By Matt Wake | al.com
The rock band most closely associated with Texas created one of their signature songs one afternoon in Alabama. In a Guitar World interview, guitarist Billy Gibbons recalled the origins of ZZ Top’s hot-rodded shuffle, “Tush.”
It all went down May 23, 1974, onstage at Florence’s Lauderdale Coliseum during a pre-show rehearsal, Gibbons said:
“We were playing in a dirt-floor rodeo arena without air conditioning. It was so fiercely hot. I made up this introductory riff, and I recall the lighting director: He pulled the headphones off, and he put his finger in the air, and he was grinning and pointing, and he said, ‘Don’t lose it.’”
Gibbons looked over at ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill and said, “Man, we’ve got about four, five minutes before we collapse from this heat.” Gibbons, Hill and drummer Frank Beard then played through a bluesy arrangement.
The three musicians were fans of Roy Head, a fellow Texas product known for his spicy mix of R&B and rock, as heard on Head’ 1965 hit “Treat Her Right,” a song ZZ Top had covered. The flip side to the “Treat Her Right” vinyl single was an instrumental titled “Tush Hog.” As Gibbons sold Guitar World, tush hog, “was a Texas slang term that meant, ‘That’s just about as good as it’s gonna get.’”
Gibbons suggested they call their new song “Tush.” From there, Hill — who previously sang lead on ZZ Top songs like 1973 hit “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers” and Stones-y ‘72 cut “Francine” – took the title and they ran with it.
As Gibbons recalled, “[Dusty] said, ‘Okay… ‘I’ve been up!’ And I said, “Yeah… ‘I’ve been down!’ He said, ‘Take my word, my way around.’ We got it down and got the heck out of that heat box.”
ZZ Top later refined the song and cut “Tush” in a recording studio for the band’s half-live/half-studio album “Fandango!”. Originally released in 1975, “Tush” was reintroduced into pop-culture in 1993 with a notable placement in stoner comedy film “Dazed and Confused” and its corresponding soundtrack.
Tickets for ZZ Top’s ‘74 Florence concert were five bucks in-advance and six at the door. The Facebook group North Alabama Local History recently posted an image of a print ad promoting the Thursday night show:
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