#Zz top fandango full
But before you start feeling too bad for The Nightcaps, you should know that the song’s full story is something of a snake-eating-its-own-tale situation. The Nightcaps eventually sued to no avail due to the copyright being owned by ZZ Top. This cleared the way for the Top to do so in 1975 and claim it as their own composition. The song was previously released by Dallas band The Nightcaps in 1961, but being better at music than business, that band neglected to copyright it. For all its force and fire, though, the hard-charging blues burner is actually a longtime source of controversy in ZZ Top lore. It’s lucky that guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill, as noted above, weren’t yet sporting their famously fulsome facial hair as we’ve come to know it, because the set-opening “Thunderbird” might have seriously singed those dangling beards. For the last 45 years the faithful have clamored for the release of the full concert, but the cherry-picked selections spotlighted here are plenty explosive all on their own.
In 1974, ZZ Top was touring in support of their third album, Tres Hombres, which was their big national breakout, largely due to the gloriously grimy, amped-up boogie of “La Grange.” On April 12th of that year, the band played a barnstormer of a show at The Warehouse in New Orleans, from which the live half of Fandango! was taken. And that second side is none too shabby either. But even though it’s half as long as most great live recordings (and a quarter the length of many), the first side of Fandango! is an indelible reminder of the greasy, gritty, Texas-fried fury the trio was capable of unleashing.
Released in 1975, Fandango! is ZZ Top’s fourth album, and while its first side contained a blistering selection of live cuts from the previous year, the second side premiered six new studio tracks. The irony is that it was actually only half live.
Long before “Legs” or “Sharp Dressed Man,” before the chest-length beards or the goofy videos, three blues-obsessed Texans made one of the greatest live rock ‘n’ roll records ever.
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