She's old enough to be a soldier?

Glad more rockers are 'getting' it... Don't think I've heard about Springsteen doing the same..

I thought she was 12, from the photo!

She's old enough to know who ZZ Top is?

"She's old enough to know who ZZ Top is?"

I work at a university, and on a warm day, as you walk across campus, a lot of what you hear is vintage 60's and 70's rock. Yes, even some Allman Brothers' tunes. I used to tell the kids, "Do you realize that tune is 30 years old?" but it upset them.

ZZ has such a distinctive look and sound and they get lots of play on the classic rock stations. They're still around as a band too, though I think Frank Beard's health problems are severe.

ZZ was my first concert way back when. What a night and what a crowd. We sat in front of a whole row of bikers in colors who lit the hat of a guy sitting in front of us on fire. The guy and his buddy were kind of dorks and the bikers just didn't like them for some reason. The bikers liked us hippie kids, they kept passing us "stuff", so we just sat there poker faced, waiting to see what would happen when the guy figured out his hat was on fire. That turkey feather was a foot long and had burnt slap up and stunk to high heaven before they figured out what was going on. It got kinda ugly there for a minute. What a trip.

Then there was the tattooed chick who was rocking out so violently to "La Grange" that she accidentally catapulted herself over the guardrail she was holding onto. Just went flyin'. Luckily we had good seats and so weren't very high up...she only fell about 8 feet before she hit the floor. One of my friends and I ran to the rail to see what had happened to her; she was laying on her back, laughing her ass off, while security was trying to pick her up. It looked like they were trying to get hold of a greased pig with no bones. They just couldn't get a grip on her to get her up...she kept slithering out of their hands.

It was a great show and a stellar first concert. I think the tickets were all of 8 bucks, too. Ah, the memories...

That was awesome, Amy. I'm gonna have to do a concert post.

Knowing the kids are still listening to ZZ Top warms the cockles of my cold, capitalist, practically non-existent, heart for some reason. I should throw some CDs at my own personal Guitar Boy and see if he digs into them.

I love those three yo-yos very much. Never got to see them, though.

Here's what Billy Gibbons said about Duane:

Billy Gibbons and his band ZZ TOP toured the South with the Allman Brothers.

We were down in New Orleans at the Warehouse Club, which was owned by an independent outfit that had hired a band from Texas and a band from Georgia, and it turned out to be the Allman Brothers and ZZ Top. When we got there, we found out that we had not only been hired for one night, but they wanted us to travel with a tour featuring Quicksilver Messenger Service. I'll never forget walking in the dressing room. There was Duane, and he had a silver dollar. He said, "Let's flip to see who goes first." So I grinned, and the Allman Brothers won the flip. Shoot, it worked out so well we ended up working together through the South.

...Several days later, ZZ was hired to play in Atlanta with Ike and Tina Turner. There were 15,000 people out there, all black, and three white guys opening the show. Real cool. Well, we did our little blues routine and had the first 200 rows laughing. Afterwards Ike said, "Say, why don't you guys take off those cowboy hats and really get where it's at?" He took me in the dressing room, and his entire band was wearing black velvet hot pants, panty hose, and knee-high, lace up leather boots. And he said, "Here's what you need to REALLY be cool! I'll tell you what, I've got some extra pair - you take a couple." The next night we were in Memphis back with the Allman Brothers, and I said, "What the heck - they won the flip, so I'll flip them out!" I slipped back into the dressing room and put on these clothes and some ridiculous little shirt and walked out. The most heartfelt memory I've got of that encounter was looking back over my shoulder as the entire auditorium was whistling, and Duane saying, "Play your ass off, Billy! It don't make no difference." And I did.

...We were friends from there on out. Billy ran into a couple of guitar dealers and said, "Duane is really interested in a vintage Les Paul - why don't you ring him up?" They called him up and said they had a '58 tobacco sunburst - it was absolutely gorgeous, with wide, fingery stripes. It ....belonged to Chris Cross, who recorded "Ride Like the Wind."

I never knew Duane to be off in his playing. I jammed with him, and there were some really delicate moments. He, of course, favored that slide guitar more so than standard. And it was a joy to hear just how one note could ring through a four-to-eight bar passage that would just curl your toes. He really had that soul.

At the time, Duane's playing was perfect. He was the perfect complement to suit what was to emerge as the South's embrace of their music, the blues. I'm speaking of "their music" as kind of the property of all Southerners, which had been largely ignored not only by the rest of the country, but by the record business in particular. It was strictly a black man's game, and yet here was a growin' number of white blues players all through the South who were really getting their influences from most of the famous black men - B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, Freddie King, Elmore James, and even as far back as Robert Johnson. All it took was a guy like Duane to embody that soul, that spirit. That's what he was, man. I really have to hand it to Duane and Dickey - despite all the partying, late-night hours, and just general wildness, it was just understood that the music was not to be tampered with. It was there, intact, automatic. Very inspirational. To me, Duane embodied that respect for music most of all.

Hi there! I'm the girl in the photo and though I look twelve (and I'm sure I will be loving that when I'm in my forties!) I'm acually 21. And of course I know ZZ Top but that is because my step-dad is has been in a band since I was young and I grew up around musicians... you're right, most people my age do not know who they are, but I think they're great and it was a real honor to meet them! I'm surprised to find myself all over different news sources online as I didn't even know that it was going to be a big deal to anyone but me! :o) Hope you all are having a fantastic new year! CloudEyedPoet@hotmail.com

~Cassandra

Welcome, Cassandra!

I'm glad that ZZ went to visit the troops and I hope you'll come back and tell us every little thing, and let us know what unit you're with.

Wow! That was a quick response! I got back on here to show a co-worker of mine that I was in some obscure news source and here I've found that someone has already replied!

I'm with C Co. here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I work in mental health as a psychiatric counselor for soldiers coming home from overseas and their families. In deployment, my job is more immediate and I do a lot of work with PTSD (post-traumattic stress disorder) in association with the carnage soldiers are faced with overseas. Here at the hospital, numerous celebrities come to visit the wounded soldiers and I've met everyone from the president himself to Michael Jordan, Sheryl Crow, Wayne Newton and my personal favorite, Richard Dean Anderson.

I don't know if that counts as "every little thing" so I guess if you'd really like to know more, you'll have to tell me what! I'll check here again, I'm sure, to show friends, and my e-mail address is CloudEyedPoet@hotmail.com...

Thanks y'all!
~Cassandra

Cassandra, my question would be "Did Billy or Dusty ever take their sunglasses off?" Hee.
If you send me a copy of your cellphone pic, I'll post it, with whatever memories of the visit you'd like to add, or anything else, for that matter. How wonderful you got to meet the President. We'd like to hear about that one too!
My e-mail address in under "contact" on the right sidebar. Change the AT to @ if you use it.
As you can tell from that, I'm an old MI'er.

It's a pleasure having you visit us.

No, ha ha, they never did... they kept their appearance up the entire time... Here, I'll do you one better (well two better I guess) and send you all three pictures I took with the cell phone... I took regular pictures too but they haven't been developed.

~Cassandra

I can't seem to find this "Contact" information...

Check your e-mail, Cassandra.

You know, I figured they'd do that to keep up the mystery.

Thanks in advance for the pics. It's awesome of you to send them.

You're very welcome- I just sent them to you...

and they were very nice!

Check your e-mail again, Cassandra.

Cassandra--you rock!! If you see Dusty again, tell 'im ZZ popped my cherry! For seeing live rock-n-roll, that is... :-)

Donnah--man, that post about Duane and ZZ was good. It would almost have been worth it to be a groupie back then, huh?