ZZ TOP Hone In On La Grange  In Advance Of Raw Album Release on July 22

La Grange” is one of the hallmarks of ZZ Top’s hit-heavy catalog and was first heard in 1973 as part of their breakthrough Tres Hombres album. As a single it was the most successful release the band had experienced up to that time and would become a signature song for the group for almost five decades. The song is something of an homage to “The Chicken Ranch,” a real-life brothel that was located in the town of La Grange, just 88 miles away from New Braunfels. “La Grange” anticipated the story, written by Larry L. King, that was the basis for the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.

The film version starred Dolly Parton as Mona Stangley, proprietor of the much-celebrated establishment.  The late Dusty Hill once recalled, “Shortly after the record was released, they shut it down, and I went around and spent a lot of my time in Texas explaining to people that we didn’t have anything to do with that.”  Billy Gibbons noted, “That place was the scene of many a ‘rite of passage,’” adding, “The closing line, ‘But I might be mistaken,’ was inspired by Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue Got Married.’”  It was very much the case of one Texas music icon (ZZ Top) celebrating a forebear (Buddy Holly).

The RAW tracks, including this new version of “La Grange,” were recorded over the course of one day with an eye to keeping the whole process as simple and straightforward as possible, a nod to the band’s early days. Billy F Gibbons served as producer with engineering by Jake Mann and Gary Moon; RAW was mixed by Ryan Hewitt. It will be available on 180-gram vinyl, CD and through digital platforms and will be released “In righteous memory of Dusty Hill.”