Tres Hombres

Tres Hombres is Spanish for three men. It was the band's first collaboration with the engineer Terry Manning, and ZZ Top went to Ardent Studios in Memphis to make it, after cutting their first two albums in a cinder block studio in Tyler, Texas. Bill Ham produced, Robin Brians engineered at Robin Hood Studios, and Manning engineered, mixed and edited at Ardent. Bill Narum designed the cover and Galen Scott took the photographs.

Waitin' for the Bus runs straight into Jesus Just Left Chicago with almost no gap, and the band has paired the two on setlists ever since. Manning wrote in a 2017 blog post that he tried several things to see how the two songs would go together, and that when he presented the edit Gibbons loved it while Ham was confused and wary of it. On the first song Gibbons plays harmonica and wah-wah guitar. On the second he plays a 1959 Les Paul he called Mistress Pearly Gates and slips in a lick from Robert Johnson's Love in Vain. Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers features Hill as co-lead vocalist, and Pitchfork says Motorhead, Van Halen and Coheed and Cambria have covered it. Gibbons told the Houston Chronicle that Master of Sparks came from a ranch-hand welder who helped him build a steel caged ball to roll off the back of a truck. La Grange was the single.

The gatefold opens on a Tex-Mex meal from Leo's Mexican Restaurant on Lower Westheimer in Houston, priced at $2.99 at the time. It came from a brainstorm with the artist Bill Narum, and the plate was set up in Scott's studio with a bottle of Southern Select beer and an antique radio tuned to 1570 on the AM dial. During a break in the shoot Scott's German shepherd ate the whole platter.

Reception

The album peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200, stayed on the chart for 81 weeks and brought the band their first gold record. Steve Apple's September 1973 Rolling Stone review was lukewarm, but he praised the rhythms that only the finest of the three-piece bands can cook up. NME, as Pitchfork reports, found the songs virtually indistinguishable. In 2017 Pitchfork's Andy Beta gave it 9.0 out of 10 and called it a masterful melding of complementary styles. Rolling Stone placed it at 498 in 2003 and at 490 in 2012, and Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums put it at 501 in 2000. Gibbons said in 2013 that the band could tell they had something special.

In the mid-1980s a digitally remixed version replaced the original on CD and annoyed fans. A remastered edition on 28 February 2006 added three live bonus tracks and was the first CD to use Manning's original 1973 mix.