, ZZ Top became arena-rock favorites during the 1970s on the basis of boozy, brawling albums like Tres Hombres and Tejas that sounded as if they were dipped in Mississippi Delta mud and coated in West Texas dust.

During the 1980s, the band updated its sound, begrudgingly adding synthesizers to their usual blues-boogie ramble. Utilizing the visual salesmanship of the fledgling MTV network, the band's striking image – let's face it, with the trademark beards and Lone Star sense of style, nobody else looked quite like ZZ Top in 1983 – the band scored several multi-platinum albums and toured the world behind sold-out shows. ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Hot on the heels of ZZ Top's critically-acclaimed Live From Texas concert DVD, the CD version will be a welcome addition to the band's catalog. A special edition, including the DVD and CD packaged together, will also be released on November 4th.

Photo courtesy Eagle Records