The highly celebrated “La Grange” is a boogie rock ode to the historic Chicken Ranch brothel with an immortal riff and guitar solo inspired by Slim Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips” that, curiously, the Rolling Stones covered a year earlier in the album Exile on Main St.
ZZ Top did what is probably the best guitar solo work of the entire album with brilliant ramblings on the six strings – not for nothing, back then Billy Gibbons was considered one of the best American guitarists, like Jimi Hendrix—; while the final.
La Grange, without a doubt, the most significant song in the entire history of the band. If this is the first time you hear this song, you will feel that you have known it forever. That dirty and challenging riff based on John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen”, or Slim Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips”; the voice is almost a complaint and, of course, also sounds like John Lee Hooker.
The subject made its way onto radio, TV commercials, movies, almost to the point of becoming a cliche for any scene of cars or scantily clad girls. Even today, long decades later, the song still sounds powerful and overwhelming – and a busker made a cover of it and the way he plays the guitar solo part note for note is absolutely stunning!
Keep going for the video below: