{"id":2349,"date":"2018-10-25T17:01:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T16:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2349"},"modified":"2021-04-09T12:23:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T11:23:01","slug":"in-conversation-with-the-reverend-billy-g-from-the-coachmen-and-moving-sidewalks-to-zz-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2349","title":{"rendered":"In Conversation With The Reverend Billy G \u2013 From The Coachmen and Moving Sidewalks to ZZ Top"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cover stars of Shindig!<\/em> issue #85 are none other than those titans of Texan rock, ZZ Top. In London to celebrate the release of his latest solo album The Big Bad Blues<\/em>, ZZ Top\u2019s main man BILLY F. GIBBONS met up with our Contributing Editor THOMAS PATTERSON to chew the fat and share memories about the band\u2019s early years. It\u2019s a wild tale, one that\u2019s recounted in full in the new issue (in UK stores November 1st).<\/strong><\/p>\n

A loquacious, erudite and fascinating interviewee, Billy\u2019s a chap who can spin fantastic yarns about blues greats, psychedelic pioneers, famous studios and legendary LPs \u2013 so much so, it\u2019s almost a shame we had to edit his thoughts down for the magazine. So, as an added treat, here\u2019s the unedited transcript of Billy and Thomas\u2019s conversation, full of byways and highways, digressions and laughs. Strap yourselves in and get ready to boogie\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shindig!<\/em>: <\/strong>Billy, thanks for sitting down with Shindig!, and congratulations on The Big Bad Blues<\/em>. It\u2019s such a fun album.
\nBilly Gibbons:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, I must say, it had its inauspicious beginnings in that we had booked some studio time and coincidentally the day we opened the door, our dear friend and drummer from days gone by, Greg Morrow, was passing through Texas. He was on tour with somebody and he had a three-day holiday. And I said, \u201cWell come on in, come on in.\u201d Joe Hardy, the engineer along with our other engineer GL \u2018G-Mane\u2019 Moon \u2013 it\u2019s a long one \u2013 anyway, they got things organised and Joe picked up the bass, Mr Greg Morrow started tapping it out, and I said, \u201cWell, you know, let\u2019s warm up with some of the favourites, the usual Jimmy Reed, BB King, whatnot.\u201d The third day, we wrapped up and Greg said, \u201cYou know, reluctantly I have to bow out to get back on the road.\u201d Well Joe said, \u201cShall we listen to what we\u2019ve been doing for three days?\u201d I said, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d He said, \u201cOh, I taped over the red light because the recording was on-going.\u201d That\u00a0<\/em>is a bonus. We were just ploughing through it. Caution was to the wind. And that\u2019s how the cover tunes were selected to appear on the record. Two Muddy Waters numbers, \u2018Rollin\u2019 And Tumblin\u2019\u2019, which goes back to the \u201930s, and then two Bo Diddley numbers, \u2018Bring It To Jerome\u2019, a tribute to the maraca player Jerome Green and \u2018Crackin\u2019 Up\u2019. \u2018Crackin\u2019 Up\u2019 has an interesting background. The guitar figure that opens the song in the original Bo Diddley recording from 1957 is inside and out, upside down and backwards. I had talked about this particular track with Keith Richards. And he and I had joined the legions of curious listeners trying to figure out that opening figure. And he gave up. He said \u201cOh no, it\u2019s only done once, it\u2019s on the record.\u201d It took days to try and figure it out. I came close. And I think if Bo Diddley were sitting here now he\u2019d probably say, \u201cYeah, OK, close enough, now let\u2019s do another one.\u201d (Laughs<\/em>) I\u2019d say, \u201cOne\u2019s too many and a hundred ain\u2019t enough!\u201d<\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0You came from a musical family, right? You picked up the guitar aged 13.
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>Exactly. 13. Xmas day. I turned 13 December 16th and nine days later my dad reached behind the tree and I said, \u201cWow a guitar, yeah!\u201d And then he pulled out a little table top Fender amp and I said, \u201cWow an\u00a0electric\u00a0<\/em>guitar!\u201d (laughs<\/em>).<\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:\u00a0<\/strong>But before that, is it true you studied percussion with Tito Puente?
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>When I was 12, my sister and I, we spent a little over a year down in Mexico City with our next-door neighbours. The dad of that family was some big shot with Standard Oil, which was partners with the Mexican government, they\u2019d nationalised their oil, P-Mex. And they had some problem down in Mexico. So my buddy who lived next door he said, \u201cOh yeah, we\u2019ve got to go down to Mexico, there\u2019s some problem, my Dad\u2019s going to put that fire out, we\u2019ll be back in a couple of weeks.\u201d Well, a couple of months later he called up and said, \u201cDude, we\u2019re never getting out of here! Can you come down?\u201d And I said, \u201cWell it\u2019s summer, summer\u2019s next week, we get out of school.\u201d So my folks willingly sent us on our way.<\/p>\n

