Billy Gibbons

Following the rhythmic experimentation of 2015’s Perfectamundo, the Reverend Willy G has gone back to basics with an 11-track time machine that recalls the glory of 70s ’Top. Here, the man behind Pearly Gates talks influences, gear and recalls that time BB King told him to change his strings…

- Ed Mitchell

Texas is where the blues always finds salvation in times of trouble. The Lone Star State was the birthplace of T-Bone Walker, the first blues superstar. He showed kids like BB King that Delta blues was dead. The future was a killer suit, a big-ass grin and an electric guitar.

Then there was Johnny Winter, the man who would inspire a floundering Muddy Waters to bounce back after the hippy BS of Electric Mud. Lest we forget, it was Texas that also gave us Stevie Ray Vaughan. The greatest Stratocaster salesman this side of Jimi Hendrix kept the blues in business in a decade that harboured the twin evils of synth pop and hair metal.

And it was guitarist Billy F Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard of ZZ Top who helped put blues back on jukeboxes in the early 1970s. Featured on the band’s ’73 album, Tres Hombres, La Grange doesn’t come over like a bunch of white kids messing around. This is the song you can expect to hear as the patrons of some backwoods biker bar beat you senseless for winking at one of their ‘old ladies’. La Grange sounds black. The tough John Lee Hooker references – the Boogie Chillen rhythm and Billy G’s gruff “a-how-how-how-how” chant – make it sound like the real deal.

That John Lee-inspired authenticity is all over Missin’ Yo’ Kissin’ the opening track of Billy F Gibbons And The BFG’s new record, The Big Bad Blues. The follow-up to 2015’s Perfectamundo, the new record replaces its predecessor’s Afro-Cuban and hip-hop rhythms with good old-fashioned Texas blues. This is the record you wanted Billy Gibbons to make.