With seven Top 10 albums, multiple Platinum album certifications all over the world and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, classic rock legends ZZ Top are officially the world’s longest running rock band with its original line-up intact. Now after over 45 years together, the Texan trio – Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard – are releasing Greatest Hits Live, on CD, gatefold LP and digitally, September 9 on Suretone Records.
Recorded over the course of several tours in cities all around the world, the album picks the biggest hits from the band’s catalog captured with the energy of their renowned live performances.
Live Greatest Hits From Around the World covers everything from the Top’s breakthrough hit “La Grange” from the 1973 album Tres Hombres, through to their huge crossover hits – “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” – and then to the present day with their recent collaboration with Jeff Beck on the Tennessee Ernie Ford/Merle Travis standard “Sixteen Tons.”
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“We spend the biggest stretch of every year out on the road, whippin’ wire, poundin’ skin, and rockin’ it way up,” says Billy F Gibbons. “This is the true document of life de la ZZ. In an abstract surrealism style, this collection is a definitive chronicle of the band hangin’ together for four plus deluxe decades, getting down to do what we get to do. Enjoy and listen to loudness!”
Gibbons, Hill and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in 1969. Their third album, 1973’s Tres Hombres, catapulted them to national attention with the hit “La Grange.”
With 1983’s Eliminator the trio became music video icons with the album’s three smash singles, “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs.” The melding of grungy guitar-based blues with synth-pop was seamless and continued with the follow-up album Afterburner as they continued their chart success.
Along the way, they performed in front millions of fans through North America on numerous landmarks tours as well as overseas. The band’s discography continued to grow throughout, most recently with 2012’s fifteenth studio album La Futura.
ZZ Top will spend much of July touring Europe before beginning a three-month North America trek on August 16 that includes many shows with Gregg Allman and Gov’t Mule. Tickets are available here.
Related: North American tour details
Greatest Hits Live tracklisting with location of each track’s recording:
Got Me Under Pressure – New York
Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers – Las Vegas
Cheap Sunglasses – Paris
Waitin’ For The Bus – Chicago
Jesus Just Left Chicago – Chicago
Legs – São Paolo
Sharp Dressed Man – Los Angeles
Rough Boy (with Jeff Beck) – London
Pincushion – Berlin
La Grange – Dallas
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide – Vancouver
Tube Snake Boogie – Rome
Gimme All Your Lovin’ – Houston
Tush – Nashville
Sixteen Tons (with Jeff Beck) – London
1 Comment
My favorite band!! I’ve been following ZZTOP for the last 40 yrs. I’m hoping that they come close to Youngstown, ohio for their 2017 tour. So far no date for here. Please ZZTOP. Come to youngstown. You played here last year. Really want to see them again!!