Zz+top

Produced by the award-winning Banger Films, ZZ TOP: THAT LITTLE OL’ BAND FROM TEXAS tells the story of how three teenage bluesmen - Billy F Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard – became one of the biggest, most beloved bands on the planet, all while maintaining a surrealist mystique that continues to intrigue fans and entice onlookers 50 years after the band’s inception. The 90-minute documentary is packaged with 35 minutes of live performances, a mix of recent Gruene Hall and archival footage.

The very title of Goin' 50 suggests ZZ Top are considering their 50th anniversary as an event to be celebrated with a sense of humor. That's appropriate. Good spirits and lascivious jokes always have been integral to the trio's appeal, and they can be heard in abundance on this triple-CD/five-LP set that tells their story from beginning to end (there is also a single-disc edition that rounds up the highlights)…

Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album…

Blessed with their first full-fledged hit album, ZZ Top followed it up with Fandango!, a record split between a side of live tracks and a side of new studio cuts. In a way, this might have made sense, since they were a kick-ass live band, and they do sound good here, but it's hard not to see this as a bit of a wasted opportunity in retrospect…

ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. The band consists of guitarist and lead vocalist Billy Gibbons, bassist and co-lead vocalist Dusty Hill, and drummer Frank Beard. The band and its members went through several reconfigurations throughout 1969, achieving their current form when Hill replaced bassist Billy Etheridge in February 1970, shortly before the band was signed to London Records…

On Tejas, ZZ Top countrified the bluesy posture of their previous albums, resulting in a slight detour between the madcap spirit of Fandango and the psychedelic strut of Deguello. While the album lacks any singles as strong as "Tush" or "La Grange," "Arrested for Driving While Blind" is one of ZZ's classic anthems, capturing the group's wacky humor and jaunty good-time boogie…

ZZ Top's First Album may not be perfectly polished, but it does establish their sound, attitude, and quirks. Simply put, it's a dirty little blues-rock record, filled with fuzzy guitars, barrelhouse rhythms, dirty jokes, and Texan slang…

With their second album, Rio Grande Mud, ZZ Top uses the sound they sketched out on their debut as a blueprint, yet they tweak it in slight but important ways. The first difference is the heavier, more powerful sound, turning the boogie guitars into a locomotive force…

Following 2004's Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top by a decade, The Very Baddest of ZZ Top comes in two different styles: a single-disc compilation with 20 tracks and a set that doubles it. The single disc is good, racking up most of the MTV-era hits – "Gimme All Your Lovin," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Got Me Under Pressure," "Rough Boy," "Velcro Fly" – while doubling back for "La Grange, "Tush," "I Thank You," "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," and "Cheap Sunglasses."…

Since Rhino released an exhaustive four-disc ZZ Top box in October 2003, some may question the appearance of a double-disc retrospective in June 2004, a mere eight months after the box set. The two may be released awfully close to each other, but they do play to different audiences – in other words, there are a bunch of fans who want all the hits, but not a full box set, and that's what the 38-track Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top delivers…