WHEN WE ASKED Billy F. Gibbons to select five key songs from across his career, there was a proviso: He couldn’t include “La Grange,” as it had already been the subject of in-depth scrutiny in our “How I Wrote” feature of May 2021. “When I was asked to participate in this series, I got lit up and began peeling the onion over what songs to zero in on,” the Reverend tells us. “The most obvious, ‘La Grange,’ was ZZ Top’s first national breakthrough to climb the pop singles chart. But, alas, having been asked to set it aside, the question that I had to ponder was, ‘Where to start?’”
Certainly, it’s no easy task when you’ve got a back catalog with the quality and depth that Gibbons has amassed both with ZZ Top and in more recent years as a solo artist, where he’s found an alternative outlet for his creativity. “It’s something of a different headspace when engaging with the solo excursion adjacent to ZZ,” he explains. “Of course, the sometimes obvious six-string similarities have much in common, yet there’s a considerable vibe in the mix. There’s mucho feel, which can connect in a very ZZ-like way, and yet also some far-fetched opposites to balance the affair. Some of it’s a bit outside, some
