(Alternative title: Stuck in the 70’s)
Because I haven’t stopped listening to the band on a daily basis since my time off a couple weeks back, and to provide some more trivia knowledge after last week’s edition.
When I still lived in King County, my route to the Renton Fish and Game rifle range took me past the cemetary where Jimi Hendrix is buried. While it is true that Hendrix disliked the time he spent as an ‘up & coming’ musician in Seattle and had to go to the UK to hit the big time, if it wasn’t for this damp burg in a small corner of the USA, he wouldn’t have been the guitarist he became.
In a 1969 inteview on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Hendrix was asked who his favorite contemporary guitarist was. He answered that there was this guy playing in a band called the Moving Sidewalks who opened for him during the Texas leg of his tour.
The guitarist’s name was Billy Gibbons.
The Moving Sidewalks broke up shortly afterwards and a couple years later Billy Gibbons and manager/promoter Bill Hamm found two guys playing in a band called American Blues, Dusty Hill and Frank (Ruby) Beard.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Enjoy! From their 1979Â album Deguello
I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide – ZZTOP
The riff competition at the end is all Gibbons. It’s not so much a signature as it is a bit of playtime on wax. One of the local radio stations here in Seattle has a live version of Cheap Sunglasses that is almost 20 minutes long of Gibbons pulling a three-way riff comp at the end of the song, until he decides he’s done and then the band gradually slows the rhythm down until it is at a crawl and you wonder how they can play that damn slow.
I’ve tried for almost 15 years to get them to cut me a copy of that track, sadly, to no avail.
FYI: Yes, I do have a copy of the Moving Sidewalks debut album. Alas, it is on vinyl and I have not yet bought a turntable. The CD version of the album is available at Amazon, but I have not yet ordered it.
You will not be disappointed. Think Allman Brothers meet Jefferson Airplane.