“Watching Billy Gibbons’ hands in the studio, I learnt something I never knew”: Steve Cropper on ZZ Top’s secret sauce

The title track from Steve Cropper’s new album Friendlytown sees the R&B legend team up with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. And in a new interview with Total Guitar, Steve recalls his surprise in discovering that he and Billy use the same clever little trick in their playing.

“Billy and I have been friends for 30 years,” Steve says, “but we've never actually worked together before. He ran into Jon Tiven, my co-producer, in a grocery store and he asked, ‘What's Steve doing these days?’ Jon told him we working doing an album and he said, ‘Good, can I be on it? I'm not doing anything right now.’ So he was there for two of the writing sessions. 

"He played on all but one song, and we wrote Friendlytown, the title track, together. Most people put the title track of the album as the sixth or seventh song, but this one, I said, ‘It's too damn good. We need to put it first!’”

Friendlytown - YouTube

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Steve says that he and Billy have a strong connection and a simple understanding of what to play and what not to play.

“No song on this album is a battle of guitars or knowledge or wits,” he says. “We’re both fans of one another. All these songs are under 3:30, they're simple – two verses, two choruses and a bridge. Most songs nowadays are very long and poetic. Billy and I, we’re not bothered about poetry. We're trying to show how it was back in the ‘60s.”

And that little trick?

“Watching Billy's hands in the studio, I learnt something I never knew - he plays two things at the same time. He always plays a bass part at the same time as his melody like Chet Atkins would do, and like I do."

ZZ Top - Just Got Paid (From "Double Down Live - 1980") - YouTube

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“You know, the first time I saw ZZ Top, I said, ‘How do three guys make that kind of music?' And I found out in the studio with him!”