Anyone who has read these reviews with any regularity knows I’ve
\noften talked about the “sophomore slump”, that letdown that one
\nfeels when listening to an artist’s second release. Often, it just
\ndoesn’t live up to the expectations that one walked away with
\nfollowing the debut effort.<\/p>\n
Well, we’re not gonna talk about that today. Instead, we’re
\ngoing to talk about an album that actually improved on the first
\neffort – namely,
\nRio Grande Mud<\/i>, the 1972 release from ZZ Top.<\/p>\n
Their first effort,
\nZZ Top’s First Album<\/i>, had a very lazy feeling to it, and
\nwhile it stayed very close to the blues roots that Billy Gibbons,
\nDusty Hill and Frank Beard have always promoted, it sounded like
\nonly half the effort that could have been applied was used in the
\nstudio. Just one album later, that all changed.<\/p>\n
From the opening track, “Francine,” ZZ Top come out swinging,
\nbut now with a little more of a pop rock sensibility intermixed
\nwith the blues heart of the music. This track and the following
\none, “Just Got Paid,” showed how much ZZ Top grew as songwriters
\nand as musicians in less than two years. (If you discovered
\nThe Best Of ZZ Top<\/i> not long after the
\nEliminator<\/i> craze, no doubt these are tracks you immediately
\nfell for.)<\/p>\n
But don’t think that ZZ Top abandoned its blues roots. Tracks
\nlike “Mushmouth Shoutin'” and “Apologies To Pearly” show that they
\nstill worshipped the 12-bar style they were born with – only the
\ndelivery is much more lively. Gibbons shows how talented of a
\nguitar player he is, whipping off lick after lick that are
\nguaranteed to make your mouth water. (If the band happens to be
\nreading, insert your own barbeque reference here.)<\/p>\n
ZZ Top also show they know how to lay a slow groove down and
\nlock the listener in for the duration, as demonstrated on “Sure Got
\nCold After The Rain Fell”. Almost ballad-like in tempo, Gibbons,
\nHill and Beard show the musical tightness of the band through the
\nprogressive build of the song.<\/p>\n
There are still a few minor weak points on
\nRio Grande Mud<\/i> – “Chevrolet” and “Down Brownie” are not as
\nstrong as other tracks on the album – but this is still a major
\nimprovement over
\nZZ Top’s First Album<\/i> – and that wasn’t wretched by any
\nmeans. (I have this album – along with five others – on
\nThe ZZ Top Sixpack<\/i>; the first two albums happen to be
\ncombined on the first CD. If you listen to the whole disc in one
\nsitting, you can hear the break in the two albums without even
\nconsulting the track listing; the style shift is clear.)<\/p>\n
\nRio Grande Mud<\/i> was the first album that really showed ZZ
\nTop’s commercial potential, but their greatest triumph – at least
\nfor the first half of their career – was yet to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5723],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39037","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-zz-top","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39037"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}