How about ‘That little ol band from Texas’ aka ZZ Top.
They are responsible for the song that introduced me to the blues and started a love that has never wavered - Blue Jean Blues. Billy Gibbons’ solo still stirs my soul 47 years later. I always thought Frank Beard would be the first of the three to go to the Crossroads but it was Dusty. RIP Dusty Hill.
Hello 7NoteScale,
The two points you addressed below are quite interesting to my blues history knowledge. Do you have a source(s) for the opinion you raise with your statements? I would be very happy to find and read the source(s). Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the list.
It was in a biography I read years ago, likely mid 90s. Google may also have those data.
"Clapton wrote about this song in his 2007 autobiography: “The most powerful of the new songs was ‘Tears in Heaven.’ Musically, I had always been haunted by Jimmy Cliff’s song ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ and wanted to borrow from that chord progression, but essentially I wrote this one to ask the question I had been asking myself ever since my grandfather had died.”
(When I started this thread, my goal was the music and recommendations. I did not mean to venture into the personalities of the performers. So I would like to return to the original post. )
Been spending too much time on this thread and listening to the albums as my Roon Daily Mix has dramatically moved today 
When Fleetwood Mac was a Blues band, and they wanted to move to pop rock, Mick Fleetwood supposedly said that “this is not very close to the Blues” and (reportedly) their manager replied “but it is closer to the bank.” You may have seen the grainy video of Jane Pauly on 13 yo Joe Bonamassa. What a Blues prodigy he was. Genetics and motivation.
Check out Deborah Coleman - “Livin on Love” is my favorite album of hers, but they all kick A**
Same with Derek Trucks. He’s simply amazing.
Trucks would come to the dinner table with the guitar around his neck while eating.
He was hampered early by the Allman Bros. continuing to play mostly their own music, and clearly he wanted a great deal more.
ZZ Top was amazing. I mentioned Rough Boy, and many (me) like Lagrange. Billy Gibbons goes out of his way to be quirky and it adds a lot to their presentation. I think most of us equate early M-TV with their cars/guitars videos.
I think Gibbons is vastly underrated. His play long phrases using harmonics is really quite a bluesy sound.
Their first 3 albums are my favorite, and part of the soundtrack of my youth (and I’m very happy to have the re-released CDs that use the original mix rather than the added electronic drum stuff that was retroactively done in the 1980s). I saw ZZ Top the first time about 1970 at Panther Hall in Fort Worth. Their first album was either just released or about to be released. I didn’t understand that the band name was ZZ Top. For some reason, I thought Dusty was a guy named “ZZ Top”.
A friend of mind I met a few years later that was a couple of years older than me was a classmate of Frank Beard (ZZ Top Drummer) at Irving High School. Through that friend, I got to hang out at Kim Davis’s house in Irving, Texas in the mid 1970s when his band wasn’t touring. Kim was one of the founding guitar players in the band “Point Blank” also managed by Bill Hamm (ZZ Top Manager). Very nice guy (Kim…never met Bill Hamm). First time I ever saw a Bang & Olufsen stereo system. Very different look!
We were told in 1970 that the band was named for cigarette papers. Was an interesting thought for the times, but Gibbons particularly noticed B.B. King and Z. Z. Hill and thought of combining the two into “ZZ King”, but considered it too similar to the original name. He then figured that “king is going at the top” which brought him to “ZZ Top”.
ZZ_Top_on_the_Pyramid_Stage_at_Glastonbury_2016_IMG_8527_%2827374417884%29.jpg
The band was very much Texas rooted. They would drive across that vast State and listen to AM radio playing rockabilly, rock and Blues and derived their sound.
Billy Gibbons also is an inveterate car guy.
Chrome Smoke and BBQ is a great boxed set…including the box itself.
@Douglas_Henning. Thanks so much for this tip re Dan Patlansky and the Wooden Thoughts album. This is stunning. On first listen I was a little frustrated with some of the covers because they’re so different to what I was expecting (i.e. knowing the originals). But on second listening every track stands on its own and he brings new light to great songs. It’s just “wow!”. The acoustic guitar leaves nowhere to hide, it has to carry the did in its own merits. And so it does. I’m spades. The engineering is also top notch. A wonderful new discovery. Thanks again.
I saw him live recently. It was one of the best concerts I have ever attended.
