Tush
A twelve-bar blues in G, written in minutes, that ended ZZ Top shows for decades.
ZZ Top, from Fandango! (1975)
- Written by
- Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard
- Released
- 1975
- Album
- Fandango!
Tush was the only single from Fandango! and peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is a twelve-bar blues in G, produced by Bill Ham and recorded and mixed by Terry Manning. Hill said it was written at a sound check in about ten minutes. Gibbons recalled that they were in Florence, Alabama, in a rodeo arena with a dirt floor, and that lighting director Dave Blayney signalled them to keep the opening lick going. He said the word tush meant deluxe in the South, after Roy Head's 1966 flip side Tush Hog, and that they wrote the song in three minutes. Cash Box called it super summer dance rock and roll.
It was the closing song of many tours and the last song Hill sang. After his death in 2021, ZZ Top first played it on 30 July in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with Gibbons putting Hill's hat on his microphone and taking the lead vocal. From 6 August they ended shows by playing along to a recording of Hill's last performance, and the song left the setlist at the end of the 2021 tour. They also played it at the Super Bowl XXXI halftime show in 1997 and at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
More songs by ZZ Top
La Grange, Gimme All Your Lovin', Sharp Dressed Man, Legs, Sleeping Bag
Sources
- Tush (ZZ Top song), Wikipedia
- ZZ Top, Wikipedia
- Dusty Hill's voice, tone and passion for the blues lifted ZZ Top into greatness, The Guardian (2021-07-29)