Song 421: This week’s playlist track is Arrested for Driving While Blind by ZZ Top, written by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard (the 3 band members), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When Tejas came along in late 1976, I felt like ZZ Top had hit a real peak, fulfilling the music promises of their earlier work. I especially relished the understated humor in the words on this cut, which planted a lyrical seed in the back of my mind that would eventually become Drivin' in My Sleep Again after some addition inspiration from my friend Eddy Lawrence's tune Sleepdriving Again which appeared on his 1994 CD Used Parts. A few months after I added the Texas trio's LP to my collection, I got to see the three perform at the Chicago Stadium on a chilly winter night (2/19/77). They had a truly impressive stage set-up on the tour that included a live bull and tender on a separate platform next to where they performed. I felt like I saw and heard a very good show that night, though, as a musician, I also noticed that the sound coming to the audience included more than just the parts the three musicians on the stage played. The woman who sat next to me that night, also a musician, noticed the same thing, and later confirmed through people she knew who had connections with ZZ Top that yes, they did indeed use a click track when they performed, meaning that they augmented their live sound with prerecorded additions that they controlled from the stage. Still, I felt like they did a very good job of communicating that wonderful feel Of rollin' in an automobile, along with many other special moments.
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