So coming back, I\u2019d just turned 12 and I was banging on everything around the house. And I had a little metal trashcan and a couple of pencils and I was just going after it. But my dad stepped in and he said, \u201cListen, if you\u2019re going to continue banging on things, let\u2019s learn to do it correctly.\u201d I didn\u2019t really know what he had up his sleeve. Next thing I know I\u2019m on a plane from Texas up to New York City by myself, going into Spanish Harlem, knocking on the door which swings open and there was Tito Puente who I didn\u2019t know. He thrust a couple of timbale sticks and said, \u201cShow me what you want to play.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t know.\u201d But that was the start of it. And I wound up staying a little over a month. But man, if it had Latin attached to any form of percussion, he had it together. And he had all the correct techniques. And I came to learn who I was in the presence with, the Mambo King! And bongos, conga, timbales, maracas, claves, pescado, you name it. After that first frightful encounter, I really started getting into it. But that came in handy with the previous solo record. Those studio sessions, the two engineers, when I announced we were going to make a Cubanized record \u2013 \u201cGibbons finally lost his mind!\u201d But as the old saying goes, it\u2019s like learning to ride a bicycle. It all came back, handily. And again we had a blast making that one.<\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:<\/strong>\u00a0How quickly did you adapt to the guitar?
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>By that\u00a0<\/em>night, I had the Jimmy Reed on the bottom string. Dan-ta-Dan-ta, Dan-ta- Dan-ta. We called it the \u2018Danta danta,\u2019 you know.<\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:<\/strong> So you\u2019ve got your guitar, you form a few bands, but the one that really gets things going is The Coachmen.
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>That was the start. This will take me just a moment, but I\u2019m glad you brought that up. A lot of folks say, \u201cOh yeah, we know ZZ Top and before that was The Moving Sidewalks.\u201d Before that, this really will take you back\u2026<\/p>\n

(Billy pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through the pictures)<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s patently ridiculous but I opened up the email and someone said, \u201cDo you remember this business card?\u201d And I was like \u201cWhat?!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Billy shows me a picture of a business card for The Coachmen, listing the personnel with their phone numbers, Billy written down as \u2018Bill\u2019 Gibbons)<\/em><\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s amazing. And these guys were school pals?
\nBG<\/strong>:\u00a0All within the neighbourhood. We\u2019d take turns torturing our parents in the garage. We\u2019d go here, go there. (whiney teenage voice<\/em>) \u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n

SD!<\/i>:<\/strong>\u00a0Could we reproduce this in the magazine?
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>Oh yeah, but you\u2019ll have to add the \u2018Y\u2019. I was never a Bill, I was never<\/em>a Bill. That\u2019s what comes in the mail.<\/p>\n

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SD!<\/i>:<\/strong>\u00a0Now, one of the Coachmen\u2019s big influences was the 13th\u00a0Floor Elevators, who you eventually became friends with.
\nBG:\u00a0<\/strong>That was later. About 1967. The Elevators, they hit pretty hard, I want to say \u201966. That was the first single, \u2018You\u2019re Gonna Miss Me\u2019. They were out there! And after The Coachmen, preceding The Moving Sidewalks, we added some horns. We had three saxophone players because Little Richard was our hero. His singing, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s been another rock & roll singer that can eclipse his singing. But his band came from Houston. The Grady Gaines Orchestra. Little Richard, he was from Macon, Georgia, I think. But Don Robey was a real astute black guy, businessman in Houston. He had two big nightclubs, The Bronze Peacock and The Eldorado Ballroom. He also ran The Buffalo Booking Agency. It was named after Buffalo Bayou which is the meandering river that runs through Houston. A real entrepreneur, this guy had it all covered. Gambling in the back, cops paid off in the front, cops paid off over here. And then later he acquired Duke Records and Peacock Records and believe it or not the original Duke and Peacock building, it\u2019s a ghost of a shell, but it\u2019s still in Houston, down on Rastus Street. So anyway, The Grady Gaines Orchestra, Don Robey signed Little Richard and he originally appeared on the Peacock label, which is more of a gospel label. But you can still hear some of those early Little Richard things \u2013 \u2018Red Beans, Rice And Turnip Greens\u2019, \u2018Two Many Drivers At The Wheel\u2019, they were secular, they were not gospel, but we took a page out of that book. We were called Billy G and the Ten Blue Flames, but we weren\u2019t ten it just sounded good. I\u2019ve got some posters, I\u2019ll see if I can dig them out.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

(An aside, it seems Billy\u2019s getting his timeline a little mixed up, as most accounts report The Coachmen forming after Billy G and The Ten Blue Flames, not before).<\/em><\/p>\n