“Coming up in Houston presented a grand exposure to some of the greats — B.B. King, Bobby Bland, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed,” says guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top. “When you hear those guys, you know they were advanced, almost other worldly.”
ZZ Top is the only blues-fan-endorsed multi-million-selling band to retain its original members for 50 years. They tour major arenas almost constantly, and Billy F Gibbons also records and tours as a solo act. His recently released second solo album The Big Bad Blues contains covers songs by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley, whom he freely calls a genius.
….“Let’s take Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up” included on The Big Bad Blues album,” he says. “That upside-down and backwards guitar intro seems simple — until attempting to reproduce it… and then it becomes an analytical challenge to delve into what Bo might have had in mind. Delivering that figure was the definitive science experiment.
“Bo didn’t leave a how-to manual. I’m guessing it came quite naturally to him as you would expect of a genius. Same goes for Lightin’ Hopkins. He wasn’t specifically playing predictable scales which, in a way, tells you that he invented something solely original. He (and Bo) were free from the constraints of any accepted norm, yet everything they did was accepted! They invented what they did out of thin air. That’s a reflection that they reserved an open mind and a vivid imagination. There’s not necessarily any particular “right way”… Sometimes a so-called “wrong way” is so, so right.”…
…“Having seen the great B.B. King in an early recording session down in Houston when I was probably 7 or 8 years old was a genuine point of no return. I knew right then that was where I was going and that moment stayed on. I caught up with B. B. years later to embrace a sentiment he shared with the simple outlook of, ‘Play what you want to hear.’ …
read the entire article here: http://www.bluesblastmagazine.com/issue-13-10-march-7-2019/